Falls Count Anywhere

05-17-05

Freeze.

RAW
If you want to ask me what constitutes a criminal decision in the world of wrestling booking, it’s opening a show with Muhammad Hassan and Daivari taking on Shelton Benjamin and Chris Jericho and having the faces lose in just about six minutes. It’s not that it was a bad match, or even that the result was wrong, but they had two of the best workers in the company in there and they had Daivari who bumps like a madman so they could have at least given them another five minutes. At least there were ‘Let’s Go Shelton’ chants, proving that he’s catching on. After dropping the fall, Jericho walks up the ramp alone with Shelton watching in a ‘Man, I don’t get you’ way.

They had Benoit tell Tajiri that Paul Heyman had invited him to the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view. Tajiri is excited, but William Regal comes and tells Benoit to stop filling his head with all that garbage and that there’s nothing fun about getting hit in the head with trash can lids and going through tables.

Flair did a long series of segments here. First, he went to Bischoff to try and get HHH a title shot so that he’d come back, since that’s what’s good for business. Bischoff says that HHH can call him if he wants to, but the Bisch doesn’t go out on a limb for quitters. Flair then runs into Dave Batista and says that everything wrong with his life is the Big Man’s fault. He then says that he has nothing but respect for Flair. It wasn’t a great set of segments, but Flair is always entertaining.

Ric then took on Christian in a match that went far too short. These two could have gone fifteen minutes and kept it feeling fresh. They did a couple of nice things, such as Flair’s flip into the ropes (which I recently learned was pioneered by Ray Stevens) and Christian doing a great Flair Flop after being chopped to hell in the corner. Tomko tries to interfere, but the ref catches him. Christian goes for a roll-up, but Flair reverses it and gets the win with the help of ropes and tights. After the match, Christian and Tomko beat on Flair, but Batista makes the save and gives Christian the DemonBomb and Tomko the bomb and the Spinebuster. Kinda weird, but it makes sense.

Chris Masters comes out for the Masterlock Challenge. He beats the guy and finally lets go when Stevie Richards, fresh from having his face redesigned after that stiff chump Masters brutalized it, attacked Masters. He got a reasonable pop, far better than a guy who has been booked like he has should be getting.

Tajiri and Benoit had an ECW rules match. It went really short, but there was some nice action. Benoit set Tajiri on a table and set up a ladder which he then climbed. Coach then came out and told them to stop, which they did for some reason. Bischoff then came out and ran down the ECW way, then said that no RAW superstars would be on the ECW PPV save for those that Bisch sends to stop it. He says he’s going to put ECW down once and for all.

Not the hard-hitting action we'd hoped for...

Christy and Candace Michelle have a Lingerie Pillow Fight, you know, the type where they bring the bed into the middle of the ring. It sucks, but Candace is really hot. I mean REALLY hot. After the match, Viscera comes out. He says the ladies look good, but he’s there for Lillian. He says there’s something missing and goes outside, locks lips with a lovely lady and takes some of her cotton candy. Viscera then goes back into the ring and calls Lillian to the bed. He then sings some Barry White to her and gives her his room key. Wow, this wasn’t nearly as impressive as some of the Mark Henry bits, but it got a bit of a reaction.

Hurricane and Rosie came out with a masked Stacey Kiebler to take on Maven and Simon Dean. They have a typical match, doing a fair amount of back and forth in the four or so minutes they got. After a while, Stacey shows off her assets to Simon and Maven which allows Rosie to get a kick and give a Double Team Eye of the Hurricane. Short matches seem the rule for the night.

Randy Orton returned after a little over a month and got a really big pop. I mean, if he was getting that kind of pop night after night, he’d have the belt instead of Batista. He says he’s on the Injured Reserved list, and he can’t be drafted. This brings out Vinny Mac, who swaggers, though he looked older than he did even at the Rumble. Vince says that no one is safe and anyone can be drafted. He says that the Draft starts in three weeks and that it will be a month-long thing with all sorts of oddness. I’m terrified that this might become a massive train wreck. Vince made note that Randy looked a little, OK a lot, smaller than he did before his surgery. Good point.

Kane and Edge had the match of the night, which for this night wasn’t too difficult. The guys worked a smart match, though it wasn’t’ a great match. I liked the way that Kane played his role, and Edge is one of the more dependable workers on RAW.

At last...

Since Kane had choked Edge earlier due to his disrespect of Lita, Edge got to sell some throat injuries. They work and it ends up with Edge trying to use his briefcase, but Kane meets him with the big boot and Lita gets the case. Lita slips the case to Edge on the sly and when Kane goes for the flying clothesline which ends up meeting the case to give Edge the win. Why did Edge win the Ladder match if he was just going to be winning the tourney? Lita and Edge kiss on the top of the ramp as we go out.

Well, they finally did it and got Edge and Lita together. Not a great episode, since there wasn’t a lot of good wrestlin’ goin’ on.

TNA Hard Justice PPV In Brief
Well, there was a great amount of apprehension going into this one. No one knew if business or ego would prevail. A little of both happened.

Siaki and Apollo took on Team Canada in a match which had its moments. The big trouble was Siaki seemed so unsure of himself and even tripped on the way to the ring. He has taken Candito’s death very hard. The match ended with A1 putting Williams on top of Siaki for the pin.

There was a mixed tag match between the team of Chris Sabin and Tracy Brooks and Trinity with Michael Shane. The ladies didn’t do much, but there was a nice segment around a Tornado DDT. There was an odd finish as Michael Shane superkicked Trinity and Sabin for the win in a weird turn.

Business or ego?

For some reason, Jeff Hardy missed about six flights and they had to have our good friend Sean Waltman fill in for the match against Raven. It was a good brawl, called a “Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match," which I believe takes the cake as the dumbest title for a match in the history of wrestling. They used tons of weapons and Raven also got a pair of handcuffs from under the ring and clapped ‘em on Waltman. He then beat on him a bit, but then he was released AND STAPLED RAVEN’S HEAD! I kid you not. Raven backdropped Waltman into the cage which fell and allowed Raven to get the pin. Really good brawl and it’s always nice to see Dusty involved a bit so that we know he’s not completely away from TNA.

Monty Brown and The Outlaw faced DDP and Ron Killings in a match that went back and forth well enough, but I wasn’t sold on. The crowd seemed to enjoy it fair enough. Strangely enough, Phi Delta Slam ran in, which is odd since when Dusty lost power they were told they couldn’t appear anymore. They went to beat on DDP but they were met with Diamond Cutters by DDP. DDP went for another on the Outlaw, but big Monty Brown got the Pounce and the win.

The Naturals took on America’s Most Wanted in a match that was good, but had the cloud of Chris Candito hanging over it. It was obvious that these guys were out there against the Naturals and Candito’s memory. It was a fun match that I liked and hoped that would have gotten more over with the fans, but having the empty chair with the towel on it didn’t help things much. A Death Valley Driver countered into a Catatonic was the highlight spot.

The Fallen Angel Chris Daniels beat Shocker in a solid match. They started slow, which works for the styles these guys like to work. They did one of my favourite spots where the guy (in this case Daniels) goes for the headscissors and the other guy drops him flat on his face. Shocker rules! Shocker used a bunch of submission moves, like the STF and the Camel Clutch, but he couldn’t get the win. Daniels managed to hit the Angel’s Wings off the top for the pin in a match that I’d like to see again.

There was a Gauntlet match that I didn’t watch too carefully. The highlights were Zach Gowen coming back and getting to work with Shark Boy and Petey Williams getting the Canadian Destroyer on Jarrelle Clark. Abyss won, but it didn’t really mean much.

Jeff Jarrett finally dropped the NWA title to AJ Styles in a match that I thought was pretty good. They had Tito Ortiz as the ref, they got a little mainstream pub, but not much. The work was solid, as Jeff can go and AJ Styles might be the best worker in a company full of great workers. They exchanged finishers, with both guys kicking out at two. Styles went for another StylesClash, but Monty Brown came out and accidentally Pounced Jeff Jarrett. Tito Ortiz slugged Jarrett after he showed the special ref and that allowed Styles to get the pin without Jarrett having to do a clean job.

So, it’s a little bit different, a little bit the same.

That’s all for today...

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Chris Garcia