Falls Count Anywhere

05-31-05

It was for a team-building exercise. I swear it.

SmackDown!
We open with Carlito out with Matt Morgan. They show the F5 that Morgan gave to Big Show and it’s even more impressive than when we first saw it. He talks on and on about being able to beat Big Show and Teddy Long comes and makes fun of Morgan. He then announces a Winner’s Choice Battle Royale, with the winner getting their choice of matches with whoever they want. Carlito says that he’ll use his win to get another match with Big Show.

MNM took on Holly and Hass again. As with the last few, this was a good match and Haas was looking good. These guys are great together. Haas and Holly even have a little heat now, impressive for a team comprised of guys who have been left behind. Haas hit an awesome Overhead Belly to Belly which allowed him to make the hot tag to Holly. Melina slapped Haas. The finish was a DQ after Holly hit the Alabama Slam and our man Nitro came in and hit him with a chair for the DQ. Good stuff.

John Cena came out and did a promo. The folks were way into him. They showed a recap of the match from the PPV and it looked really good even in photo form. JBL limped out and they chatted like enemies for a while leading to Cena telling JBL he had made a tribute video for him. JBL started playing nice and Cena showed a video of JBL repeatedly saying ‘I Quit’. This was a riff on an angle done by Bill Watts back in the day with Michael Hayes, but that was better done.

Carlito vs. Big Show was lame. Basically, Big Show beat on Carlito and Matt Morgan got involved. Matt was thrown out and Big Show hit a big Chokeslam for the win. Morgan returned and gave Big Show an F5 onto a Table which was even more impressive than the one in the ring at the PPV. They are really missing the boat on Carlito by not making him a serious heel competitor.

When good gravity goes bad...

Kurt Angle comes out and does a promo about losing at Judgment Day (which he didn’t like) and Vince McMahon bringing back ECW (which he didn’t like either). He talked a little about the crucifixion angle the night he was at the ECW show in 1996. I was at the show before that one at the ECW Arena.

In an interesting recall to a match from 1999, Angle mouthed off towards Tazz and Tazz thought that he might come over and do something about it. I’ve been saying that Tazz should come back for one last run, and a match with Angle at the ECW PPV would be nice. Angle then took on some guy named Robert and beat him with the Ankle Lock in fifteen seconds to win the Angle Challenge.

The Battle Royale starts with Angle saying that he wants it to start right away. Rey Mysterio comes out and is attacked with a chair by Eddie Guerrero before he even hits the ring. They are really pushing that feud more than any other lately and I’m glad to see it. Eddie stays outside the ring for a while because he knows everyone wants to take him out. This is a Larry Zybysko classic concept. Matt Morgan saves Carlito from getting tossed by Nunzio and Shannon Moore. There’s a lot of great action, including Eddie getting tossed by Rey and Rey then attacking him after.

It comes down to Angle and Rey, which was the same final two from the Battle Royale that was on the SmackDown! following WrestleMania XX. This segment was really good, as these two work well together, with all sorts of teased eliminations and suplexes. Angle low blows Rey when he came off with a Springboard, which allowed Kurt to get the AngleSlam and win the match. He then said that he wanted Sharmell in a match for next week. Wow, that’s not good.

Decent show, better than most lately.

Oh, Jerry...you know what they say about a bird in the hand...

RAW
The show opened with a Swimsuit competition. Jerry Lawler brings out Christy Hemme, Candace Michelle, Maria, Victoria and Lillian Garcia. They are all concealing bathing suits under towels. Right after Lillian is announced, Big Viscera comes out and carries Lillian away, leaving the four others. This turned out to be the greatest segment in the recent history of RAW. After they all showed off the goods, Christy was announced as the winner but then Victoria attacked, giving Maria a high kick, nailing Candace in the face, and giving Christy the Widow’s Peak. This was awesome and the crowd seemed to appreciate it. Well, if they are trying to revive the women’s division, this is a good start, especially if they can get Trish back in the ring some time soon.

The HeartThrobs, who are never going to get over unless they are allowed to do their entire gimmick and are given wins, took on Hurricane and Rosie. MNM is the next big Tag Team, but The HeartThrobs are actually better gimmick-wise. Hurricane and Rose took the match even though The Throbs worked Hurricane over for much of the match. They used the Shoulder-Stand Splash off of Rosie for the pin.

Eric Bischoff did a segment with Batista where Batista announced that he accepted HHH’s challenge. This didn’t get the reaction they would have liked. Muhammad Hassan challenged Batista, who accepted.

There was a pretty good three-way match between Sylvan Grenier, Rob Conway and Shelton Benjamin. La Rez worked together at first, hitting the Hart Attack on Shelton, but when Conway went for the pin, Grenier pulled him off. The match went with a fast series of trades and the like and ended with Shelton kicking Grenier into Conway and then hitting the T-Bone for the win. Nice little match.

Chris Jericho came out for the Highlight Reel. He heeled it up, saying that he was so busy and almost didn’t make it because he was at an autograph signing and a guy on his level couldn’t be counted on to make all his appearances. He brought out Kane and Chris started mocking him saying that he was impotent and that was why Kane got dumped.

Oh, Kane -- why don't you try Levitra?

Edge showed up on the TitanTron and talked about spearing Kane and spearing Lita. I’m fairly certain he was using different forms of the word “spear” in this one. The crowd gave a lot of ‘You Screwed Matt’ chants. Edge is a solid heel and the pairing was really well done.

Benoit and Edge met in a Tables match. Back in the day, I can remember reading a post by net-reviewer and pioneer Christopher R. Zimmermann saying that “Sure, they might use chairs and tables, but we’re a long way from seeing Double Tables on Raw.” True, the business has changed a lot in the last decade, but still, this didn’t seem like anything overly special. This was too short, but it was entertaining. I like table matches, since they are so simple.

At one point, Benoit was about to Superplex Edge through a table set-up in the ring, but Lita pulled the table out of the way. Eventually, Bischoff sent out Maven, Tyson Tomko and the returning Gene Snitsky to put Benoit through the table.

HHH sucks. That’s all there is to it. He’s got an ego that allows him to take up so much time on RAW with an interview that showed great intensity, but went on way too long. He really needs to pull himself out of the game (pun slightly intended) and let them build a bit of heat without him so that he can return and make a real impact.

Masterlock Challenge time. Audience guy lost. He’s now going to open it to wrestlers from the locker room. I wish they would end this.

Christian came out to a real superstar reaction from the Canadian crowd and plugged that he would be jumping to SmackDown!. They better send him over or else he’ll have no chance of making it on RAW. As Jason Schachat said all weekend, “You know, I’m having my problems with Canada these days.”

Muhammad Hassan won a match over Batista via DQ. They gave Batista a more impressive entrance, which helps him with an even bigger reaction when he comes out for his matches. Hassan actually had the advantage for a while, using a DDT and a couple of kicks. Batista hit a Spinebuster and took over on offense. Batista tossed Daivari off the top rope and then gave him a series of knees that busted him up. He followed that up with punches to Hassan in the corner and when he wouldn’t stop, he was DQ’ed. He then destroyed Hassan, and I mean destroyed him, with a chair and more beating.

I’d say that this was a strong episode, but still, they are in a holding pattern until the Draft Lottery, which starts next week.

That’s all for today. More on Friday.

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Chris Garcia