Falls Count Anywhere

07-25-06

Falls Count Anywhere runs on Mondays and Thursdays -- except this week, because it fell victim to Derek's head being up the fundament of Comic-Con. Or vice versa.

He had a barbecued apple.

TNA PPV Report
I didn’t see it. Sounds like nothing major happened except that Sting won the title shot at Jeff Jarrett.

Oh yeah, and all the squeeing fangirls are complaining that the Naturals cut their hair. I just don’t get it.

RAW
Well, RAW was interesting. That’s a nice way of saying it held my interest but didn’t move me in any direction.

Carlito and Shelton’s feud isn’t being handled right, but they are both showing off what they can do in the ring. Carlito did a backflip off the top rope that was huge. Shelton worked fast and big, what he’s excellent at.

Seriously, other than Rey Mysterio, who’s provided more big moments over the last year than Shelton? Shelton escaped the Backpack but ended up pinned when Carlito reversed a schoolboy. Fun.

Candice Michelle, who is so hot and has so much charisma of late, reffed the match between Torrie/Trish and Mickie/Victoria. The basic point was to start a feud between Mickie and Candice since Trish is feuding with Melina…maybe. Mickie had Torrie pinned, but Candice attacked her, sending her out of the ring. Somehow Victoria didn’t know what was going on and it ended up with Trish hitting Stratusfaction to win the match.

I missed a few things and when I came back, the Highlanders won a squash. They ran into DX later who told them to go to Vince’s office and make themselves at home and make sure to talk real loud because Vince is hard of hearing. They ended up meeting the McMahons later with predictable results. I really do like The Highlanders. They’re a lot of fun, but they’ll never be more than mid-card interest.

Matt Striker was in the ring with a chalk board that proclaimed the EDGE > Cena. While this does check out mathematically, Cena came out and took exception to the aspersion and was about to beat on Striker when Umaga came out. Cena and Umaga fought, but it was bad except for the awesome visual of Cena getting tossed through the chalkboard. Edge came out and distracted Cena enough for Umaga to get the win. That kinda sucked, but the crowd was behind Cena.

More Flair-Foley action, this time with Nitro coming out with Melina. They said that they were personal friends with Foley and that they were done with him. Flair and Nitro fought, Flair ended up going into Melina and the match ended. The Flair-Foley stuff has been real good the last few weeks.

You knock me off my feet.

The Diva Search got rid of one of the women this week. Amy, the chick with real boobs, got booted. I like Layla. She’s cute, boobtacular and she’s got spunk. Amy looked really upset in losing and I’d heard that she was the only one who really wanted it for more than just the contract. Tough Enough was better because you got women who wanted to be wrestlers and not just models. Still, Ashley’s not been bad. Christy Hemme was doin’ OK too.

Shawn Michaels beat Shane McMahon when Vince drew HHH away from the ring and the Spirit Squad attacked. They did the High Spirits toss on Michaels, but he landed on his feet and HHH and Shawn ran them all off. DX was really over this week, but when have they not been?

ECW
I didn’t want to watch it. I really didn’t. I had to, but I turned it off as soon as I saw the Main Event starting. Seriously, I don’t like the idea of Big Show vs. Undertaker for the ECW belt and I certainly don’t like it when it’s obvious that The Great Khali would be joining in. Why can’t they just let guys like Angle and RVD main event? Oh, that’s right, they both got themselves suspended when the new brand needed them most. Great.

In an obvious attempt by Vince and co. to get rid of all that lingering ECW taste that still existed, Sandman got beat by Mike Knox. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that result if it’s used to further a storyline, but it really didn’t seem to be anything but a match. Knox stopped Kelly from stripping and then challenged Sandman. He came out and he accidentally hit Kelly during the match. This was another problem, because they could have had him just lay her out and that would have been a little more ECW than it being an accident. A couple of low blows to Sandman gave Knox the win.

Tommy Dreamer got the Kiss of Death from Paul Heyman. Seriously, it was what Harvey Birdman would have called a Mankiss. It was weird. Test came out and gave Dreamer an Ace Crusher. Still, it was really weird.

A match too painful for decent people to watch.

Sabu and Stevie Richards had a match. I don’t remember these two wrestling each other in the old ECW much. They must have done house shows matches, but I really would have liked to have seen it in the old days. This was slightly below the level of their match at Saturday Night’s Main Event, but it was OK.

Sabu’s been working hard, especially since he knows with what he does at his age (42 according to the Observer, but there are rumors that he’s closer to 45) he’s gotta make the money. Then again, look at what Terry Funk’s done since his late 40s. Sabu won with the Camel Clutch.

CM Punk cut another Promo. There’s the Future of ECW and perhaps of wreslting itself.

After that was the Main Event where I understand that Khali looked so bad that it was worse than watching a dozen Al Snow matches. Man, that’s awful.

Another sub-par show.

That's all for now. Enjoy the Comic-Con coverage!

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Chris Garcia