Falls Count Anywhere

06-29-04

I can dodge a wrench.

RAW
RAW opened with HHH and the rest of Evolution keeping the Eugene thing goin’ on strong. They did a really good interview, featuring more tactics to convince Eugene that Evolution were the only real friends that he had. William Regal came out and said that Eugene was walking into a trap. HHH said that Regal wasn’t really Eugene’s friend, which seemed to hurt poor Eugene. Bischoff set up the match where HHH would take on Regal with Eugene as the ref.

Edge and Chris Jericho took on Randy OrTista in a rematch from last week. I was highly entertained as they worked a very smart match. Batista is highly improved, and his powerslam and full nelson made good use of his HUGE size. He’s 35, by the way, which means that at his size, he’s got a limited life in the ring. They worked a nicely paced match that went back and forth with Batista controlling a fair portion of the event. Orton did the highest standing dropkick I’ve ever seen. The finish saw Batista accidentally clothesline the hell out of Orton, who landed very awkwardly on his neck, and Edge hit the spear and Jericho got the Lionsault for the pin. Good stuff.

HHH and Flair talked about making Eugene an honorary member of Evolution, and Flair said that would kill their gimmick. HHH explained the whole plot, just in case some of us at home didn’t see what was goin’ on.

One of them is actually Playmate of the Year 2004.

They did another set of Diva auditions and this one was way more boobtacular! Seriously, there were juggs for miles on this one. There were a couple of girls who I am sure will make it through, and one of them I think was from America’s Next Top Model.

Lita did more of her terrible acting backstage with Stacey, explaining that she slept with Kane so he’d stop picking on Matt. Really, she’s not a good actress, so they should stop giving her these storylines and let her wrestle, as her improvement there of late has been real good.

Jim Ross interviewed Kane in the ring. They did a really nice nod to their earlier storylines by having security surround the ring so Kane wouldn’t get fire happy again. Kane said that he wants a baby to cuddle and love and to teach all the things that he’s found in this crazy world. I’m paraphrasing, of course. Bischoff came out and said that the only way Benoit could win was to make Kane tap and that Kane would win the title if he made Benoit tap, or pinned him, or Chris got DQ’d, or counted out. That’s a nice way to build a babyface, by having him overcome very long odds. Matt Hardy eventually jumped Kane and gave him a nice beating to a decent pop. Bisch had security escort Hardy out.

William Regal lost to HHH in a match that didn’t get much reaction since Regal has been gone for so long. The match was an interesting combination of European Uppercuts and Regal’s chain wrestling. Eugene kept chiding Regal for breaking the rules and Flair would distract him while HHH would use fouls. Flair threw HHH the brass knucks, but Regal KO’d him with a punch then grabbed the knucks, which Eugene saw and he disqualified Regal. HHH attacked Regal and Eugene, which led to Eugene thinking that Regal had attacked him, leading him to flip out and whail on Regal. HHH and Flair pulled him off. I liked this segment, not so much for the match, but for the advancing of the storyline. I also noted that Regal has lost so much mass that he needs some more time to get back in shape.

Sgt. Slaughter, who has dropped a lot of weight, came out with Rhyno to take on La Resistance. Slaughter is the same age as Flair and Lawler, yet has looked older than either for the last few years. The match wasn’t great, but the crowd was into Slaughter, especially when he put on the Cobra Clutch. Slaughter took La Resistance’s Au Revoir, the great neckbreaker / Suplex finisher.

They plugged Ric Flair’s book with a great package. This was seriously the best thing they’ve done for Flair’s memory in ages.

Bischoff announced that next week, Eugene will be the acting General Manager. That should be hella interesting.

Keep searchin'...

Chris Benoit and Kane had a match that lacked a bit in heat, but made up for it in drama. The worked the gimmick of the match beautifully and Benoit kept going for submissions and Kane kept powering out. Kane worked hard too. This match should be looked at as the one that really made Benoit look like a champion, as he felt like a classic 1980s baby face champ, like Rick Martel or Sting. Just a great match that ended the show right. Kane chokeslammed Benoit after tapping out, which led to Lita coming out. She was looking all supportive, and presented the belt to Kane and raised his hand. When he turned, she kicked him low and tried to hit him with the belt. Kane then lifted Lita for the chokeslam, but he got the confused look on his face and put her down, telling her to never do that again. Benoit then hit him with the belt and we went off the air.

I thought it was a good show, though the things that really annoy me, like the Lita and Kane stuff, were still there. I want to see how they are gonna do this Diva search, and I really want to see more of this Eugene stuff.

NEWS
Vince McMahon has been suffering from Diverticulitis and was not at the pay-per-view on Sunday. This is pretty serious, but he should pull through. The Great American Bash was supposedly the first PPV he’s missed since 1994. He’ll be away for the next week or so, though he is still calling the shots over the phone.

Last week’s RAW did a 4.2, which is the highest in months, mostly due to the return of Rock. SmackDown! was up to a 3.1. I believe that puts the two shows about even in the total number of actual viewers.

Ultimate Fighting Championship will be doing a reality show on Spike TV starting in January. It had been talked about for ages. This should help UFC a lot, as they need regular TV.

HHH may be out as Conan. Milius had been all for using H, but Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger said that he’d be interested in reprising his role. No idea how this will end up.

The Great American Bash Analysis
The Bash was a wash-out. Seriously, there was so much they could have done, so many ways they could have improved the product as a whole by doing smart booking, and they blew it. Why? Who knows? Maybe the creative team has run out of ideas. Maybe Vince is nixing things that might otherwise be great.

Either of these sound plausible, but still, it’s obvious that they are treating SmackDown! as the less important child and aren’t interested in giving it what it needs to survive. There were a half-dozen decision made that completely stump me as to why they were made.

The first was the choice to put the belt on John Bradshaw Layfield. Yes, I understand the concept that you have a heel win the belt to build to a run by a face. Yes, there are a lot of faces in the SD! lockerroom who don’t have a heel to work with. Still, Eddie has been a popular champ, he’s worked hard and has been willing to sacrifice to get matches over. Now, Eddie may have wanted the change as a way to get some of the pressure off of his shoulders, but JBL is not yet at the level where he can work as a heel champ.

The match itself was a bad idea, too. I get that you don’t want a soon-to-be-returning champ (and let’s not kid ourselves, Eddie will have the belt back shortly) getting pinned, but the finish was so old that Strangler Lewis would have seen it coming…and he was blind! The match wasn’t what I had hoped for, but I did enjoy the fact that they had the lights on the corners. It was a pretty fun little match, certainly better than most strap matches in recent memory, and JBL bled and bled. Still, the screwjob finish sucked.

Still, I think it was Vince throwing JBL a bone for all the trouble he’s been in recently.

Keeping the belt on Cena would seem to be the proper choice, right? I don’t think so. Rene Dupree is so close that giving him the US belt and having him do pro-Vichy promos and stuff would have been great for his character. The way the match played, with Booker and Cena as the final two, wasn’t right either. Why not have Booker and RVD eliminate each other somehow and give us a ready-made feud? Dupree and Cena could have been built far better. Cena is ready for a run at the World Title, no question. JBL is a heel, and he could easily have found an easy opponent who he could work off of in Cena. If you made the choice to go with JBL, you’d want to put Cena in line for a title run.

Not so great for Paul...

Kenzo Suzuki having a match with Billy Gunn made sense, as they had a little mini-program based on the match on SD! last week. The same could be said of Mordecai and Bob Holly. Why have Luther Reigns take on Charlie Haas? Squashing Haas serves no purpose but to hurt a promising young wrestler. I do have to say that the Mordecai character is starting to work and the finisher and the entrance are both over, but they need to do a lot of work to get him to the point where he can carry a feud.

The big mystery is why did they go against everything they have ever said and kill off Paul Bearer? Paul was on sched to go and get some surgery, but there were far better ways of getting him out than by having the WWE break its long-time rule that there would be no murder on WWE TV. I’d be more OK with it if it weren’t such a stupid angle.

The way the WWE is going further and further into the cartoony aspect is killing off interest in the SmackDown! product. The Undertaker could be an effective character, if he’s used like he was during the Cena match this last week. If they continue the Paul Heyman storyline, I’ll bet they’ll start to slide even further down the tubes.

That’s all for today. More on the festering cesspool that is SmackDown! on Friday. 

Chris Garcia