Falls Count Anywhere

06-14-05

I went to a rodeo on a college scholarship.

RAW
Sadly, the hottest PPV in ages was followed up with the weakest RAW in a while. There were just so many glaring mistakes and strange choices made and nothing that addresses the main problems.

The show opened with Stone Cold Court. This was a strange angle, but it was nice to see Stone Cold around anyhow. He made some reference to Sand People when Hassan and Daivari entered the ring. Hassan said he’d never lost (I think he meant he’d never been pinned, which is true, as he’s only lost via DQ) and Austin granted him a title shot at Shelton Benjamin with Austin as the Enforcer.

The match with Shelton ended with Hassan winning by DQ. While Shelton did show a little athleticism (a Springboard Bulldog on Daivari) this was pretty much a match all about the finish. After the ref missed a low blow, Hassan put on the Camel Clutch. Austin entered and gave Daivari the Stunner, then tried to give one to Hassan, who escaped but met with a Benjamin kick allowing Austin to hit the Stunner. The crowd liked that. Shelton and Steve celebrated with beers after. Not nearly as hot as it should have been.

I missed a lot of the next section, which I understand was mostly Bischoff and Jericho and Christian talking about title matches and the like.

Chris Masters beat Sgt. Slaughter in The Masterlock Challenge. Sarge started by putting the Cobra Clutch on, but Masters made the ropes. The Masterlock put Slaughter out and he was dismissed. I really don’t care for Masters, but I do like the challenge notion because he’ll eventually get beat and then likely go away.

A very nicely done Batista-HHH video aired. I’m not into the program, but these are so well done that they almost make me care. Maybe I’m too cynical.

Cena and Jericho beat Christian and Tomko in a tag match that was really about Jericho turning on Cena. Basically it was a short Rock ‘n Roll Express match where Jericho played face in peril and Cena made the hot tag and came in, cleaned house on Tomko and got the pin with the FU. After the match, Jericho attacked Cena and threw him into the steps and put the Walls on him. There were better ways to do it, but that at least made it official. Jericho went to see Bisch who said that he had earned a title match. Christian came to complain and Eric announced a Triple Threat match. I think Jericho is a legit challenger, but Christian still needed some time.

This happened in my dreams last night, too, only I was in my underwear.

They showed early signs of who was going to be on the Diva Search. I’m not looking forward to it, but there were some beautiful ladies and a couple who seemed to actually have personality. There was a girl who went to college on a rodeo scholarship. That’s rad.

Big Viz came out with a leather-clad Lillian Garcia to take on Maven. The match sucked, but what do you expect?

There was a good segment with Kane. Kane beat Sylvan Grenier. No, he destroyed him. The crowd really got into Kane giving several Choke Slams to the French-Canadian. The crowd likes evil Kane.

Then they brought out Lita.

Kane basically turned into the soft and hurt Kane again when Lita came out. She also called out Gene Snitsky and said that it wasn’t his fault, that it was Kane’s fault. She then kissed him. The new Lita gimmick is that she’s a slut. How quaint. Edge then came out and made out a little with Edge. Way to build him up and knock him down.

I got you, babe.

HHH and Flair came out and H talked about the Batista program. Then, Kurt Angle arrived as the next Draftee. He and Flair did dueling ‘Woo’s for a while, which was funny. H cried gimmick infringement. Angle talked about liking other people’s wives, mentioning that whole Stephanie McMahon angle from several years ago that I thought ruled. Angle said Batista impressed him and Batista arrived and introduced himself to Kurt. H then got Angle and Batista to set up a match for next week and that brought out Shawn Michaels who said he would take his rematch from WrestleMania at Vengeance. The guy then brawled to close the show.

Like I said, bad.

NEWS
JBL is a piece of crap. On the biggest night for any of the ECW guys in ages, he chose to attacked The Blue Meanie for real in the giant brawl at the end of the show. This goes back a long way and is just plain stupid. There’s no doubt that JBL’ll get away with it without even a warning.

There is a lot of news about the expected buyrate of One Night Stand. WWE’s webcast was so popular that they couldn’t meet the demand. There were cable systems, mostly on the East Coast, reported that they’ve never had PPV activity on the level of One Night Stand, including one who said that he expects that it’ll end up doing 2 million buys! This won’t happen, as the West Coast buys won’t be nearly that level and I think 4-500k is about right, which is still huge.

FlashBack!
My Top Ten ECW Moments

10) Shane Douglas grabs on to Gary Wolfe’s Neck Halo and shakes- This had to be one of the greatest angles ever. They had so completely sold Gary Wolfe’s broken neck that when Shane grabbed it and shook, everyone went bananas. I was at the show before that one and still don’t know whether or not Wolfe was faking it or not.

9) Prime Time Brian Lee gets knocked off the scaffold through a bunch of tables- This is the visual that I loved, much like that chairshot that Dreamer gave to Raven. It was amazing to me that Lee didn’t end up crippled because he went through those tables all wrong.

8) Taz and Sabu face off for the first time in more than a year. When the lights went out after Taz choked out 911 at November to Remember, you knew that when they came back on, it was going to be Sabu, but it didn’t matter. This was what everyone was waiting for. There was so much electricity in the audience that it carried over through the TV showing. Amazing.

7) Chris Candito debuts on ECW- Chris Candito was in the first show at the ECW Arena, and when he returned after being fired by the WWF, it was nice. He gave a great little promo, playing like he was a face, but then turned and called all the fans idiots. It was a sweet promo that I completely marked out for.

6) Sabu puts 2 Cold Scorpio through a wall- This wasn’t great for most folks, as it happened at the dog track they ran in Boston, but it almost knocked me completely over. These were my two favourite wrestlers in the world at the time and getting to see them live, and nearly get squished by them, was awesome.

Nope. Not ECW. We know what drives traffic -- would-be Divas in bikinis.

5) Taz goes through the mat- When Bam Bam Bigelow fell backwards and put Taz through the ring to win the World TV Championship, I was amazed. To this day that’s the greatest single visual I’ve ever seen from ECW. The fact that it led to Taz jobbing is what keeps it from being Number 1 on this list.

4) The Lesbian Kiss- Watching Beaulah and Kimona Wanalaya fake making out on the mat of the ECW arena is a classic. You can’t go wrong with Hot Lesbian Action.

3) Barely Legal- From the start, it was obvious that ECW on PPV was going to be incredible, and that first show, with Taz vs. Sabu and the Three-way dance main event was without a doubt the first shot in what could have been a real war for Number 1. Sadly, the WWF heard the shot and stole their thunder. The Double Turn of Taz and Sabu with Bill Alfonso going with Sabu was great.

2) Rey Misterio vs. Psicosis in the Mexican Death match- Wow, hard core Lucha. They brawled in the parking lot and Misterio hit a Rana off of a car! HE finished the match with a Hurrancanrana off the stage. This was the greatest match in ECW history, in my eyes, because it was everything that ECW wanted to be: great work rate, lots of innovative moves and brawling. Eddy vs. Malenko may have been better pure matches, but this was amazing.

1) How many times do I have to say it? The Pitbulls vs. Raven and Richards in Double Dog Collars- How much booking can a match handle? This had just about as much as the finish of One Night Stand. Almost every major ECW storyline was represented here. They had Richards get bloodied up in the back. They had Raven with a crimson mask. Tommy Dreamer got his first pin against Raven, though admittedly, it was disallowed by Alfonso and never counted. 911 came to the ring and after Big Dick Dudley chokeslammed Dreamer, Alfonso said that the Choke Slam was legal and 911, who had been waiting nearly a year for the chance, finally got to Choke Slam Bill. There were powerbombs through tables, off the top, one that nearly killed Raven. There was ether used! There was a great match that everyone has been talking about for years. Rick Scaia, the brother of my pal Steve and the editor of Online Onslaught for more years than I can say, said this was the best match he’d ever seen live.

That’s all for today. On Friday, I’ll have more.

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Chris Garcia