Falls Count Anywhere

06-01-04

I have been shorn.

RAW
They opened the show with a tribute to the men and women of the armed forces. They do these all the time and they do them well.

Following the tribute to all those Americans who have fought for us, they gave us an (almost) All-Canadian match between La Resistance and Edge and Benoit for the world Tag Team titles. This was the type of match we have been getting used to. They traded great moves, teased finishes and then went to commercial after a big scare for the faces. They came back and got even better. The crowd was hot for Sylvan and Benoit, though I believe they failed to realize that Edge was Canadian as well. There were a ton of Bret Hart signs in the audience. They kept working a strong match all the way through until Edge speared Benoit, allowing the French to hit their awesome double-team suplex into the neckbreaker finisher to win the titles. The crowd really liked this, and so did I.

They started the Eugene angle for the night by having Regal and Bischoff talking. Regal has been great in this role, though he doesn’t get to do much. Really, they could put him more in the spotlight and he’d get over and help Eugene get over even further.

Bischoff said that Eugene would have a match against a friend and then Coach came out. They said that Eugene would be facing a friend tonight and the Coach was then ordered to apologize to Eugene in the ring. He brought out Eugene and he apologized, but then they brought out Kane, who gave Eugene a hug before Coach attacked him and then when Kane stared him down, Kane turned and gave Eugene a clothesline. Interesting angle which I want to see continue.

Victoria and Jazz had a match with no reaction. It wasn’t bad, as these two know how to work with one another, but the lack of heat hurt it. Victoria did the splits, but Jazz started stomping her. It looked really painful. The match ended when Jazz got rolled up when she went for a suplex.

Randy Orton and Shelton Benjamin met in a match that went very well as it progressed. The pre-commercial stuff was strong, as these two are very well matched and both can work an athletic style. Benjamin will be getting a huge push and if he doesn’t end up as the World Champion in the next few years, I’ll be shocked. He has a Main Event style that reminds me of 1988 Sting and 1986 Randy Savage. The two of them bonked heads and Orton opened up a little hardway. Batista interfered and was sent to the back. The two traded moves for a while and the ended up having Benjamin nail his powerslam variant for the win. Good match, and we’ll be seeing more between these two.

HHH came out and jawed a bit until they rolled a sweet package reviewing Hell in the Cells that HHH had been in. A great package, which minimized the presence of Kevin Nash. They showed a lot of Mick Foley getting the crap beat out of him.

They set up a Highlight Reel, but Trish ended up coming out and mocking the crowd and Jericho and sending her love to The Creepy Little Bastard Christian. After a lot of talking, Jericho came out and knocked around Trish and Tomko. He put Trish in the Walls, but Tomko nailed him with a boot and then press slammed him onto a chair. Brutal looking. Nice stuff.

Special. So special.

The main event was weird. Eugene is hugely popular, though not as much in Montreal. They built this smartly, but the match itself was pretty poor, though it did work for the crowd. The segment where Eugene was working takedown stuff made me smile. Kane grabbed a couple of chairs and when Kane came back into the ring, he knocked around the ref which allowed him to DQ Kane. Kane beat on Eugene until Benoit came out to make the save and try to get the crossface on, but Kane powered out.

I thought RAW was solid overall. They need to do more of these on SmackDown! to turn it around and RAW will be able to live off this strong run for a few more months.

Smackdown!
SmackDown! was fast forward material most of the way through, mostly due to the fact that we aren’t seeing too much that’s new. I liked the Rob Van Dam and Rey Mysterio vs. The Dudleys match, but we’ve seen it so many times before. The stuff between Bubba and Rey was great, especially the foot stomp stuff. They are trying to make Rey into a tag team specialist, which could be a good idea if they would give him a regular tag team partner. Hell, get someone from Mexico and give them a big run like Gordman and Goliath in Texas and LA back in the day. Fairly good match.

OK, John Bradshaw Layfield would have been the greatest heel ever in 1982, when Dallas ruled the roost and wrestling could afford to have a guy like Layfield running from territory to territory. He did a good interview which led the crowd to chant Eddie a lot. I like him, but I only wish they could have taken their time in building him.

They brought back the Lightning! Booker vs. Scotty wasn’t much of anything, but I do love that lightning thing they did. Booker is headed towards a Voodoo gimmick which could kill his career as a serious contender.

The Eddie stuff was awesome. He’s the only thing they are booking 100% right now. When he came to the ring and flipped out once he saw the stretcher, that was golden. Kurt and Eddie jawed, but the intensity was all over this one.

Torrie and Spike took on Jamie Noble and Dawn Marie. Other than the eye candy, I really didn’t care for or about this match.

Chavo Classic vs. Akio wasn’t too good, but there have been far worse matches by far younger wrestlers on the show lately. Akio got to show more than he has in a while, and I still think they could make Akio and Sakoda into a real team of contenders.

Cena vs. Dupree for the US Title was a good match that I highly approve of. Lumberjack matches aren’t the best gimmick, but it’s so seldom used that they can get away with free heat from it. They did some schtick with Rico, but mostly they had a good little match that showed that these two are going to be big stars. One of my favourite moments was when Dupree sent Cena out, but everyone was fighting allowing Booker to beat on Cena some. Cena got the win and the celebration afterwards was a nice touch.

Like I said, fast forwarding makes it decent, but that’s not the best thing for the show.

NEWS
Supposedly, Eddie Guerrero is suffering from amnesia. He was in pretty bad shape after the PPV and there are folks who think that he may still be in much worse shape then he’s letting on.

Christian's return isn’t too far off. In fact, he’ll probably be back to talk next week and will probably be wrestling in two to three weeks.

FlashBack!
Eddy Guerrero and Chris Benoit owe a lot to Tiger Mask (Saturo Sayama) for opening up the Main Event to smaller workers. Mitsuharu Misawa picked up the Tiger Mask and made a good run with it through the early 1990s. Then there was the other little guy, much smaller than Sayama or Misawa. His real name is Keichi Yamada and he’s best known as Jushin Thunder Liger.

Yamada was the star of his New Japan Pro Wrestling Training camp, which is impressive considering that guys like Mutoh and Hashimoto who would go on to be huge draws. He worked as Yamada for a while and won the Young Lions cup in 1986. He worked matches with a lot of young workers, including the good Owen Hart in a series of matches that I love. He ended up going around the world for a while and when he came back, he was under a mask called Jushin Liger.

Liger derives his energy from the sun.

Liger was a star starting with his 1989 debut. He quickly won the International Wrestling Grand Prix Junior Heavyweight Championship. He wound up holding that title a bunch of times over the following fifteen years. He would win the second Super J Cup in 1995 and would win the various other tourneys as well. HE suffered a set back in 1996 during the tourney to determine who would be the Octo-Champion holding eight different lighter weight belts. HE was diagnosed with a brain tumor, but they removed it and he returned to working at a top level. Liger was known for his suplexes, but he was the guy who really introduced the Shooting Star Press to the world.

The thing that you may remember Liger from was his feud with Brian Pillman. Pillman was a rising star, and Liger came over to have a classic series of matches with Brian in 1991. These were easily the highlight of the year and they received a ton of votes for match of the year. They established Pillman as a real star and certainly showed that Liger was the top worker in the world. They would meet dozens of times in the US and Japan, including a match on the first edition of Nitro. Liger had a series of terrible, Vince Russo booked matches in 1999 and 2000, including the one where he lost the Cruiserweight title when he was hit with a taquila bottle.

Liger is still working, though not really at the same level. I recommend finding his matches from Japan for the best look at this Hall of Famer.

That’s all for now. More on Friday.

Chris Garcia