Falls Count Anywhere

06-18-07

I'm too busy being delicious...

SmackDown!
The ratings for SmackDown! were exactly the same as the week before. That’s a dangerous number, in fact. There was no trend towards the end of the show either. That means people weren’t expecting a big reveal and they didn’t think McMahon was really dead and that it was an important show to see.

The Monday number will be more important because if RAW stays the same, there’s no way to say that the angle is working and they’ll have to change all their plans for the next few months. I’m interested, and I think they did a very good job of mixing everything up and turning out an entertaining product, but I don’t think that it’ll turn into a ratings hit.

The SD! show this week was solid, if unspectacular. They had the minor problem of doing a fake tribute show the night after Sensational Sherri had actually died. That’s a rough one. They did the ten bell salute and the crowd booed heavily. That was a nice way of showing that they know it was all an angle. I think we’ll see more responses like that over the next few weeks.

Deuce and Domino took on London and Kendrick in a match that wasn’t bad at all. Kendrick and London are the only two in the Fed who can work with those guys and make them look any good. London and Kendrick worked on Domino’s arm. Cherry is so freakin’ hot. She’s tragically underused as she could be a serious Diva. They did a nice hot tag sequence which led to a nice run by London, only to be stopped by a big running knee from Deuce for the pin. The running knee, while a nice throwback to the wrestling of the 1950s (and therefore fitting with the character) is a terrible modern finisher. They need to give them something bigger.

William Regal did a great promo talking about how Mr. McMahon was the only American worth anything. He mentioned his time as Commisioner and enjoying kissing Vince’s backside because it was such a good backside. A great tongue in cheek promo.

Teddy Long did a promo that was like Regal’s, only less fun.

Just working their way through the pain...

Matt Hardy took on William Regal in a match that showed how over Matt is even without a real push. The guy’s Teflon, people! This was a solid match, just about what I’d expect from these two, and there were a few solid submission moves that you don’t see often enough. The weird thing is I think these two had a match with the perfect pacing for a two hour TV show.

Regal gave Hardy a stiff back suplex. It was ugly in a good way. They did a sequence of double underhooks that saw Hardy reverse for a near-fall and then Regal hit a powerbomb for a near fall. Matt hit the Twist of Fate pretty suddenly for the win. Really good match. They need to use Regal like they do Finlay to train up young guys. Putting him on RAW might be a good idea.

Jillian and Chavo take their turns saying nice things about McMahon.

MVP and Batista had a good match. Not a great match, and certainly not nearly as good as the Hardy-Regal match, but good enough that I never got bored. It made MVP look great that he could give Batista a strong match. They went longer than I expected and MVP was bumping and escaping all over the place. MVP really learned a lot from his work with Benoit and here he had his timing on.

That’s something that gets overlooked a lot. If you’re a good wrestler and can make things look realistic (and Jerry Lawler in the 1970s and 80s was amazing at that) you’re great, but if you’ve got good timing, you can do less and still have an entertaining match. Ric Flair’s got impeccable timing. Shawn Michaels might be the only guy who has better. Benoit’s is great, too. Eddy Guerrero and Dean Malenko’s matches in ECW were all built around the two of them showing what they could do with their hot moves and great timing.

Batista hit the DemonBomb for the pin. It’s an entertaining show so far.

Sgt. Slaughter did a promo for Vince that was awesome. He said that he’d keep fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way! Beautifully done. Edge did his and he was the most serious. I mean, you couldn’t take his statements any other way than he was really sorry Vince was gone. What a perfect heel!

When exactly did Vince become a Bond villain?

They did a Fatal Fourway for the shot at Chavo. It was a decent enough match -- you’re always going to get good stuff from Jamie Noble, Shannon Moore, Daivari and Jimmy Wang Yang -- but it wasn’t a eye-grabber and my brain wandered off and started thinking about what I’m gonna be doing for Westercon. Yang hit the Moonsault on Daivari for the pin. I really like Yang’s gimmick.

Edge and Ric Flair rekindled their feud from last year and had a good match. Flair is old, but he has his timing and some of his athletic ability remaining. Edge worked harder than anyone. You’d be surprised if you actually looked at how many moves these guys did in comparison to the amount of time they got.

MVP ran in and caused Edge to get DQed, setting up the MVP vs. Ric Flair match for the PPV. It was still a good match. Flair got speared by Edge after the match and then Batista ran in and faced off with Edge.

A good show, though kinda questionable about doing a tribute show to a kayfabe dead dude when there was a real death in the profession. There are people who are saying that they need to drop the gimmick ASAP because of the Sherri thing and if they don’t do something biggish for Sherri on Monday, there’s gonna be some unhappy people.

That’s all for today. More on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia