Falls Count Anywhere

06-06-06 (Smackdown)

"I thought your performance in Blade: Trinity was hackneyed and banal..."

Chris Benoit is on a hiatus. Reason? Accumulated injuries, though I understand his shoulder really is in really bad shape. He’ll be back in a while, but where he goes will be interesting.

RAW
I saw a fair deal of RAW, but not all, and I was impressed with some of it, and depressed by others. What they did right was build ECW, and though I’m not 100% behind the direction they appear to be going, I do like the seriousness with which they are treating it. The wrong was the HHH stuff and the fact that there were two injuries to the ladies.

First off, let’s talk HHH. They had him lose a match via DQ when the Spirit Squad attacked Big Show (which I admit was a smart piece of booking). They had set up that if H lost the match, he’d join the Kiss My Ass Club, which isn’t a club that H has not joined in private.

Shane came back and shared a bottle of water with Trips and they talked about things. They got to the ring and H was drugged by Shane and falls down. After a bit of McMahon posturing, they had Shane pass out, H recover and give a pants-down Vince the Pedigree.

Here’s the thing: crowd hardly cared. This sort of thing would have been mad over in 1999, but it was quieter than the Carlito vs. Shelton match earlier (which was decent). They really need to pull the string on the DX reformation to save the program, because much more of this and ratings will start sliding again.

Otherwise, I liked a fair bit of the show. There was a good opener where they did the contract signing between Cena and RVD. They signed, Cena did a pretty good promo, and then the ECW folks attacked, including Sabu (who will face Cena this Wednesday on USA’s special) and Sandman.

This was a hot segment and I liked it a good deal. In a non-title match, Carlito beat Shelton. This was a good Carlito match and I really like the way they’re trying to position him. Match was short and the crowd was hottest when chanting for the Steelers.

Eugene and Matt Stryker had a match that was a squash and saw Eugene get the win with an assist from Hacksaw’s inspiration. Seriously, the man had a softball-sized tumor removed from him and he still goes!

And the injuries just keep comin'...

Beth Phoenix pinned Victoria, but along the way, she had her jaw fractured. She was brought up early because of the injury to Trish, but now she’ll be gone a while. Mickie, Mickie, Mickie…you’re so fine, but no one can play with you now.

Speaking of injuries, Lillian Garcia was knocked off the apron by Charlie Hass ON HIS ENTRANCE! He does that running the ropes thing and she wasn’t off the apron yet and she fell down, hurting her wrist. That was just a combination of bad timing and bad luck. Charlie should have held up, but Lillian should have gotten out sooner.

Still, the match with Nitro wasn’t that hot and Melina was smokin’ hot. I love the way they’re doin’ her entrance now. It wasn’t a bad short match, but the Lillian thing overshadowed it. Still, they could turn this into an angle if they wanted to, though I doubt they want to give Charlie that kind of push.

In the highlight of the night, Kurt Angle showed up and had a face-off with Mick Foley and Edge. This was great and Kurt was more over than anyone on the show. Kurt referred to Lita as a hairy prostitute. I was laughing hard at that bit. Edge made a dead Willie Stargell reference and then Angle attacked and managed to get the anklelock on Edge then the AngleSlam on Foley before Randy Orton ran in and gave him the RKO. That was unexpected. I thought it was the best part of the show.

That’s all for now. I may be back on Thursday to give you the review of the Wednesday night show, or I might save it. Depends on if y’all be good or not.

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Chris Garcia