Falls Count Anywhere

05-10-05

I'm a Funny Girl.

RAW
I must say that I got home a little later than I expected and so I missed the first bit of RAW. I arrived just in time to see the FlashBack to Jerry Lawler winning the AWA title from Curt Hennig fifteen years ago. I remember that night very well and hearing about it the next week on AWA’s ESPN Show. Apparently, There was a La Rez bit with Eric Bischoff and a match where Jericho beat Daivari.

The first match I saw was a Viscera vs. Sylvan Grenier match. Now, I don’t get Big Viz as a face, if that’s what he is. He still does heelish stuff, like hitting on Lillian Garcia in the most inappropriate ways possible, and he steals fans' nachos. What’s more heelish than stealing a man’s nachos? Viz won with the Sitdown.

Lita and Kane did some cryptic segment where Lita said she hoped Kane won and went to Hell. Or something. I’m so confused. It looks like they are breaking them up, perhaps to put Lita with Edge so that all her heel heat with the crowd will make Edge seem better. Who knows?

Pawn takes Rook.

Kane beat Chris Benoit. Well, at least Benoit got the win over HHH. I’m confused by this, as it leaves Edge and Kane. Kane could get the shot, since Edge already has one in the bank, so he doesn’t need one. My guess is that HHH will come out and cause a double DQ or something so that there is no winner. Lita acted like she hurt her knee, which led Benoit to try and help her which allowed Kane to get the Chokeslam on him for the win. Kane and Benoit do OK together.

After a Flair/Christian confrontation, Christian said to get to him, Flair would have to beat Tomko. They just did that same thing with Hassan, but I liked it as Flair brought Tomko’s best match out of him. Tomko may be salvageable. Maybe he won’t be Batista, going from Zero to zero with a belt, but you never know. Christian raked Flair’s eyes, which got him tossed, allowed Flair to hit a Low Blow and roll up Tomko for the win. Fun stuff.

Speaking of Stuff, Stacey Kiebler came out to plug her set in Stuff magazine. This was her showing footage from the shoot, which honestly looked less impressive than any of the other Divas who have had photo spreads. She said she was wearing her favorite panties and offered to show them, but then said her zipper was stuck and asked the new announcer guy to help her. This led to Simon Dean and Maven coming out to gab and offer Stacey a Simon Shake. She dumped it, which got SD+M hot, and allowed Hurricane and Rosie to make the save.

Just in case you miss it on your newsstand...

Coach talked a bit about the ECW PPV and Bischoff said that he would destroy ECW. I so hope they bring back ECW in some almost real way, like doing an annual tour of the Northeast and Florida. That would be cool.

Shelton Benjamin continues to try and prove that he is the most athletic guy in the WWE by having a physical match with Rob Conway. Even Shawn Michaels said that Shelton was the most athletic guy he’s ever been in with. It wasn’t a great match, but Shelton pulled out the stops, hit a Crescent Kick and then a Springboard Bulldog for the pin. Get him and Benoit in a longish program.

Edge beat Shawn Michaels in a good match. Shawn did a nice Springboard Crossbody to the outside. I can’t say I’ve seen him do that in a while. He usually just slingshots himself. They worked a smart match, much smarter than you’d figure with Edge’s current gimmick. Nice to see Edge use the Stun Gun, the move that Eddie Gilbert made famous. Michales accidentally KOed the ref, and when Edge went for the Spear, Michales hit him with the Sweet Chin Music, but there was no ref to count it. This allowed Edge to introduce the briefcase, and eventually he got the pin after Michaels went for the Sunset Flip and Edge clanked him in the melon with the case. Good stuff.

An average show, though the matches were OK.

NEWS
Not too much that I’ve heard. They pulled Rey Mysterio off of the house shows this weekend to sell the Eddie Guerrero injuries. The ratings for SmackDown! were below average, though it was a tougher night than most.

There has been a lot of talk about Sunny, aka Tammy Sytch. She’s cleaned up her act and is down to her old weight, if not a little below it, and was thinking of trying to return to wrestling. I’d love to see her come back, but the temptations of the road are hard to deny when you’ve been away and come back. Look at Jake Roberts. She’s supposed to work the two ECW reunion shows.

FlashBack!
I bought the ECW DVD from the good people at Target. It’s a great DVD with the story of ECW told in a biased yet fascinating way. The best parts had to be the matches, which included some classics that you hear long-time ECW fans talk about. My main complaint would have to be the lack of classic interviews. The Miserlou videos would have been a great add to the disk. My favorite single moment was something simple and well done and easily the thing on the disk that had the most emotional impact.

The new phase of his career...

Tazz left ECW under difficult times. He wasn’t making enough money and the WWF offered him a good deal and Paul E. said that he should take it. This attitude was unusual, and unlike the Dudleys, who left after Paul refused to give them a raise of one dollar, Taz had good reason to go. In the WWF, he was jobbed and misused and with a few exceptions, has been much better off as a commentator. Tazz told a story as one of the extras that really opened my eyes.

Tazz was on his way to Madison Square Garden for his debut against Kurt Angle. Tazz was apparently having a spiritual crisis and called up Paul Heyman, the man who ran ECW. They made small talk, but then Tazz asked for something strange: Paul’s blessing.

Tazz wanted to be sure that he was doing the right thing and that Paul thought that Tazz should go to WWF and try and make his way. Paul said yes, but that led Tazz to second-guessing himself, though Paul convinced him to stay with WWF and go through with his match.

The reason this was so effective is that Tazz is a legit tough guy, despite being kinda small, and he was crying. He had to pause a lot and he showed so much genuine emotion that you could tell that the moment he spoke of was of huge importance to his life.

We don’t often get to see the moments in wrestling that really define guys. Tazz gave us a brief glimpse of what it meant to him to be a wrestler and to work with ECW and change his affiliation. Tazz is a great wrestler, and I wish he would go back to it more often, and seeing this, you realised that he was also a good guy.

That’s all for today. More on Friday.

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Chris Garcia