Falls Count Anywhere

08-06-04

I'll be right back.

SmackDown!
SD! opened with Theodore R. Long cutting a great promo in front of photos of Martin Luther King and Vince McMahon. There is an arrogance to Vince having himself compared to MLK, but the delivery was so strong that I just forgot. He announced that Rob Van Dam vs. John Cena would open the show.

The Cena vs, RVD match as very good, with Cena always improving and RVD having a hot streak of late. They went back and forth to start, and Cena eventually sent RVD to the floor right before we headed to commercial. The crowd was hot for Cena, and at one point an ‘RVD’ chant started, only to be followed by a ‘Cena’ chant. It reminded me of the old RVD-Sabu series where they’d go from chanting one name to another.

We come back from break with Cena in control. Fisherman’s Suplex from Cena for a near fall. RVD came back strong, hitting a dropkick, a Northern Lights Suplex, a Split-Legged Moonsault, and a Legdrop off the top. Booker T was shown in the back, calling for RVD to ‘Finish him!’. RVD hit a Superplex, but Cena managed to move enough to tie up RVD’s legs to get the pin. A strong match to open the show.

Booker and Teddy Long met backstage and shook hands. Teddy then announced that Booker and Cena were so evenly matched that he was booking a Best of Five series between the two to take place starting at SummerSlam. Booker T and Chris Benoit had a fine series of matches in 1998 or so that were a Best of Seven. There are several other classic series for the US Title, most notably Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff in 1986.

Poor Dawn Marie...completely unaware of Garcia's slow approach...

Eddie Guerrero, who is still hurting and won’t wrestle until SummerSlam, drove out to a huge response with Torrie (who looked good), Sable (who looked very good) and Dawn Marie (who looked positively stalkable). The crowd’s reaction was the loudest I’ve heard in ages. The segment wasn’t well received, as the crowd seemed to die until Latino Heat brought his charisma out and stopped talking about the girls and the auction. They showed Eddie’s SummerSlam 100 Yard Dash commercial, which got a good pop. They are selling all the items from Kurt’s office and giving the money to charity. Nice touch.

Orlando Jordan got a surprise pin on Rene Dupree in a match that wasn’t great, but certainly wasn’t awful. Jordan has a smart style. Dupree did the French Tickler, which allowed Orlando to climb to the top rope and hit a Crossbody for the pin. They’ve tried with Jordan before, but I’m causing that they’re gonna give him a bit of a push to see if they can get the crowd into him.

Kurt Angle is Back In Action!!! Kurt had his first TV match since WrestleMania against Charlie Haas. Angle got a strong reaction coming out, and Haas’ wasn’t bad either. Haas got an early advantage with a leg sweep and a headlock takeover, but Angle came right back with a hiptoss and a take-over after avoiding a fireman’s carry. Kurt has lost nothing in the lay-off. Haas looked very sharp here. Kurt got most of the offense for a while, and Charlie sold really well. Haas caught Angle with a Big Boot and then a vertical suplex. Angle brought back the Overhead Belly to Belly, which had been banned by management. Angle went for a German Suplex, but Haas turned it into a T-Bone. Eventually, Kurt hit the Angle Slam and then the Ankle Lock for the win. Kurt looked great. Haas looked better than he has since the whole Rico tag team. Miss Jacky is smoking. Great stuff.

Billy Kidman and Paul London took on The Bashem Brothers in a slightly better than average match. London is sharp, and Kidman always brings an A-Game. They worked a nice match, where London was flying all over the place, and the Bashems got a run at Double Teaming. London’s Flipping Dropkick is awesome, but the big deal was the finish. London got the pin after a 450 splash. I don’t think there’s been a 450 in a WWF/E ring since the days of Flash Funk (aka 2 Cold Scorpio) in 1998 or so, so it got a great pop. I like the London-Kidman tag team, especially since they now have matching trunks!

Another very well-done Heidenreich promo with Paul E. aired. It made him look really good, but I hope he’s done a ton of work in the ring since he last left if he’s gonna pull off a feud with The Undertaker.

Blood is thicker than Bubba's skull...

Rey Mysterio and Spike Dudley took on The Dudleys in a match that was very good and had an excellent ending. Spike worked with Bubba a bit to start, including hitting a sweet looking headlock takeover. Really, it’s how you do moves like that that determine how enjoyable your matches are. Spike went for a dropkick, but came up with a hurt leg. Rey got a blind tag and came in. Rey worked nice stuff. He has always worked really well with the Dudleys. Spike tried the top rope stomp, but his leg gave out again. The finish was good, as Rey went for the 619, but D-Von tripped him. The Dudleys then hit the 3D for the win. Spike then helped Mysterio to his feet and gave him a boot to the crotch. The Dudleys reunited and it turns out that Spike’s knee injury was a fake, that Dastard! He had D-Von and Bubba get a table and they set Rey up on it with the Cruiserweight Title on his chest. Spike then came off the top with his double stomp, breaking the table in half. That was a great visual.

JBL came out and called on the Undertaker. This brought out a little person dressed up in the UT grab. They did a bunch of lame jokes, and Little UT was about to get the Tombstone when The Real Undertaker’s music hit. UT came to the ring, and just when you thought it was about to go down, Orlando Jordan hit the ring to save JBL. Huh? I know they are high on the guy, but where does he fit in with this whole thing? The littlest Taker posed with The Real Taker for a bit, but then UT clokeslammed the little guy to end the show.

Not great, but I liked what was in the ring. They are sorta wasting Eddie, but that’s more due to his injury and at least they are keeping him on TV (unlike Shelton Benjamin or Big Show).

NEWS
Well, Rikishi is thinking of cutting an album. He’s pretty talented, from what folks have said, but he’d have been better off releasing a CD if he was still with the WWE. Joanie Lauer did a performance that did not go well at a recent UCW show.

Bruno Sanmartino is negotiating with the WWE about doing several different things, including a DVD and possibly a book. There has been long bitterness, but they seem to have started to work out some of the issues.

FlashBack!
Mexico is the land of Lucha Libre. Mexico’s wrestling history dates back to the 1930s, when EMLL, Empressa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, started under Salvadore Lutteroth. In the early 1990s, EMLL’s main booker, Antonio Pena, broke off and took many of EMLL’s top stars with him to form AAA. While EMLL was very much tradition driven, AAA was more like the WWF at the time, running angles and using younger wrestlers with the right look. They set up the biggest show in Mexican history on April 30th, 1993. This was the first of AAA’s Triplemanias. The main event would turn out to be one of the biggest in the history of Mexico.

If he wants to be called a pretty boy...

Arguably, Konnan was the biggest babyface in Mexico. With his pretty boy (by Mexican standards) looks and frequent appearances on TV, Konnan was the big deal. The top heel in Mexico was Cien Caras. The two were having a hell of a feud and they drew fifty thousand people. The Triplemania main event was a Loser Must Retire match, and in Mexico, these gimmicks tended to stick since there is a serious commission in forcing rules. The match was going great, but there was an interesting wrinkle sitting in the front row.

The wrinkle’s name was Jake the Snake Roberts.

The first two falls were really pretty typical, except for the fact that the level of heat from the crowd was so huge as to put anything I’ve ever seen in the States to shame. Caras was great in his heel role, and Konnan was so over with everyone that it wasn’t even funny. The third and final falls went pretty smooth, until they went out of the ring in front of Jake. At that point, no one knew why Jake was there, but it became instantly obvious when he interfered and caused Konnan to be counted out. Jake had instantly become the biggest foreign heel in the history of Mexico.

There are very few moments in American wrestling history that you can compare to it. There were tears in the eyes of just about everyone at ringside. The heat on Jake was amazing, and a riot seemed to be ever so close to happening. Jake had to wait in the Plaza del Toro until after 2 am, for there were still hundreds of people waiting to kick his ass. He apparently escaped in the trunk of a fellow wrestler’s car.

The Konnan vs. Jake feud was legendary, lasting almost two years. I can say that this was the last great Jake Roberts period, as he slid deeper into drugs and instability. Konnan would go on to broker the arrival of Luchadors into the US with his connections with ECW and the WCW. He’s still around in TNA, though he’s not the player he once was.

That’s all for Falls. I’ll be back next week with more fun and frolic.

Chris Garcia