Falls Count Anywhere

05-06-05

Speaking cryptically since 1978.

SmackDown!
A good little episode of SD! following a great episode of RAW. There wasn’t nearly as much wrestling, but if you wanted storylines advanced, this was the show for just that.

The opener was our good friend Rey Mysterio coming to the ring and calling out Eddie Guerrero. They reshowed the angle from last week where Eddie turned, and when he finally did come out, he got good heel heat. Rey bashed Eddie and Eddie said he had nothing to say. Rey wanted to throw down, but Eddie said he wasn’t going to fight Rey-rey. As Eddie walked off, Rey said that Guerrero was afraid that Rey would beat him again, which caused Eddie to pause, then continue walking out. Nice way to open.

Rey went to Theodore R. Long’s office, looking for a match with Eddie. When Chavo interrupted, Rey attacked him and Teddy made a Streetfight between Rey and Chavito. The brawl between Chavo and Rey was pretty good.

Matt Morgan, with the old Buhbuh Dudley stutter, beat a nameless jobber after giving him a yelldown war-har-right. He then destroyed him using a few very good moves. Seriously, he used at least three moves that would be big times finishers on the right guy. The Suplex into the Rock Bottom is a very cool finish. I just wish they’d give it to someone who had a chance of making it.

They showed the making of the Bad Bad Man video, which opened with Christina Aguilera and her brothers again. They tried to teach her You Can’t See Me, though she didn’t participate. Cena makes a credible Hannibal.

Stripping the last of his dignity.

Booker T took on Orlando Jordan in a non-title match. They should have given to the belt to Booker after he won, because the US title was become very much a non-title over the last few months. Jordan’s just not at the level where he should be holding what should be the Number 2 belt on SmackDown!. Hell, the Tag Title have far more heat right now than the US Belt. Booker and Jordan worked an OK match, with Jordan cheating here and there and Booker making good comebacks. Kurt Angle and Sharmell had a little chat in the back where Kurt said that he wanted The Book at Judgment Day.

MNM came to the ring with the best entrance going today. The WWE is doing it right with these guys, though a higher caliber of opponent would also help their cause. They took on Scotty 2 Hotty and Shannon Moore. The match was pretty OK too. MNM works smart, using their strengths and avoiding what they are weakest at. Melina stepped up to the apron to show off her gams so that Scotty wouldn’t get to do the Worm. They managed to pin Scotty with the SnapShot. Rey-rey then ran in with a lead pipe to beat on MNM a bit and chase them off.

JBL was in the ring with the old title belt. He said he used it as a reminder that he should be the champ. I just write things on my hand. He called Cena a disgrace and the crowd quitters. Cena came out and talked about JBL being sans penis, then challenged him to an I-Quit match. This wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t awful.

Kurt came to the ring where a jobber was waiting for him. Kurt told the guy to leave because he wasn’t in the mood. A moment later, he said he changed his mind and then proceeded to beat the tar out of the poor guy. A great angle here would be to have a PPV where Angle has made an open challenge to any of the guys he’s beat, and then have them all come out and Angle goes through them all. If they want to get folks to take him seriously again, that’d be the way to do it.

Carlito was in the ring with Hardcore Holly this week. He looked OK, but didn’t get enough offense. He traded hard chops with Holly, which is always painful looking. Holly got his Full Nelson Slam and a few near-falls, but Carlito managed to hold on to the ropes when the Alabama Slam was set-up and he got a school boy for the win. He then said that he was going to have The Big Show on the Cabana next week. He then very rudely spit apple in the camera lens.

Theodore R. Long did the intro for Cena’s video. It featured Gary Coleman and the Chain Gang made up as the A-Team. There was a hilarious moment where Cena, as Hannibal, got the cigarillo slapped out of his mouth and he brings his hand up with another already lit and half-smoked cigarillo up to his mouth. I kinda liked the song and the video was a lot of fun.

Chavo and Rey Mysterio had a good Streetfight. Rey is ready to get the big push to the US title. They worked all of Rey’s good spots, but they added some nice brawling. At times, it reminded me of the Falls Count Anywhere November to Remember match between Rey and Psicosis. That was a war, and better than this one, but still this was solid. MNM came out and tried to put a ladder in the ring, but Rey did a slide into it and that knocked MNM down. Chavo slid Rey like a bag of ice across a wet lawn out of the ring. CHavo got a lot of impressive near-falls, including one after a Gori Bomb. They brought a chair in and Chavo slammed Rey’s head into it a lot.

Eventually, Chavo ended up sitting in the chair while Rey came off the top rope with a Seated Senton to win the match. MNM attacked and helped Chavito in beating down Rey. Eddie ran out and chased off MNM, but then turned on the hate and beat Rey badly, including ripping his mask and bloodying him up by throwing him headfirst into the post. The most impressive thing had to be the end. He set up the bottom portion of the ring steps in the rampway, then he got Rey up for a delayed vertical suplex, then he brought Rey down onto the steel. Wow.

It looks pretty serious.

They sold it with the deadly silence, the type of silence that you hear after a guy is hurt and the crowd doesn’t know how to react. It was a great visual if nothing else.

Like I said, solid storyline advancing show.

NEWS
The RAW with all that great wrestling this week did a 4.1. That’s right, a wrestling heavy RAW did a better rating than the one where Hogan came back. I haven’t seen the breakdowns, but I’m betting that the Shelton vs. Michaels and the Benoit beating HHH matches are the 1 and 2 top rated segments.

Chris Candito’s funeral was heavily attended and one of the most emotional in a long time. I had a friend who went and said that it was very touching and it was obvious that Tammy was keeping a stiff upper for the crowd. She’s had it tough, but there is word that she’s still clean, and I’m betting after having lost Chris, she will stay that way. I’m trying to get a friend of Tammy’s from way back to write something on their relationship, but he’s a little reluctant.

FlashBack!
Whenever a great TV match like Shelton vs. Shawn happens, I think back to the great matches of the 1990s. Owen vs. Bulldog, Bret vs. Benoit, Michaels and Austin vs. Bulldog and Owen, even the classic, but frequently forgotten, HHH vs. Rikishi match from late 2000. One of my favorites happened in 1998. It was the last great match between a dude named Mick Foley and a guy who answers to Terry Funk.

You see, this was a sort of a test given to Foley, who had just joined up with McMahon. The two had a Falls Count Anywhere Streetfight, which wasn’t unheard of for RWA back in 1998, but still, it was two of the greats meeting on a big stage. It was obvious from the beginning that this was a different match, as Mick didn’t come out as Dude Love or Cactus Jack or Mankind, but as Mick Foley, completely without music or fanfare. Terry came out and it’s obvious that he’s ready for the world.

They start off with full-formed brawling. This match, more than any other, showed me exactly how the evolution of the American Brawler went. There are elements of Terry’s style that are so prominent in Mick’s and his work, while he kept up and added new things, still feels a bit essential. Mick is obviously from a different age and has a different logic to the way he works. They trade chair shots. Mind-numbingly brutal chair shots. Then they whip each other into the guard rails. What a way to start things off.

No hard feelings, huh?

They work in and out of the ring, with Foley bodyslamming a hot dog guy and Funk, I swear to God, doing a moonsault off of the balcony. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but he did do a moonsault off of a higher section of seating. By this point, I’m going nuts. I’m watching it at my house on an old B+W TV and just flipping out over how good this is.

These guys brawl backstage, they fight in the crowd, they destroy a concession stand, they do everything you’d associate with a classic Memphis Brawl or ECW in 1995. They literally tear the house down. The last time we saw a brawl this classic on RAW would have been HHH vs. Cactus Jack from Madison Square Garden. The match was amazing, especially with Mick doing piledrivers on tables that don’t break and tossing the poor old bastard around. The match ends with a pair of piledrivers, the last of which being on a chair, to get the pin. Amazing match.

I’ve been told that the WWF thinks of this as the greatest RAW match of the first ten years. It did a good rating, but all RAWs were doing good ratings back then. It certainly cemented Terry Funk’s memory in the WWF, where he had only had minor success in prior years. The whole thing would have been great if Funk had announced his retirement and let that be the last match, but no, he’s still at it, sometimes. Mick came out of the match with the Number One Contendership and a big ovation. McMahon brought out the Dudettes and announced that Dude Love was going to get the shot at Austin. Great way to end by giving us good heel heat.

That’s all for this week. Next week we’ll talk a little about Europe.

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Chris Garcia