Falls Count Anywhere

07-29-05

I'm one of the Gassy Ones.

SmackDown!
This was a strange edition, hard to say whether it was a positive or a negative, in fact. There were a few good things, and some bad things, but little of it had to do with the show and much of it had to do with positioning.

We opened with Theodore R. Long in the ring, ready to announce Undertaker vs. Batista when JBL said that his contract guaranteed him a rematch if it wasn’t a solid finish. Teddy then said that JBL and UT would meet in a match for the shot at SummerSlam later in the show. I love Theodore Long, as I’ve said many times, and it seems that he’s lasted forever in a role that most folks thought he’d only be in briefly.

Christian and Orlando Jordan took on Benoit and Booker T in a tag match. It was pretty good as you have two great workers, a solid worker who’s really over at times and Orlando Jordan. The faces started out with fists of fury, knocking the heels out of the ring. Benoit started off with Jordan and things were really good early on. Benoit went for a Crossface early, but Christian broke it up.

Luckily, Booker could still lick Benoit's wrists.

It went back and forth a bit, with a nice segment where Orlando stopped Booker from hitting a Scissors Kick with a clothesline and Christian used a Spinning Heel Kick for a near fall. Christian got on a roll with a Reverse DDT, but he was stopped by a Booker T Side Kick.

When Benoit tagged in, he cleaned up with Rolling Germans and a lot of furious offense before locking in the Crossface on Jordan. Christian could have stopped him, but he chose not to. Hmmmmm…I wanna see where that goes.

Animal had Heidenreich shave himself into a Mohawk. The two of them later squashed a pair of jobbers. Why are they champs?

Melina told the other two MNMers that she had hired a publicist, Jillian. She had a smokin’ bod, I mean really smokin’, but she also had a downside. She talked to Mercury and Nitro, who were kinda disgusted, and then when she turned to the camera, we saw that she had a giant mole. This was lame. They should never have taken the belts off of MNM unless they gave them right back with a destruction that left one or more of the faces injured to get MNM over as the real deal. There’s some seriously bad booking going on with these guys.

In the part of the night that really had me going back and forth, Rey Mysterio brought out his son Dominic and that led Eddie to coming out. He said even though he lost at the Bash, he was going to tell the secret. Rey charged Eddie, but Eddie rushed out the secret, announcing that he was Dominic’s papi. That part wasn’t badly done.

Dominic asked Rey if it was true and then ran off through the crowd with Rey running after him. Eddie then went into the ring with a big children’s book called Eddie’s Bedtime Stories. I’d love to get a copy. He told the story of how he and his wife were on the outs and that he slept with a bunch of sluts and that one of them turned out to be Rey’s wife and that Rey was shootin’ blanks. Well, years of spinning and flying around a wrestling ring will do that to a guy. This was too long, but Eddie was good in his role. I’m still not loving this angle, but this was OK.

The ref ain't gettin' it blurred.

Melina came out of the ring with Jillian to take on Torrie who had Candace Michelle. They basically used the match as an excuse to show shots of Jillian’s mole. The match was awful, and UPN sucks because they blurred every panty shot from Melina. Well, they kinda had to because she was wearing a thong under that microscopic skirt. Melina won, but did it really matter?

The Assistant Concessions Manager found the Mexicools slacking and assumed that they were supposed to be working. Juvy mocked him in at least two languages. The next match between the criminally underused William Regal and Scotty 2 Hotty started, but the Mexicools came out. They beat everyone up, including the ref. I like the Mexicools, but they need to wrestle more than do these angles.

Undertaker got beat by John Bradshaw Layfield in a match that went way too long, but it was fairly good considering who was in there. JBL came out with his ribs taped from the match at the Bash. Undertaker took over and ran with the offense for a long time, I think almost five minutes. JBL managed to get the advantage with a poke to the eyes. JBL went up top, but UT used a Spinebuster off the second rope. UT hit Snake Eyes, and then, when Orlando Jordan hit the ring apron, gave him a big boot. Ref bumps led to Jordan interfering, but the big deal was that UT got near falls for a Downward Spiral and a DDT. JBL used a low blow with the ref dealing with Jordan. Undertaker managed to get the Tombstone on JBL, but Randy Orton gave Undertaker the RKO as his return and that allowed JBL to win and he’ll face Batista at SummerSlam.

Like I said, ponderous.

NEWS
Chris Jericho has re-upped. He’ll be hanging on for two more years and I believe that he’ll be doing more shows with Fozzy and even more VH1 specials. Oddly, an intern friend of mine at MTV-Old Folks has said that Jericho is one of the favorites around the studio.

It’s been reported by a couple of different sources that both Jamie Noble and Spanky have re-signed to the WWE. That’s nice, as they were a little thin on flying talent and those two always guaranteed a fun match. Not sure what plans there are at the moment.

There’s a lot of talk about why Batista wasn’t on SmackDown!. One thing that may be the case is that Vince might be mad at how the Great American Bash went. He was quite upset on the day of the show, though no one’s quite sure what got him annoyed the most. There’s word that Batista is seen as a guy who can only work with HHH and look good. I think if they put him in a feud with Randy Orton or Brock Lesnar he’ll do just fine.

Looking at WWE’s Firings
I didn’t do a look at the positives and negatives of the recent releases. I really should have because it’s not all just people getting dropped that didn’t need to be let go. There were some that were positive releases for the WWE and some that were negatives.

A last look at Dawn Marie, for Garcia's sake.

Let’s start with the ladies.
Dawn Marie- Positive. Sadly, they let her go while she was pregnant, which sucked. They should have kept her on the books until she delivered, but what are you gonna do? She really hadn’t done anything interesting in ages and with a kid coming, it was not likely that she was going to allow wrestling to be her number one priority. Also, with the latest stream of Divas, she seemed the odd woman out at times.

Joy Giovanni- positive. I loved Joy. She was freakin’ hot and her stuff with Amy Weber was really good, but once she was gone and the Big Show angle finished, there was really no need for her.

Jacky Gayda- positive. If they hadn’t of done the dumb angle with Haas a few months ago, she could easily have been able to carry a program, but as it worked out, they had killed her off anyhow.

Tag Teams
The Dudleys- Negative. The Most Decorated Tag Team in WWE history and they were released? Two of the most recognizable faces from ECW and they didn’t get their contracts renewed? These were the two that are most needed in getting MNM over. They would have been invaluable in helping get the Heart Throbs over, but no, they were let go. I understand cost cutting measures, but this was a very bad call. These guys draw money.

The Guys
Maven- Big Positive. He was charismatic and at times he had shown great potential, but he was never going to be a big star. They were smart to get him out of there, and I’m betting he’ll do well in indies and perhaps in TNA.

Spike Dudley- Negative. Spike was a team player and a good worker in a very different category than any of the other smaller wrestlers. He didn’t draw money, that’s true, but he did have good matches and added a lot to the undercard.

Marty Janetty and Gangrel- Positive. They weren’t on TV, and though there may have been storylines for either, really, they weren’t going to make a difference.

Charlie Haas- Negative. They had something with Haas and they blew it. There was a natural feud waiting for him if they traded him to RAW with Shelton, and he had just had that nice run of matches teaming with Bob Holly. He’ll end up in RoH or TNA, but he’ll have his feet before too long. He could have been a good undercard feud.

Kenzo Suzuki- positive. Despite the fact that he entertained me, I was certainly in the minority. He wasn’t a very good worker nor could he do promos that built interest in his programs. He was a failed experiment.

As you can see, with a few exceptions, the WWE really did the right thing. They should have re-signed all three Dudleys and Haas, but the others were no loss and in fact may end up helping clear some dead wood so that others get more time. Plus, the return of Brock Lesnar and CM Punk coming up will help too.

That’s all for this week. Next week will be a Tuesday only, as I’m out of town on Friday.

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Chris Garcia