Falls Count Anywhere

05-24-05

I have indeed mastered toast, but not with butter.

RAW
Wow, what an opening segment. They had Lita and Edge come out together to a chorus of boos and not nearly as many ‘You Screwed Matts' as the last few weeks. Lita said that Kane treated her like crap and she was right to drop him and go with Edge. Edge added that Lita was his slut and she’s with a winner. This was all done to get the heat off the Matt sitch and onto Edge’s heel run and it may well turn out that this was exactly what Edge needed to make it as a top player. They are a great team.

Eric Bischoff planned a funeral for ECW. Hmmmmm.....

Shelton Benjamin and Chris Jericho did a thing where Shelton had to face Mohammad Hassan and Daivari alone because Chris Jericho hadn’t arrived yet. After the match, Jericho showed up and said that he was busy working on his Fozzy stuff and that he couldn’t be held responsible for missing things because he has a life outside wrestling. He got some boos for his arrogance.

Chris Masters again beat Steven Richards, though this time he didn’t mangle his face. Jericho beat one of La Rez and then faced off with Benjamin. Neither of these segments did anything for me.

The ECW segment was great and the folks who say that by saying that this is an event that’s helping put money in Vince’s pocket are really missing what made ECW great. It wasn’t the fact that they were anti-WWF at the time; it’s the content of the program. It was the hard core that drew, not the philosophy of counter-culture.

When did they replace Eric Bischoff with Race Bannon?

People watched ECW for the blood and the tables and the work rate and not because they were the rogues. Rogues without good material don’t draw. I loved the funeral. Bisch came out and talked about how he put ECW out of business by taking their stars. Vince came out and said that while Bisch killed ECW, Vince killed WCW and he ended up with all the assets of both. Vince then introed Paul Heyman who cut one of his better promos in saying that ECW was the real deal. He then lit a wreath, which seemed to be made of barbed wire, on fire. That was a great visual.

Chris Benoit took on Tajiri in that ECW rules match that they started last week. It was OK, but far too short. They worked a few spots with weapons, including the Singapore Cane, and it ended up with Benoit getting a few German Suplexes before getting the crossface. Tajiri reached for the Cane and Benoit took it away and put it across Tajiri’s mouth while doing the crossface for the tap out. Nice way to end the match.

Flair came into Batista’s lockerroom and shook his hand for all the things he said about Flair last week. It was one of those Flair’s being nice so there’s obviously something up moments.

They did a Kane interview where he talked about all the pain he had and how he wanted it to go away. It reminded me of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (‘I want my garmonbozia’). I know, strange connections.

Maria was in the ring, and somehow she managed to mess up her intro. ‘I admit that I have an interior motive.’ Sweet God, she’s dumb and pretty. Bathe her and bring her to me.

Viz came out and Maria played dumb saying she thinks that Viz has a thing for Lillian, who joined them in the ring. Viz asked for a hot dog and then he and Lillian danced to some smooth jazz. Viz dropped his pants to reveal red silk drawers, but then Coach came out. He got beat by Viscera, who chopped him and gave him a Samoan Drop. When he was down, and I’m not kidding, he dry humped Coach. I’ll say it again. Viscer dry humped The Coach. Oh My God, that was the vilest thing I’ve ever seen on TV. He then kissed Lillian to prove that he was all man, kinda like Rock Hudson.

I said "COUGH!"

Honestly, I fell asleep before the Batista vs. Edge match ended. It just wasn’t that exciting since I knew exactly what would happen. Christian and Tomko came down to ring side. There was a ref bump. Edge tried to use the briefcase but Batista ducked it and hit the DemonBomb for the win. Typical, and let me say that Batista was way over. We’re talking Roddy Piper in early 1987 over. After the match, HHH came out with the sledgehammer and beat on Batista, slapped him and said Hell in the Cell. We all knew that was coming.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this edition, save for the ECW funeral thing.

NEWS
Well, there’s not a lot that I’ve heard of. Bucking a trend, the WWE has hired the former promoter of Major League Wrestling to work on the Creative Team. There are also rumors that Steph McMahon may be looking at having a baby. There may be nothing to them, but they got to me through one of my usually reliable sources.

TNA might be bringing in Bryan Danielson, who is ready to be a huge star and who is having serious doubts about his place in the business.

Judgment Day
In the future, people will talk about the Judgment Day PPV Main Event as one of the great brawls of all time. There were ridiculous amounts of over-booking, a little bit of good wrestling, but the undercard was mostly disappointing and the Top Two did well enough to score in the positive.

We started off with Haas and Holly taking on MNM. Melina is hot, but she’s far from the only positive thing about MNM. These guys can bump, and in a way remind me of the Smokin’ Gunns, who were a good tag team despite being a bad gimmick. Holly and Haas are both good in the ring, though Holly often lets his temper get in the way. Haas is a far better worker than anyone gives him credit for and he was good here. The match was pretty average, but the crowd came into it after a bit and the finish was MNM getting The Snapshot for the pin, which is something that doesn’t happen enough on PPV anymore: someone getting the pin with their finisher the first time around.

Carlito took on The Big Show in a match that was almost all comedy. Carlito isn’t a great worker, and he can’t be doing all that bumping he did before he got hurt, but he deserves better than this. You could see that the ref was going to get bumped and Matt Morgan was going to interfere from the very start. Though, once he did, it got interesting as Morgan gave Big Show an F5. That’s right, he hit a pretty good F5 on Big Show allowing Carlito to get the pin. Not a good way to go, but what are you gonna do?

Paul London and Chavo Guerrero had a good match that was taken down a tad by the fact that the two of them were a little sloppy. Chavo worked a little on the ground, but London came back with a great rana, but then went for the 450 and ended up catching Chavo’s knees in the up position. Lot’s of good fast back and forth in this one, and it’s enjoyable, though a tad off. London is best when he’s working with guys who are his size, like Kidman. London hits a Senton to the outside and a Tope Suicida. Chavo gets backdropped off the ropes and then takes the 450 which allows London to get the pin and the win.

Booker T and Kurt Angle had an OK match, but also had a little bit in the way of sloppiness. The Kurt is a Freaky Sexual Predator angle is one of the worst in ages. It’s not quite Al Wilson is Dead (Long Live Al Wilson!), but it’s bad. The match was pretty good, and obviously stiff, as Kurt was bleeding hardway. It was a hard match to get into, as they were physical, but they had a few minor glitches, particularly Booker. They did bring some of the crowd around, but it was the quietest Angle match I can think of in a while. Booker got the Small Package when Kurt went for an AngleSlam for the pin. After the match, Angle tried to handcuff Sharmell, but Booker recovered and cuffed him to the ropes, allowing Sharmell and Booker to beat the crap out of Kurt, including a solid kick to the groin.

Writing about Orlando Jordan and Heidenreich would only waste precious electrons. It was bad, but it could have been far worse.

Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio had a very good match, though again, they are trying to live up to the standard they set with their 1997 Halloween Havoc match which was one of the best matches of the 1990s. The two started with slaps and Rey was wailing on Eddie until Eddie evened the score with a kick to the ribs. Eddie worked over Rey’s ribs, using kicks and a nice abdominal stretch. I’ve always really liked that move. The crowd chanted for Eddie, which is rough, but the heel turn is working as story, so it’s not a full failure. Chavo gets involved and Eddie uses the time to grab a chair. Rey springboards in and meets seat which gives him the win via DQ. Eddie kept beating on Rey, but the crowd still chanted for him. It must be rough being a formerly popular heel in the days after the run of Stone Cold.

The Main Event was a death trap going in. Neither of these guys are great in the ring. They had a passable, but still pretty bad, match at WrestleMania. The I Quit gimmick is odd since neither of them have a submission move. All that was working against them

And they still had the second best match of the year to date.

Against all odds...

This was a wild brawl, a seriously ECW-infused battle that roamed and pitched back and forth. They started in the ring, with Cena doing an arm drag and at one point JBL did suplexed Cena and followed with a DDT into the ring and tried for a pin. They always do that spot to remind the audience, but if you’ve built up your gimmick enough, you don’t really need to do it. They work in the crowd for a bit and JBL tells Cena to quit, which everyone says should have made the match over, but I don’t buy that at all. JBL tries for a powerbomb, but Cena backdrops him through a table. JBL gets a chair and nails Cena, which leads Cena to blade. A big blade job. The proverbial crimson mask. Wow, that’s a lot of blood. The crowd actually goes silent for a while because they are worried about Cena from all the blood. Wow.

They continue the brawl and beat each other with, around and onto JBL’s limo. When they end up in the production area, Cena puts JBL’s head into a monitor, which causes him to do a huge bladejob and we’re Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair from 1986 with both guys bleedin’. The finish was Cena putting JBL through another table and getting the muffler-thingee from a truck and he was about to wail on JBL when he said “I quit”, giving Cena the win so he wouldn’t have to endure the beating with the pipe. To celebrate his win, Cena hit JBL with the pipe.

The match was a spectacle and a match that Cena will have a hard time topping. Good stuff that will only help Cena get even more over. He’s at Shawn Michaels 1996 level right now, and he could get to Randy Savage 1988 in a few months with some great performances like this one.

That’s all for this week. I’m Toastmastering at BayCon this weekend and will be hangin’ with Fanboy Planet’s favorite DS9er, Chase Masterson!

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Chris Garcia