Falls Count Anywhere

05-13-05

It's a mystery.

SmackDown!
Another episode in the holding pattern before the Draft. They did get a bit of mileage out of the old storylines, and they opened the show with the review of last week’s events between Eddie and Rey. Eddie then came out and did the best interview he’s done in ages. He was really good, and you could tell pockets of fans were still chanting ‘Eddie, Eddie’ in support of him. He said that Rey shouldn’t come to Judgment Day or he’ll make a widow of his wife and an orphan of his children. That was a line that I think Ox Baker used to use in the day.

OK, I am gonna say this and hate myself for it. John Heidenreich dropped one of the greatest phrases ever when he referred to his poems as DisasterPieces. That’s a good phrase. He wanted to be Spike’s friend, but Spike said no, so he got a kid from the audience and he became the Big Guy’s friend. He then beat Spike.

Booker T and Sharmell did a bit of a backstage segment and then started making out.

Chavo and MNM took on Paul London, Bob Holly and Charlie Haas. Melina’s entrance is great, and the guys are almost over to the point where they can be a real replacement for the Dudleys in the Tag Team ranks. Melina is also wicked hot. London was really the highlight, with his DropSault being the best move of the match. When Chavo went for the GoriBomb, London rolled through, leading Chavo to keep on rolling and get the pin. Good little match, and MNM bump really well.

Kurt Angle did a promo saying that he wanted to have sex with Booker T’s wife. Not just sex, but dirty, stinking, fithy, evil Gary Busey sex with her. Ewwwww….

"And THAT'S for investing in Dreamworks Animation!"

JBL did a promo, mentioning how his book was being reissued (and I heard a money manager on CNBC say it was an ideal book for beginning investors) and then ran down Cena. Cena then came and they did a big pull-apart brawl. Good stuff, as it really heightened the tension for their match.

Eddie Guerrero lost to a jobber named Jimmy Jacobs in a great segment. Eddie brought out the mask he tore from Rey last week. He then beat on Jacobs. He beat on him a lot. He even put the mask on him and stomped his face. I think he might have been talking with Fit Finlay about how to best beat on a jobber. He brought a chair in and gave him a Brainbuster on it, which got him DQ’ed.

Morgan beat Funaki. Funaki is a great wrestler and is always entertaining. All Morgan has is a decent finisher. Sad.

Carlito once again proved that he is one of the best in the business on the stick by doing a good, though over-booked, segment with the Big Show. He talked and after a while, he pulled out an apple. Big Show knew what was coming next, so he grabbed the apple. But Carlito pulled a Bad Witch and had poisoned the apple, so Big Show had to be helped out and had his stomach pumped. Nice. Carlito is great in these segments. He has such great facial expressions that it’s easy to see that he could go very far.

Kurt Angle and Booker T. There wasn’t much to their match, but what they did do was good. Angle hit the AngleSlam, but then he left the ring and went backstage. He went into Booker’s dressing room, where Sharmell was stationed. Booker came in and found Sharmell alone. Angle then jumped in from behind and beat him down.

Not a great show, as nothing really struck me as important. Still, there was good stuff going on at times. They just need to shake things up and the Draft will do just that.

Get well soon.

NEWS
OK, bad news in a few places. Tammy Sytch seems to have had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. Everyone says that she’s still clean and that it’s not a cover story. She’s still hoping to go to the ECW shows next month. Here’s hoping that she recovers fully.

Capt. Lou Albano, the legendary manager from the 1970s and 80s, suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized, though he made it through and is headed home. He’s 71 and hasn’t exactly taken care of himself much.

Luther Reigns was released. I’m rather puzzled by that one because he was getting high marks for his promo work. Cost cutting measures are going to continue.

There’s a lot of heavy hinting that TNA will have a big announcement as to a TV deal soon. Dusty Rhodes was dropped as booker, though he’s going to keep up appearances on TV. He also faced Terry Funk on an indy show recently, which is a match I’d have liked to have seen. One of the big things is Jeff Jarrett, who everyone but Jerry Jarrett and Dusty seems to want to take the belt off of and give it to A.J. Styles. The Jarretts still carry a lot of stroke and aren’t exactly making things easy for them.

According to 411 Wrestling, Monty Brown is about to, or already has, started negotiating with the WWE. No big news as he’s just about the only guy the WWE has expressed interest in (other than Abyss).

I rewatched a few of the Mania matches on the WrestleMania 21 DVD. Angle vs. Michaels is an easy choice for Match of the Year so far. I’d put it just above Shelton vs. Michaels from RAW. The Ladder match doesn’t hold up on repeat viewing, though. I fast-forwarded through to most of the big spots. The Akebono vs. Big Show match wasn’t good, but Akebono is impressive in the way he threw Show.

FlashBack
Who can forget the classic moment when Jerry Lawler hit Tommy Dreamer in the crotch and ruptured his testicle? Lawler had a similar thing happen to him back in the 1980s. It happens now and again, as it’s one of those areas that you can protect and it still can be seriously injured. Everyone know that if you want to end a fight fast, you go for the gusto, or at least the crotch. There’s a classic story that this brings to mind.

Who is the greatest heel of all-time? Hard to say. There was Blassie, Terry Funk, Dick the Bruiser, Ray Stevens, and so many others, but on that list would certainly be Fritz Von Erich. Von Erich was a big guy with huge hands and had played football in the Canadian league. He was in Joe Blanchard’s territory, which was probably the major Texas run for ‘rasslin’ in the 1960s.

In happier times...

At this point, Fritz was still a monster Nazi sympathizer who ran through all the opponents thrown at him. He was a tough guy, probably the top drawing heel in Texas and possibly the world if you add his dates in Japan on to that number. He was noted for his gruff interviews and his use of the dreaded Iron Claw, which was supposed to be the most painful thing you could imagine and easily capable of drawing blood. Once, in Japan, Von Erich put it on Giant Baba, who went to do the blade job and accidentally cut Von Erich’s fingers, which was shown in close-up on the TV feeds.

He was out doing a promo and decided to give the claw to the announcer. Now, the announcer, who knew that the claw was coming, was OK with it, but then Fritz, at times known as a bully, really set it in. Most of the old-timers would say that if he wanted to, Fritz could put a serious hurt on you but quick. Once Fritz really clamped down, the announcer did the one thing he could think of: he clamped his own claw onto Little Fritz’s helmet.

As the story goes Fritz let out a yelp and jumped, releasing the hold. He slunk away and that was the end of Von Erich drawing in that part of Texas. There are others who say that it really ended his chance of being NWA champion because he was bullying an announcer and that’s not kosher. Still, it was an amusing story. They say you can always tell a professional by where he launches his attacks, and the amateurs always go for the groin.

That’s all for this week. More on Tuesday!

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Chris Garcia