Falls Count Anywhere

06-04-04

I have been shorn.

SmackDown!
Not a very good edition, so I was glad I got to fast forward in hopes of getting this installment of Falls out on time. The same problems are still there: no real main event heel, poor booking, and some strange choices.

They opened the show with a tribute to James Dudley. No, he isn’t the father of the truly messed up Dudley Boys, but he was a manager and an office worker for the McMahons for more than 40 years. He was 93.

Booker T came out to do a promo that was fairly good, considering the program he’s having to work with. He said that he had nothing to do with Paul Bearer’s disappearance (see NEWS) and that his belief is that the Undertaker did it himself. Odd.

John Cena came out in a Blue Jays jersey and got a huge pop. The WWE has a superstar on their hands and they need to bring SmackDown! back up to a higher level before he is completely devalued. He cut a promo mocking the Booker mannerisms, and did it fairly well. Booker did some great facial reactions and Cena did some truly sophomoric potty humor.

As the two were about to go at it, Kurt Angle came out to a strong heel reaction. He said that The Board of Directors had been hounding him on all of Cena’s promos of questionable content. When Cena asked what you gonna do, Booker attacked and the two of them brawled. Cena fell on Angle and knocked him out of his wheelchair. Kurt then made it his mission to get Cena stripped of the title.

Eddy took on Danny Bashem in the match that should have been on last week’s show. The Bashems are being wasted since they could really help the tag ranks. Eddy got a good pop, though probably less than Cena. If they had a good heel to transition to, they might be well served by a switch. Since they don’t, forget about it. The match was pretty standard with Eddie doing some lying, cheating and stealing to get the win.

They showed clips from the SummerSlam press conference. They should do more of these and use big external names to get larger amounts of coverage.

Mordecai talked. He told people to pray for their souls or somesuch. I’m still not convinced, though his entrance is a real winner.

Rico and Haas did a segment where Jacky returned from her weeklong journey to put on her bikini. Run, Charlie, run as far away from the USS Ricotanic before the bands starts playing "Nearer My God to Thee."

I gotta say that the crowd seemed to like Chavo Classic a lot. He did some offense against Funaki that has been otherwise lost to the ages. I really like his old school techniques. Chavo Jr. did commentary and was entertaining.

Chavo Classic had a great bit backstage where he was being hung on by the models that had accompanied him to the ring earlier. Chavo Jr. came and said the line of the night: “Hey, my Dad’s not only the Cruiserweight Champion, but he’s a chick magnet!”. Once Chavo Jr. left, the girls started demanding their money, and Chavo Classic paid and paid well. He was using Canadian money, so the few thousands he dropped would only have been 12 bucks US. Chavo Classic is a fun character.

A little something for Garcia. If you're over 18, go ahead and click on it.

The girls were out and except for the fact that they were hot, this segment sucked. Dawn Marie is unreasonably hot. Jacky even more so. Torrie never does well in these things. Sable looked bored. They announced Jacky as the winner after her rendition of the Flashdance water drop. What a feeling, all of this bad TV. Afterwards, they tossed water onto judge Jamie Noble and pushed him into a sandbox. Poor Toronto. They have to deal with all this crap.

The match between Rene Dupree and Rey Mysterio showed that all the faith that they were showing in Dupree has disappeared. He was pinned quite quickly by Mysterio when he went over the top trying for a powerbomb. Rey looked OK, but the match was so damn quick. Rey hit a fast and precise spinning headscissors on Rene that looked great.

John Bradshaw Layfield came out and talked about taking on Eddie in a Texas Bullrope Match. I I like the bloodbaths that these matches usually turn into (see Dusty Rhodes circa 1987) but I’m afraid that this could get out of hand again.

Undertaker and Booker T had a little match that I thought moved kinda weird, but wasn’t awful. It was very impressive when UT did a single armed lift of Book. That’s a lot of man to lift using one arm. Undertaker took a pretty solid bump over the top rope while he was going for the Old School Rope Walk. He landed safely, but it was pretty scary looking. After Undertaker signaled for the finish, they had Paul Heyman come out and say that UT should be more worried about Paul Bearer. Heyman got into the ring and the Taker grabbed him by the throat. The Dudleys came on the screen, said they had Bearer behind a door and said that the Undertaker could either join them or perish. Very Palpatine of them.

Desperately covering for Paul Bearer's absence...

Not a very good show, though the interview segments were good. They need new, hard working talent and fast!

NEWS
Jeff Jarrett is the TNA NWA champ for the first TNA Fox Sports TV taping that took place Thursday and will be shown next week. The main event wasn’t bad, but it was a little confusing as the rules featured a penalty box, which is always a confusing gimmick.

Psicosis, who is now known Nichio, has pulled an Eddie Guerrero and cleaned himself up. He was very much a partier and he’s now on the straight and narrow.

Raw did its lowest rating of the year this week. As much as people like Eugene, they don’t seem to want to support him in a main event role, which I said more than a month ago.

A bunch of teams are interested in Brock Lesnar. My San Francisco 49ers are one of them, but the Ravens are seen as the leaders in the hunt.

Paul Bearer, who I always loved as Percival Pringle in World Class Championship Wrestling, had emergency gall bladder surgery, which explains why they did the sudden kidnapping angle. No word yet on any time table for a return.

FlashBack!
What was the greatest TV show of all time? For me, that’s an easy choice: The WB’s Nikki. How could you choose anything other than the one show about an aspiring showgirl and an equally aspiring wrestler who decide to get married?

The show started in 2000, when the WB was still cooling on the windowsill of those Americans who actually got the netlet. The show was planned as a vehicle for Nikki Cox, the amazingly hot girl from Unhappily Ever After. They chose the unbelievably giant young actor Nick von Esmarch to play Nikki’s husband Dwight. The two of them would have great little adventures which always resolved themselves in twenty-two fun minutes.

The wrestling side was my favorite, as it showed some lower level wrestlers working little moves in the short segments where they showed training. Dwight had a brilliant gimmick as he portrayed The Crybaby! The Crybaby wore knee-breeches and a propeller beanie. He wasn’t very mobile, at least not until he dropped about a hundred pounds before the second season.

Well, it's no Nick Freno, Licensed Teacher...

The promoter and head of the school where Dwight trained was Jupitar, played by Toby Huss, better known as the voice of Cotton Hill on King of the Hill. He was slimy and filthy, everything you’d expect from an old school promoter-type. He was HI-larious, and I picture everybody involved in the promotion of wrestling prior to 1970.

There were also all sorts of appearances from wrestlers like Big Sexy Kevin Nash and Randy Macho Man Savage. Robert Goulet showed up as well. Nothing will get me to watch a show faster than appearances by wrestlers and Goulet.

Nikki was hot, as was her best friend Mary, played by Susan Egan. The dance numbers that opened the show were always inventive. Unfortunately, even on a network that couldn’t break the top 85 in ratings, Nikki got dumped in 2002. Cox can currently be seen on NBC's Las Vegas. Von Esmarch has done a couple of cameos and that’s about it. Egan and Huss have been all over the place with all sorts of cameos.

That’s all for this week. I’m away in San Diego through Tuesday, so Falls will likely publish on Wednesday.

Chris Garcia