Falls Count Anywhere

06-09-04

,,,and stll I love the Commodore 64..

Welcome to a special Wednesday Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris, and on Sunday, I had a lovely conversation with Bill Gates.

RAW
RAW has been a very strong show of late, but even when they don’t quite get it right, they manage a show that doesn’t grate on you (like SmackDown! has). This edition had a few nice things and some meh stuff as well.

Lita opened up the show by going over Gail Kim. Kim is talented, but she’s not at there yet as far as we’ve seen. Honestly, when I saw her in a Cow Palace house show match in early 2003 she was way better than she has been on RAW. A sudden pin after a DDT for Lita, who is looking more comfortable in the ring with the current girls’ styles, but still needs a little more time.

Bischoff made a Coach vs. Eugene match for Bad Blood. Johnny Nitro, who is a realist as well as a sycophant, said that Eugene would upset Bisch by pinning the Coach. Eric then sent Nitro out to take on Eugene in a match where Nitro would be fired if he lost.

He does ape the styles well...

There should be a rule: only have a title challenger lose immediately before a PPV if the plan is to switch the title. Batista beat Shelton Benjamin in a match where both worked fairly well and drew some heat. The problem is, Shelton’s not going to win the title, so having him lose isn’t a good idea, even if Orton helped by distracting the ref. Shelton is so good in the ring, all he needs to do is bring an interview style that isn’t cookie cutter and he’ll take off. Batista is athletic, as I always say, and here he showed why he’s going to make a great Monster Heel someday.

Edge and Benoit got into a little quarrel backstage over the accidental spear. Edge has not returned to the level of success he was at on SmackDown! before his injury. He needs more time, but they are pushing him hard.

The A-Train is back, and he got beat by Chris Jericho. A-Train is a decent big man wrestler, but he’s still not great. Jericho did some fine selling and offense here. It really felt like one of those matches they were constantly giving to Jericho on Nitro back in the day where he had to work with a stiff to pull a good match out.

HHH did a promo about him and Michaels and Hell in the Cell. He brought up that he has never lost in a Hell in the Cell match, notching wins over the likes of Kevin Nash and Mick Foley. Michaels hasn’t lost one either, I believe. He was the guy who put HitC on the map with his win over Undertaker. This should be a great match, by the way, as these two can both go, and when they are in the ring together, they work harder than ever.

La Resistance took on Chris Benoit, which ended with Edge interfering for the DQ. Then Bischoff came out and announced that Benoit and Edge would have a match against La Resistance for the belts at Bad Blood, which meant that Benoit will be wrestling twice. He then announced that Benoit and Edge had to take on La Resistance and Kane in a match next. This wasn’t a great match, but it did its job. They had Kane power out of a crossface and pin Benoit.

JunkYard Eugene beat Johnny Nitro. Seriously, I love this gimmick where he takes on the moves and such of other wrestlers and the JYD stuff was awesome. This was a squash of 1988 proportions. The crowd loves Eugene, and so does the 5-year old who watches with me every week.

The Kane / Lita thing is back. Kane told Lita that he had gotten her added to the Women’s title match at Bad Blood. Lita said that he told her it was over and Kane said he lied as he sniffed her. It’s weird, but I figured out why I don’t like it much. Back in 1989 or so, Kevin Sullivan did a very similar angle with Precious, Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin’s valet. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.

...the best of his day...and still damned good.

The main event featured Randy Orton losing to Shawn Michaels by DQ in a match that was pretty damn good. Michaels dominated early, but Orton caught him with a boot when Michaels came off the top. They went back and forth and when we came back from commercial, Orton was working Michaels' arm. Orton has obviously watched a lot of old HBK tapes, because this sequence was straight out of Shawn’s 1996 game plan. Solid stuff that I enjoyed. Batista came into the ring, which brought the DQ, but Shawn SuperKicked him. He then hit Orton and Batista with a chair, then went through the crowd to get to HHH in the Evolution box. Shawn hit Flair then brawled with HHH for a little while.

Not great. They did some odd stuff, but overall, not a failure.

News
Well, the big news is all out of Germany. On the German tour, Eddie Guerrero lost his cool during his match with John Bradshaw Layfield. It wasn’t just him playing heel, which he is good at, but it was him flipping out. There is a ton of pressure on him as champion, which Brock Lesnar will tell you, and he may be cracking. A lot of folks are worried what this will do to him and his star in the long run.

Same tour, JBL got into a ton of trouble by doing all the old wrestling Nazi references. He did the arm salute and the goose stepping, which are completely illegal in Deutschland. He claims that he was just playing heel, the same thing he does when he baits Mexicans in his matches in Texas. He was fired from CNBC, and the WWE posted an apology. They then removed the apology for some reason. This is starting to get a lot of mainstream press. I think it was just a dumb idea, and pretty much everyone in the back is in agreement that Layfield shouldn’t have done it.

FlashBack!
I went to a conference in San Diego this weekend and brought my portable DVD player with me. America’s great natural resource, Mike Flores, lent me his Cactus Jack DVD set and I gave a watch to a match that I remember from 1996. It was Mick Foley wrestling as Mankind vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWF title at Mind Games from Philadelphia.

The match started off fast, with the two of them working in the ring a little but quickly going outside. Mick went out and tried to expose the concrete floor, but Michaels dropkicked him, causing the padding to fall on top of him and Michaels stomped and kicked it. It was a cool spot.

After a minute or so, Shawn gets back in the ring and hits a tope onto Mick, then he just tosses Mankind backwards onto the bare concrete. Ouch! Mick showed a great wrestling move, which at times were rare in his repertoire, by blocking a snap mare with a judo choke. That was sweet. They work stiff and at one point, Michaels is stepping on Mick’s fingers and stomping them. There is a period where Shawn looks really upset and pummeled Mankind. Hard to say, as I didn’t see what happened. When Shawn goes to the top one time too many, Foley crotches him, then delivers a back suplex through the announcers table. The match ended with Vader running in to beat on Shawn.

The sad thing is, this match was so influential, so perfect for 1996 that it wouldn’t turn many heads nowadays. Mick’s style was so far ahead in those days, but just about everyone has added pieces to their ways and have made it expected. Shawn was great, but comparing Shawn’s work from 1996 to the way Guerrero or Benoit or even HHH, you see that the overall quality of work in the WWE has increased. Shawn in 1996 WWF was an amazing high flyer, and now, he’s just another heavyweight. His style hasn’t changed, but what we expect in a wrestler has.

Still, this match is well worth watching, probably Mick Foley’s best encounter, and shows that Shawn was the best of his day.

That’s all for today. On Friday I’ll have more fun and frolic.

Chris Garcia