Falls Count Anywhere

05-14-07

I come with a piece of Lon.

SmackDown! thoughts
I watched most of SmackDown! and really the only part that needs talking about is the Title situation. The rest of the show was fairly good, but the cage match between Batista and Undertaker was fantastic. These two have had a great match at Mania, a strong match last month and on SD! they had a strong cage match.

What’s made these matches work is the give and take. It’s hard for a guy like Batista to give as much to a guy like Benoit as he does to a guy like Undertaker. The similar sizes and approaches makes for a great match. Early on, these two were busy showing exactly how evenly they were matched. The injuries to Undertaker weren’t that obvious here. Batista had his leg worked over. You usually don’t see UT working like that.

Batista wasn’t being cheered for his offense, kinda reminding me of the way that folks react to Cena. Batista tried to climb and Taker pulled him back in. There was blood, which is a good thing in matches like this since it makes it more dramatic.

Taker went for the Tombstone a couple of times that Batista got out of it. Taker did manage to give Batista a Last Ride PowerBomb for a near fall. Lots of near escapes, which were very dramatic. I think that’s another thing these two do very well: drama. Undertaker’s whole thing is putting on dramatic matches, usually working around his limitations by playing up the dramatic effect of his matches with timing and facials. Batista picked up a lot of ring psychology and dramatic effect from his work with HHH in 2005.

Most of the last few minutes were built around the two of them trying to beat the other down enough to make the escape. They had the two escape at the same time and that led to a Draw.

That’s right, a draw!

While some might be annoyed by the fact that they went with the draw, it was the right thing because they were losing Undertaker for a while and giving him a win would be devaluing Batista too much. On the other hand, giving it to Batista wouldn’t be the best idea either since the crowd has shown that they’re not into Batista nearly as much as they were a year ago.

After the match, they had Mark Henry attack the Undertaker. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. They consider Henry a big guy with a future, which I’m not quite sure is true, but I think he’ll get a little mileage as a challenger on TV, though they shouldn’t put him as a PPV draw.

After that, Edge cashed in the briefcase and that led to the Rated-R Superstar into ring and he ended up winning the title with the Spear. It was a good way to end a show and it ended up being the best show for a while, almost entirely because of the way the main event worked. The main event was so good, I honestly barely remember the rest of the show.

...and in his left hand, some fava beans...

There is good to this and very bad to this. The injuries to Undertaker and Kennedy make things tough. Luckily, SmackDown! has both Booker T and Rey Mysterio coming back to the show, which will provide two more challengers to Edge on the face side, with Batista and Henry able to work as tweeners or heels with Edge. Edge is the most talented guy at working as a heel even when his opponent is hated. He’s just that good.

Still, the decision was a big deal around the WWE office and there were a lot of folks questioning every move. Strangely, Kennedy isn’t as hurt as they thought he was and will probably only miss a month or two, which means that he can stay in the picture and do some talking first and then move on to the matches after a couple of months. It should be a good feud and if ever they’ve got a chance to make Kennedy a big star, this is it.

All in all, it was a good time.

TNA Title Situation
So, I didn’t get to see the TNA PPV (I hear it was a typical TNA PPV), but the big news is that the NWA, which is the sponsoring organization behind the TNA title, has called back its belt. That led to Kurt Angle winning a disputed finish to win the belt. That’s going to be the cause of them retiring the NWA World Championship and starting up the TNA title.

I’m thinking they’ll do it very slyly, meaning that they’ll not call much attention to the fact that they’re calling it the TnA World Title instead of the NWA World Title. It won’t be like the day when Shane Douglas tossed the NWA belt down in favor of the ECW title.

True, Kurt Angle would be the right guy to repeat that angle with. Still, it’s dangerous to have to change things like this, but it should work out fine. It would be much worse if TNA was making money.

That’s all for today. More on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia