Falls Count Anywhere

09-17-07

Garcia lives two months behind.

A not too detailed look at Unforgiven
I’m sick. I am really sick of the way the WWE books its PPVs. If you watched the event, you’ll know what I mean. There wasn’t much awful, except for John Cena vs. Randy Orton which felt like watching two guys straight out of wrestling school having a match after a few dozen whippets and Undertaker vs. Mark Henry. The booking itself was awful.

And here’s the truth: the Women’s match was the best thing on the show! Candice Michelle and Beth Phoenix both worked the match like they wanted to tell a story and make it happen. This was good and while Beth was the better of the two, Candice tried and kept up most of the way. I gotta give it up to the trainers of Candice (Fit Finlay if I heard correctly) and say that bringing back Beth was a wonderful thing.

The opener was pretty good, though they were a touch sloppy. Elijah Burke and CM Punk are both solid, but this was only OK. These guys have had better matches. The problem is they sold it in commentary as if this was the start of a longer issue. It’s never a good idea to do that with a match because it really tells a lot of the audience that the match isn’t really that important.

The HHH vs. Carlito match was the same way. It felt like a holding pattern until we got to see the obvious HHH triumph with the Pedigree. It was just so obvious. You can do obvious, but you need to do it in a way that makes us interested in the obvious finish. See: Lashley vs. Umaga at WrestleMania.

No doubt that Undertaker was working with a guy who just can’t go, but there was some heat. There was some heat for the HHH match, but putting Taker in the Main Event with a guy like Mark Henry is not a good idea. They would have been better giving it to John Cena vs. Randy Orton, even though it was terrible.

Oh yes, Cena vs. Orton. They did the thing where they had Orton pull in Cena’s father and then Cena went nuts and put the STFU on Orton on the outside. Cena’s dad is really good at playing the role. There are a few guys who aren’t smart enough to the business to understand that what they’re doing is brilliant, and I think Cena Sr. is one of those guys. The match just never came together. The guys were way apart in what they were going for. They went with a DQ ending that just sucked. The booking, terrible, but the match wasn’t good either.

And that was the problem with the entire show. It was just weak and it was a sign that they’ve not yet found a way to deal with the loss of so many guys. They can’t be happy that they’re in a holding pattern until the guys on suspension come back and they can go back to ignoring their steroid problem.

TNA Thoughts
A lot of talk about TNA. There is a conspiracy theory that Ric Flair was offered something from TNA and gave his notice so that he could go to TNA and finish his career there. Now, there’s a lot of things wrong with that idea (he legitimately wants to get his business off the ground and he’s gonna have to deal with a No Compete from his WWE contract) but it’s come from a couple of different folks who usually have good leads (including the guy who published the Benoit diary excerpts a month ago that were confirmed this last week). There’s also word that Booker T wants all the way out of wrestling. It would make sense since he always said he wanted to quit before he turned 40. Now he’s 42, so it would make sense.

TNA also has a 2 hour slot, which means they will probably need more talent. They could just go for longer matches, and they’ve got a great list of talent to do just that with, but they’ll probably book things all wrong and that’ll be that.

No word on the signings of Fedor Emelianenko and Brock Lesnar for UFC. Fedor is considered a lock, but Lesnar is thought to have a few issues.

I’m so wanting to go to the Strike Force show at the Playboy Mansion. Tickets are a grand each, but they include Buffet, Wine Tasting and photos with the bunnies.

That’s all for today. Hopefully, things will be better at RAW.

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Chris Garcia