Falls Count Anywhere

08/29/2009

For one thing, he doesn't look anything like Audrey Hepburn, no matter what he says.

SummerSlam’s come and gone and I wasn’t overly impressed with the way they booked things, but I did enjoy some of the matches.

But first, a note that makes me very happy. Brian Danielson, arguably the best wrestler in the world the last five years, has apparently signed with the WWE. Comparisons with Chris Benoit are inevitable because they both have much in common (not the least of which being their size), but Danielson is much more charismatic. I believe he was originally trained with Bryan Kendrick and Paul London with Shawn Michaels, and if they give him a chance, he could be a giant star.

Okay, the booking troubles for the WWE right now are best summed up in the match between Christian and William Regal. The two of them can go, they could easily have had one of the best matches on the show, but instead of giving them ten minutes of PPV time, they have the ECW champ pin Regal in 8 seconds. That was almost disrespectful, though they tried to cover it up by having Regal’s little posse of Jackson and Koslov attack Christian and leave him laying. It was stupid to do it on PPV when such a thing would be much bigger, and less annoying, if done on an episode of ECW.

The return of DX was pretty hot, and though it would have made for better long-term to have Legacy win. Still, the match was really good and I think that having Michaels back is a good thing, especially if they’re serious about having him do a big retirement tour.

Cena vs. Orton, while it was building to be a very good match, ended up failing because of Orton being DQed and then restarting the match. The lovely miss Lillian Garcia messed up on her announcing, announcing that Orton was the new champion when he really retained, but ultimately, it was as awful series of restarts and such, even though Orton won. There was a cool moment where they had a fan hit the ring. The Observer reported it was Brett DiBiase, which makes sense as he’s supposed to be very talented and a good addition to Legacy.

CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy was a great match, as was Mysterio vs. Dolf Zigler. They were both good matches, and some of the stuff they did in the Ladder Match was like what they did in the old days of the TLCs, but it was much safer than the old ones. I think that Punk is the next Shawn Michaels in that he’ll not have a huge run with the belt, will probably not be a big draw until some time has passed and he becomes a late 30s legend.

The less said about Khali vs. Kane the better. These two need to stop working against each other because they do very slow matches.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad show; they just told weak stories. The ending featured the return of the Undertaker, which would well spell another run of sold-out houseshows. Undertaker is very important to any show he’s on and the planning for him to face CM Punk for a run could do big business.

No news on Kurt Angle, though everyone has been talking about it and he’s still working the TNA shows. He’s been talking a lot, contradicting himself at many points, but there is the possibility that he didn’t know that Rhaka Khan was in the Starbucks, though almost no one believes it. It’s an odd case and there’s talk about it.

Gladys in her prime.

Gladys ‘Kill ‘em’ Gillem passed away. She was a talented woman wrestler from the 1940s through the 1960s, I think. She was interviewed for every documentary about female wrestling, including Lipstick & Dynamite. She often complained about Mildred Burke and June Byers and especially Moolah. She wasn’t as good as Johnny Mae Young, but she was pretty good. Her interviews were always great.

Karl Von Hess also passed away. I got an eMail a couple of years ago from his daughter saying that he was in bad shape, so it wasn’t a shock, but he was a star and a pretty good worker. The videos of his matches are out there, and he appeared on the Dumont a few times as I understand it. I’m working on a better tribute.

If you get a chance, watch UFC 101.

Mick Foley did stand up at the Improv in LA last weekend. I wish I could have gone. He’s been working on an act for a while. I hear he’s pretty good, but needs some polish. He’ll get more and more time. There’s been talk of giving him a talk show, and I think he’d be good at it.

Rumors are floating around about up-coming Guest Hosts for RAW. One name that’s been bandied about is Bob Zmuda, Andy Kaufman’s old sidekick! That’s an interesting name, for sure. I’m also hearing Luke Perry will return, Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon are both mentioned, and perhaps Ben Stiller. They’re planning on this gimmick lasting throughout the rest of the year.

That’s all for this week!

Chris Garcia