Falls Count Anywhere

08-24-07

There. I've said it. Now bite me.

RAW’s One Match
OK, I have a confession to make: I only saw about twenty minutes of RAW. I’m sorry, I suck. I was at a BASFA meeting and I had set up the tape and stuff happened so I only got the first angle and match and then nothing.

That said, I was punished for my poor VCR programming skills by having to sit through the awful Randy Orton, Vince McMahon and John Cena bit.

Here’s the deal: they had Randy come out and say that he had destroyed Cena with the RKO on Saturday Night’s Main Event and that he was about to win the title from Cena. Now, that’s a simple promo that says the important things. I hurt him; I’m going to win. There’s nothing more that you need to get over for a Main Event of a PPV. Now, they could have ended it there, but there’s always Vince around. He had to get his angle over.

Basically, Vince added nothing. He said that his off-spring was Male and that he’d be proud to have Orton as his son. Now, this angle is pretty wretched, but there are a lot of fun little elements to it (like Jimmy Wang Yang and Funaki calling Vince ‘Dad’), but the way they’re working it here is just lame and over-powering.

Cena then came out. He jawed with Vince for a while. At one point, Vince said that he could have had Cena’s Mom. Oh No He Didn’t! Cena straight slapped him for that one, leading Vince to make Cena vs. Snitsky, a terrible idea for a main event. I wish I had gotten to see it.

As folks have already started pointing out, Vince is everywhere and for a couple of reasons. First, ratings were down and USA wants them up. In many cases, Vince = ratings, so there’s no way he was going to stay away for too long.

Second, Vince wanted to wash the taste of failure out of his mouth. Vince completely believed that the Vince is Dead angle was going to be the biggest thing in the history of the WWE and when the Benoit thing ruined it, he wanted to find a way to recreate it without the death angle. How better to do that than to say that he was responsible for another life on Earth? Vince wants to get this over and it’s looking like he’ll need more help. This’ll lead to whoever it is (Mr. Kennedy was an early choice) feuding with Stephanie and Shane. Go figure.

We win!

At least the next part was OK. We got a woman’s tag match that wasn’t bad at all. Mickie James teamed with Candice Michelle to take on Melina and Beth Phoenix, which is a good set of performers…and four great sets of other things. Beth Phoenix is very talented. Watching the Shimmer DVDs, you kinda get the feeling that she’s a WWE Diva living with the Indy Girls. The Shimmer DVDs are certainly worth buying, by the way, just for the wrestling content.

Beth hits a nice Slingshot Suplex on Mickie. You don’t see too many of those these days. Tully Blanchard’s was cleaner, but it was nice to see it used. Candice and Melina work pretty well together and Candice managed to hit a Northern Lights. Not perfect, but it’ll do. Candice must have been spending some time working with William Regal because she busted out an awesome cradle for the win. I think I remember Johnny Saint using the same pinning combination in his 1996 match in Michinoku Pro. It was a fun little match.

I got the commercial and about ten seconds and William Regal and Santino Morella backstage before the timer cut it off. I’m kinda bummed because Morella and Regal have been doing great stuff lately and Regal’s probably the best worker on the brand at the moment. He’s also the best at comedy. It’s a shame he was never a bigger star.

That’s all I saw of RAW.

News and Notes
A few little things. The Pacman angle hasn’t worked as well as they’d expected for TNA. The bigger problem is that they’ve got an over-all product that isn’t entertaining anymore. They even put on a Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle main event that was actually kinda dull and very predictable. They’re in serious trouble, though DVD sales aren’t that bad. PPV is their main source of revenue and that’s drying up badly.

Hey Bay Area ‘rasslin’ fans, you’ve got a treat waitin’ for you! On October 21st, my birfday, there’ll be the West Coast debut of Ring of Honor at the Wrestling Fan Fest at the Cow Palace. I can’t think of a better place for RoH, arguably the best wrestling in the world at the moment, to make a California splash than at the Cow Palace. Tickets are on sale and I’m betting they’ll sell out. I’ll be there, no question.

Another one gone.

The Missing Link passed away last week. Dewey Robertson was a name wrestler for a couple of decades and he adopted the Missing Link persona in the early 1980s. He was a star around the world, did some time in the WWWF and was a big deal in Florida and World Class. I think he feuded with Fritz Von Erich in one of Fritz’s last major feuds. He had a bad case of the Cancer and was 68.

His book, Bang Your Head: The Real Story of The Missing Link, is a good one that talks about drugs and steroids. He was a tough guy and was well-liked by many. He was one of the few wrestlers ever to have an article in Sports Illustrated.

Yes, HHH is being considered by the producers to play Thor. There’s been a lot of talk about this, but the director doesn’t want him while the producers do. I’m betting whoever gets control of the money will get to make the final choice. H is interested because of all the injuries he’s had in wrestling. The time off, combined with his positioning after he’d return, all make it an interesting option. He is still John Milius’ first choice for Conan, if that ever happens.

The WWE is changing their movie production tactics. They’ll be focusing on straight-to-video stuff from now on. They were very disappointed in The Condemned. Big money loser, though they made money on See No Evil and broke even plus a tiny bit on The Marine. The last quarter saw them absorb some of the losses because they had such big gains because of WrestleMania.

OK, That’s all for today. More on Monday!

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Chris Garcia