Falls Count Anywhere

08-02-05

Mucha Leche

RAW
I liked RAW quite a bit. There was a whole bunch of fun stuff goin’ on. We opened with Chris Jericho coming to the ring and doing a pretty weak promo on John Cena. He did call him Young MCena, which had me rolling. John ran in and beat on Jericho until security came and broke it up. Bischoff then announced that Jericho would by the ref in a No DQ match against Carlito in the Main Event. Cena got a priceless look on his face when Bisch announced that.

In a match that I kinda liked, they had Shelton Benjamin and The Big Show beat Snitsky (The Man with No First Name) and Chris Masters. The match wasn’t great, there were long instances of rest holds, but it was better than anything else the three lumps in the match have done in ages. Big Show shushed the crowd and then delivered one hell of a slap to Snitsky’s chest. Nice touch.

The crowd started to get into the match more and more as they went on, especially when Benjamin started making his come back. Big Show was put over as more of a monster than he has been of late. They did a great spot where Benjamin gave Big Show his leg and Show whipped him around to deliver a stiff Whip Kick to Masters. I thought it was fun.

The Eugene Invitational was next. Kurt Angle came out and said that he wanted a rematch. Eugene said that he wasn’t from Connecticut, but Angle pointed out that Eugene wasn’t from Cleveland either. Eugene was saddened that his ruse had been discovered.

Dances with Fools

Angle ran down Native Americans (they were at Mohegan Sun Casino) and that brought out Tatanka! I missed Chris Chavis lo all these years. He wasn’t in bad shape, though it’s obvious that he hasn’t been training too hard lately. As a Native American, that qualified him to take on Eugene. He hit a kinda-Angle Slam, but when Eugene put on the Ankle Lock, Angle jumped him. Tatanka made the save. This was fun.

Vince McMahon came out and said that they had passed Gunsmoke as the longest running prime time fiction show with 600+ episodes. He then said that he made a good business decision and had rehired Matt Hardy. Good pop for Hardy. Matt came out and said that Vince didn’t bring him back, the people brought him back, which is both true and false. In a way, it was the people that got him fired.

He did the entire interview in character but referring to real situations, like calling Lita Amy and Edge Adam. He told the story of how the two of them betrayed him and that he was gonna kill Edge at SummerSlam. The feud of the summer just took flight. This was a great interview, the type I expect from Jericho. He was so real and got across intensity and anger in such a real way. There hasn’t been a feud with this good a set-up in years.

Rob Conway, who is now doing an arrogant bastard gimmick, beat Val Venis. He wrestled with sunglasses on and when Venis knocked them off, he went nuts and won with a thing called the Ego Trip. It’s a gimmick that’s bound to fail, but he’s got some charisma.

He also then stalked his daughter.

In another great interview segment, Shawn Michaels mocked Hogan on the Larry King Show. He played Hogan, constantly saying ‘Brother’ and doing all the Hulk mannerisms. I was a big fan of this, as it kinda made him into a face. He promptly turned himself heel again by SuperKicking the Larry King guy and the Camera Dude. The crowd liked it too. I am liking the way they are dealing with Shawn in this set-up to the match.

They did the Diva Search and this week it was the Joust thing. Elizabeth won, beating Ashley in the finals. I like Elizabeth, but Ashley is still my girl. I’m betting that she’s in the finals. Rob Schneider was there and was making an ass out of himself to promote Deuce Bigelow Returns, or whatever it’s called. He looked like he was having fun.

John Cena overcame the odds and beat Carlito in the match with Jericho as ref (though there was also a second ref). The match was pretty good, at least on the level of the previous Carlito vs. Cena matches. Jericho kept interfering, which made it more impressive when Cena got the pin after the FU. Jericho also kept fast counting Cena when Carlito went for pins. It was a smart story to tell. Jericho went for a Lionsault, but ran into Bischoff which allowed for the ending with Cena on top. After the match, Jericho attacked Cena, hitting him with a camera and busting him open.

There wasn’t a lot of good wrestling, save for the main event, but it was a solid show.

NEWS
Well, Spanky and Jamie Noble were hired back. I’m pretty sure the reasoning is that neither of them signed with TNA and they realized that they were a little light on Cruisers, so they probably signed them for less than they made the first go-‘round.

FlashBack! (Sorta)
I’m very pleased to say that the North American Science Fiction Convention, taking place in Seattle the first weekend in September, will be the first to ever have a panel on the Masked Wrestler. Though I don’t have specifics, it was included on the list of panels they were planning on having. I’m very excited, since I was the one who suggested it. There’s a lot of masked comic book material there, much of it coming from the last five years, but the thing that I’m sure more than one person will point out is Sonambulo.

Here's one Chris missed. All part of the service.

Sonambulo is a comic book written and drawn by Rafael Navarro. Sonambulo is a former wrestler who has become a private eye. He has the power to extract dreams from people, which help him solve cases. It’s more complicated than that, but it’s all there in that statement. He’s always getting mixed up in all sorts of strange happenings, including zombies, ghosts and other Otherworldly things.

There was talk, back around 1999, that Robert Rodriguez had bought the rights to make a movie of Sonambulo. That talk died down when the Spy Kids franchise took off. The word on the street was he had approached Antonio Banderas and a few others to star. Nothing ever happened from it.

There is another comic that deserves some mention. The good folks at From Parts Unknown turned me on to Quebrada, an Italian comic that features a masked woman and others in a beautiful comic that is unlike anything you’ve ever read. Of course, it’s also in Italian, so it can be a little hard to get through.

There are others. Mucha Lucha, which has done well not only on TV, but in comic form for DC Kids. El Gato, which I’ve never managed to read. There’s a masked wrestler book called The Masked Wrestler, which I really enjoy, though it’s getting harder to find issues.

Perhaps the unsung heroes of the Masked Comic genre are the Hernandez Bros. In comics like Love & Rockets, they have wrestlers show up, often in masks. They did a classic three part series on women wrestlers called Whoa Nelly which also featured a couple of lady wrestlers.

So, I’ve got a lot to talk about when I get to Seattle. If anyone wants a copy of the tape I’ll be shooting, let me know and I’ll send ya one. It should be an interesting panel.

OK, a little bit of site news. I’ll be gone on Friday, so I’ll do a super-sized issue on Tuesday. Hope you all have a good week, and to all those going to WorldCon, get me stuff!

Talk about today's column in the forums!

Chris Garcia