Falls Count Anywhere

08-21-06

Falls Count Anywhere runs on Mondays and Thursdays -- come Hell or Anaheim.

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SummerSlam!
I didn’t watch enough of SmackDown! to make a good conclusion (I did see the Khali vs. Undertaker match which was actually pretty OK) but I did watch SummerSlam. I thought it was better than average, with a few moments of greatness.

The opener was odd and it showed what’s wrong with the WWE’s SmackDown! right now. The crowd turned on Chavo, turned on Vickie, and even kinda turned on Rey. They didn’t want anything Eddie related to happen on the show, it seems.

The match was OK, not what I’d want out of these two, but it had moments. They are running the risk of running out of goodwill for the way they initially handled the situation as well as making the pair of Chavo and Rey completely non-money drawing. Rey looked good, crisp, and Chavo was his usual self. The booking was weak, especially with Chavo getting the win. Rey’s taking some time off to get shoulder work done. Rey was on the top and Vickie pushed him off the top. The turn was obvious, and even worse, offensive.

Sabu lost to The Big Show in a match that was bad 1998 ECW. There were lots of tables used, a few shots which weren’t fully successful, and a lot of brawling that only made a little sense. Sabu did what he’s always done and he did it fine. I wish they’d get the belt off of show, but I’m betting they’ll get it off him when they get another WWE guy they think can carry it…like Test! Show won with a Chokeslam through a table.

They did some soft core Diva stuff to intro Layla. She’s hot.

In a weird piece of match placement, they had Randy and Hogan have their little match right in the middle. Maybe Hogan wanted to get home to his dogs before too late. Hogan and Orton worked a match which was simple, almost like watching a 90s Hogan vs. Piper match without Russo’s booking. Randy got an RKO and a near fall that was broke up by a foot on the ropes. Hogan won with the Legdrop. The match wasn’t bad, and the reaction that Hogan got was fantastic. I mean seriously, there’s no one on the WWE roster who gets that type of reaction. If only they had Steve Austin.

This wasn't part of the match. Flair accidentally saw Foley naked backstage and needed help scrubbing out the image...

Flair and Foley. Wow. I just mean wow.

This was a brawl, an incredible brawl and a fight and bloody spectacle. The incredible thing is this was nearly perfectly booked for my tastes. They had Mick take a big bump and hit his head on a garbage can and that ended up with the medic coming out and then try to stop the match, but Flair wouldn’t accept it. That led to more brutal brawling and then Flair continued to work over Foley’s arm and face with the barbed wire baseball bat. That got Melina to throw in the towel, which Flair also refused to accept.

Then, in the bit that I really thought was very smart, Flair was going to use the bat on Melina and Foley quit. Wow. It wasn’t very long, it was very bloody and the story they told was the right one. I’m glad they went this direction with it because there was a lot of worry that they might try something stupid like a real match. I loved it.

Booker vs. Batista was a bad match. Booker tried, but Batista wasn’t in the proper position to have a good match and it was all just bad. I remember that it ended in a DQ, but other than that, it was completely unmemorable.

DX beat the McMahons. They had all sorts of interference and Kane came out as the new DX helper. It was interesting that they gave the rub to guys like Kennedy, Regal, Show and Fit Finlay. They took out DX momentarily.

Seriously. What's a family gathering like after this?

Vince and Shane beat on Shawn for a while, and he hurt his arm legit. It kinda looked like a separation. Nice spot was Shane going for the Coast-to-Coast and getting stopped by a Shawn SuperKick. H hit Vince and then Shawn hit Sweet Chin Music and that allowed H to get the Pedigree on Vince. Good stuff from a booking point of view, but I’m hoping this is the end.

They gave Cena vs. Edge the main event slot. Again, very smart booking. The title could change hands in a DQ, so when Lita was about to interfere, Edge would stop here to keep from getting DQed. That was really smart. The crowd went see-saw on Cena, supporting him at the end after booing him mercilessly for the first half. The match was really good. I like Edge as the ring general and it was obvious that he was running the show in this one.

At the finish, Edge and Lita were about to get the Double FU, but it ended up with them getting out of it and Edge managed to hit Cena with a pair of knux to win the match. It was really good.

That’s all for this week for me. There’ll be a special guest for the rest of this week and next Monday which will be awesome. I’m off to Anaheim!

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Chris Garcia