Falls Count Anywhere

06-17-08

Yabba Dabba Doof!

You know what I love about wrestling? When the folks realize they can do simple stuff and have it work. There were some great moments that were really simple. The Stomper (Archie Gouldie) had his son attacked and that led him to do a simple, powerful and intense interview that just blew everything out of the water.

He didn’t rant and rave and come up with cute metaphors. He just said “I’m gonna get you Bad News Allen” in a couple of different ways, talked about what his son meant to him and that was that. Simple. He wanted revenge and he was going to get it.

And shockingly, the WWE did something just as smart.

Melina got beaten down by Beth Phoenix, who is getting hotter every day, in their I Quit match at One Night Stand. That was an easy thing. They had Melina cost Beth a rematch with Mickie James for the title by hitting her with a boot and Beth, who is supposedly going nuts because she lost the Woman’s Championship, got an I Quit match. Melina got beat up, said I Quit to an awesome choke and that was that.

On Monday, they booked a tag match between Katie Lea Burchill with Beth Phoenix against Mickie James and Melina. When Melina came down, she was intense staring at Beth. She wasn’t paying any attention to Katie (that was for the guys in the audience to handle) and Mickie started off with Katie. Melina remained fixed on Beth, so much so that she completely ignored Mickie asking for a tag more than once.

When Katie tagged Beth in, Melina started pacing like a tiger and sticking her hand out for a tag. She got it and lunged onto Beth, flailing away at her. It wasn’t wrestling per se, but it was brawling. Eventually Beth turned her over and got to pounding on her enough to get the tag for Katie, who beat on her some more, and then she tossed her outside where Beth blindsided Melina and that took her out of most of the rest of the match. She never tagged in and that led to Beth getting the pin on Mickie.

Does the story have a happy ending?

Now, that’s simple storytelling. The 1980s led to a great amount of complication in booking, and ECW in the 90s didn’t help. The most successful angles were almost always simple. Andre was jealous of Hulk’s success and they drew huge for the match at WrestleMania III. The follow-up was the complicated Earl/Dave Hebner switch that didn’t lead to much special. ECW was always complicating things. The Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven feud was one of the perfect examples. It started out as the two of them hating each other from their days at Summer Camp.

It got complicated when they started adding folks like Beulah to the mix, who had been the fat girl at camp and now was a hotty. There were twists and turns, Beulah was pregnant and then she wasn’t, they added in the lesbian kiss with Kimona Wanalaya, and so much more. The Sandman feud with Raven, which involved Sandman’s ex-wife and even his kid, was another convoluted mess, though it was satisfying to the max to the vampires who wanted blood.

Simplicity isn’t always best, but when you have participants who can pull it off, it’s worth watching.

I saw the Gina Carano fight from the CBS MMA show. It was a good one and Carano looked far from dominant, but was solid. She’s probably best-known as Crush from the American Gladiators, but that show’s ratings aren’t great right now and who knows if they’ll be back in the Fall. I think they will be as a Mid-Season, but that’s also a long-shot. Carano needs a good feud to make her into a superstar and set up a series of matches. I’d love to see them bring over one or two of the Women’s Olympic Wrestling stars that’ll be created in China this year. I don’t think Carano could hang with any of them on the ground, but as a striker she might take ‘em.

Kimbo Slice’s match wasn’t great. He didn’t look that good and he gassed hard, but he won with a KO and when he punched the dude’s ear, it exploded with blood all over the place. I still think Kimbo’s the real deal, and if they sign someone like Randy Couture, he’ll lose, but it could make him a much bigger star.

I haven’t watched much WWE lately, but the stuff I’ve seen kinda shows them in a holding pattern. It’s a shame, as they just need to break someone out and make them a star. Kennedy could be it, but he’s got at least one, and possibly two, strikes against him in the Wellness Programme and he’s not as over in the ring as he should be. I’m likely his feud with Paul Burchill and his run-in to beat on Burchill after the Melina/James vs. Phoenix/Katie match got a decent amount of heat. We’ll have to see.

That’s all for this week. I’ll have more next!

Chris Garcia