Falls Count Anywhere

06-26-06

Falls Count Anywhere will now be runs on Mondays and Thursdays -- more wrestling means more Garcia...

Call me Bridgewalker.

SmackDown!
I missed it again since I was making the 48 Hour movie. Honestly, it sounded like a dull show.

The Ultimate Fighter Final
Justin Morris, a good pal and a former wrestler, was on our 48 Hour crew and we watched The UF finale together. I haven’t watched any of the Ultimate Fighter this round, but I’ve kept up with reviews and I think this batch of fighters isn’t as interesting as those who came before, particularly in Season One.

Keith Jardine vs. Wilson Gouveia was a decent match that Jardine won. Lots of leg kicks. This was a back and forth with Gouveia taking the first round and Jardine the second and last. A solid take-down in the third allowed for Jardine to get the victory. Exciting fight and the crowd approved as well.

The biggest problem I have with UFC’s TV is that it’s so slow. There’s one match an hour, lots of talking (like with the guy from the new Blade series) and not much happens when there’s not a fight.

Ed Hermann took on Kendall Grove. Wow. I mean just WOW. I loved the way this fight played, particularly the first round. Lot’s of ground work, particularly with Hermann in control. Grove, the fan fave, didn’t just lay there either, but he tried an armbar and later a triangle. Neither worked. Second round was Grove on the bottom, but getting the better and nearly catching submissions left and right. The third round, with two fighters who were obviously on the verge of break-down, they just went at it and it ended up with Grove winning the decision and Dana White then saying that Hermann would also get a big ole contract as well. Great fight.

This makes me cry.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but they did a Hall of Fame presentation to Randy Couture and Joe Rogan said that fighters were looking up to him and that they couldn’t have a better role model than Randy. That made Randy cry. That’s cool.

Wanna see a destruction? Michael Bisping vs. Josh Haynes was one. Just brutal with the knees. Big John gave Bisping a knee to the chin that got him a deducted point. That was late in the first. The Second was just a massacre. Haynes tried, and he almost held up, but you got the feeling that Bisping was a second away from killing him at every moment.

The Main Event was Kenny Florian beating taking down Sam Stout and choking him out. That was pretty much all there was.

A great show at times for the fighting, but the way they put these together sucks. Still, very much worth watching.

Vengeance
We got started with Randy Orton vs. Kurt Angle. Kurt had to do the job, since Randy did the job on the ECW PPV; they had Randy win pretty much clean. Kurt worked his new style. Unlike Taz, who they made unbeatable to keep the shooter gimmick going, they’re having Kurt just work like a shooter. It’s one way to go about it, but they shouldn’t have jobbed Kurt like they did.

Randy tossed Kurt throat first into the exposed turnbuckle and then gave him the RKO. It was a really good match, and they could have done so much more with it or at least made Kurt into something more special.

Vince did comedy with Coach, a kid in a wheelchair and a penis pump. If you think about it, most bad jokes open with a stranger cast of characters.

You know, I can't think of a tasteful caption.

In a fast match, Umaga beat Eugene. They had Doink the Clown (probably Steve Lombardi), Jim Duggan and Kamala came out with Eugene. It’s a weird gimmick to have old timers come out, but it could work for a while if they get enough legends in. Basically Umaga destroyed Eugene, and then Doink. That reminds me that I really should get a copy of Jake the Snake on a Plane.

I’m surprised that they booked this the way they did, managing to make Flair vs. Foley interesting. The match was meh, and there was no way that the match should have worked. Flair got a roll-up for a pin, then Foley got DQed to give Ric the win. What had to be the highlight was Flair getting attacked by Foley with a Barbed Wire Bat. Flair gushed blood all over. It was a HUGE bladejob and it really sold the angle. They’ll keep it going and it should end up with a good finale with all sorts of brawling.

Carlito was helping Torrie by holding her puppies, her ACTUAL little dogs, and then Maria and Torrie were putting on oil and Carlito was watching until his music went off and he had to go to the ring. That was funny as Carlito has a good charisma in these bits.

The match with Nitro and Benjamin wasn’t bad at all, though it was just a typical match between a bunch of great athletes. Carlito has been more athletic of late, flying more and more. That’s good. There was a big Double Senton spot here too. They did the TNA spot where they had Carlito and Benjamin German Suplexed by Nitro. That was very cool. It ended with Carlito hitting Benjamin with the BackPack and then Nitro pushing him off to get the pin. I liked it and it gave Johnny Nitro a much-needed push for RAW by winning the IC Title. The only problem? The title means so little now that I didn’t even mention it until the third to last sentence.

DX tricked Vince and put Green Spray in the penis pump. Weird.

Edge and RVD did a strong match for the title. I was surprised that they let RVD win. This felt like the match where they’d do the switch back to a RAW guy. The brawling was good, and Edge reigned in RVD a bit. Lita held up a chair for RVD to get speared into, but RVD moved and Edge went into the chair. That was an old ECW spot, so I wasn’t surprised. Frog Splash gave the win to RVD. This was a match that worked and gave the people a good time. Strangely, I’m interested in seeing more of this feud.

Cher's final farewell performance RUINED by an overly affectionate Kane.

Well, Real Kane took on Fake Kane. It wasn’t very bad, but it wasn’t what anyone wanted to see. Too many chokeslams though, but that added a little to the match itself.

Big Extreme Lumberjack Match. It was a match that was laid out so well that I forgot about a lot of Cena’s limitations. He started out fast and hit a Fisherman’s Suplex. Sabu won’t hold up for very long since he’s doing all the big spots. Triplejump Moonsaults, Planchas, Legdrops, it’s helping ECW get over, but for how long?

Cena and Sabu both brawled well, and Cena gave Sabu an FU on a table. He then put Sabu in the STFU and got the tap. The lumberjacks worked well and in the end, the RAW guys chased off the ECW guys. This hurt the ECW brand, but the match was good. Afterwards, RVD and Cena faced off and basically said that Cena will win the title back from RVD tomorrow on RAW.

The main event was DX destroying Spirit Squad. No, I mean it, it was the MAIN EVENT of a Pay-Per-View. A show people paid money for and it was basically a RAW final match. It was entertaining, it had a lot going for it, but there were issues. It ended exactly the way you think, one getting the Superkick and one getting the Pedigree. Afterwards, they had Mitch join the Kiss My Ass Club: Triple H Chapter.

Overall, this is the kind of PPV that wasn’t great, but there was some here that you had to enjoy. I like the direction they’re going with RAW; ECW isn’t working too brilliantly, but they’re getting better.

I’ll have RAW and ECW on Thursday for ya!

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Chris Garcia