Falls Count Anywhere

06-17-05

It helps to wear Brut.

SmackDown!
Well, RAW was really bad, but SmackDown! was pretty good. There are major problems, and the draft lottery doesn’t seem to be helping. There’s no champion. I guess they’re waiting until after the HHH-Batista match to make the move of some belt to SmackDown!. Either that or they really are trying to make SD! a lame duck by taking away its champion. Who knows? I just know that Cena was much better off on Thursdays than he is on Monday.

The show opened with JBL doing a long rant against ECW. He’s got such a great character, but he’s being used to carry the show, which just sucks. This brought out Chris Benoit and started a match between him and Doug Bashem. This wasn’t a bad little match. They worked back and forth and there was plenty of interference to keep things moving. Doug hit a Superplex on Benoit, but he managed to kick out of the pin attempt. Benoit managed a roll-up to win the match, but then the rest of the Cabinet attacked.

While they were holding up Benoit to destroy him, the lights went out and The Undertaker was in the ring. This led to JBL bailing and the Cabinet taking a beat-down. Theodore R. Long came out and said that JBL and UT would meet in a No DQ match. Why have a no DQ match when you know that JBL will just have his boys interfere?

Eddie Guerrero and Paul London had a fast little match that I really enjoyed. Eddie went for a Back Drop, but Paul landed on his feet and ended up taking a Tilt-a-Whirl Backbreaker. Eddie got himself a chin lock, but London escaped and hit a gorgeous DropSault. London went to the top rope, but Eddie pushed Paul’s feet out from under him and Paul landed on the back of his neck. Eddie then hit the Brainbuster and followed that up with a Texas Cloverleaf for the submission. Eddie wouldn’t let go and Rey Mysterio ran in and attacked Eddie. They brawled to the back with Rey getting the better of Eddie until he escaped in the back of a semi.

The Bashems quit being JBL’s Secretaries of Defense after JBL couldn’t keep their names straight. That’s why I thought that Homer shot Mr. Burns.

Carlito’s Cabana was only OK this week. Carlito was great at getting the crowd to hate him. He said that Hershey, PA, was cool because it was Chocolate City (hey, George Clinton didn’t mention Hershey), but then said that the inhabitants of Hershey must all be fat and have diabetes. Ha! Booker and Sharmell came out and Carlito said that Sharmell should be drafted so that she could be with Kurt. Booker attacked Carlito and they then threw apples at him. After CCC got backstage, he was mad at Matt Morgan for not defending him, but he said he had to prepare for the match with The Big Show.

Big Show beat Morgan by DQ when Carlito hit him in the back with a chair. The match was what you’d expect. Afterwards, Morgan was about to give Big Show the F5 through the table, but Show got out of it, pushed Morgan into Carlito and then Chokeslammed him through the table instead.

Orlando Jordan and Hardcore Holly had another decent little match for the US Title. Holly did the Frankensteiner again, which I’d forgotten he used to do. He also hit his Full-Nelson Slam. Holly basically controlled most of the match until Jordan tossed him out to the apron. Holly tried to come back in with a Sunset Flip, but Orlando sat down to get the pin. I liked this a lot more than I expected.

Heidenreich came out with a giant chocolate bar. The Divas came out and made a few jokes. Joy, who looked about 99.99% Amy Weber hot, said she had a giant kiss for the big man, and she gave hima giant Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss. Who didn’t see that coming. MNM then came out and Melina, after doing her splits, cut a great promo on the girls and on Heindenreich. This was a seriously great job by Melina. Michelle McCool attacked Melina, and MNM gave Heidenreich the Snapshot. Good segment, all because of MNM.

JBL came out with Orlando Jordan, but Benoit attacked Orlando to even the odds. This left JBL and UT to battle it out mano-y-mano. They worked a typical big man match where JBL kicked out after a Chokeslam and UT managed to escape after a Clothesline from Hell. After a while, maybe a little too long, JBL took the Last Ride, but again kicked out, and when Undertaker signaled the Tombstone, Randy Orton came out and gave him the RKO, which allowed JBL to roll-up UT for the win.

Fast News
I don’t have too much time, so here’s the news in brief.

Samoa Joe has signed with TNA and will be on their next PPV.

WGN has announced that it is no longer interested in working with TNA. TNA is holding out hope that Spike will give it a slot.

RAW scored a 4.0 in the ratings on Monday, up from the last three weeks for a very bad show.

CM Punk has accepted a deal to start with the WWE in their developmental territory. Quite a surprise when you consider the type of wrestler that John Laurenitis likes to call up.

There was heat between Benoit and Guerrero from the ECW PPV, and the two exchanged words afterwards.

The figure that some folks are floating around for One Night Stand is 800k. I’d be shocked it that was the final number, but it’s not out of the realm of reason. My guy in Boston’s major Cable Company said that they had huge traffic, about on the level of WrestleMania, and that each time they have a replay, the traffic again spikes. All anyone knows is that this event made tons of money.

WWE is on the British Isles this weekend, with shows that have almost completely sold out and made the company a lot of much-needed scratch.

Ron Trongard, the voice of the AWA, died on Thursday. He had liver cancer. He had also done a cup o’ coffee with the WWF in the late 1980s as an announcer. He was 73.

That’s all for today. I’ll have the review of the TNA PPV and more news and views on Tuesday, after I’ve soaked up a little wine and vine.

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Chris Garcia