Falls Count Anywhere

09-25-06

In French, L'homme en Chapeau.

SmackDown!
Well, it was an interesting show with some good wrestling. StiIl, I’m not convinced that SD! has much of a future as a show without someone like Benoit coming back. JBL has turned into a real good announcer, but there’s nothing in the storylines that excites me.

Finlay and Regal took on Lashley and Batista. This match should pretty much tell you the status of Batista in the eyes of the bookers right now. It was a fairly good match, with a bunch of suplexes. Lashley looked pretty good, but he always does when he gets to work with Regal and Finlay.

The problem was that Lashley had to go most of the way for his team and Batista wasn’t made to look tough. Regal tried to use the stick, but Batista took it away and that allowed Lashley to hit the spear. I really think there’s money in a smartly packaged Lashley, but Batista is over and could be a real challenger if they just put more faith in him.

Layla came out and then started dancing. Kristal came out and said that she didn’t want these Diva Search Sluts on the show eating up her airtime. This leads to a catfight and then Jillian comes out and rips off Layla’s top before taking off her own. It was actually a fun little segment.

Crisp. Clean. Refreshing.

Two old friends, Matt Hardy and Gregory Helms, had a really solid little match. They announced this as a Non-title match, which pretty much told you that Matt would manage to win. Matt’s been at this a long time, has been up and down all sides of the card, and he has always managed to put on a good match. They didn’t do any spots I haven’t seen from these two before, but it was very well-presented and they’re a crisp pair. The Shining Wizard got a very close near-fall for Helms, but Hardy managed to get a low-blow and roll-up for the win.

At this point, I saw that The Miz was about to get in the ring. I went and made some food. A very nice piece of pot roast, in fact.

The Tag Title match was next and it was Kendrick and London vs. The New Pitbulls vs. Idol Stevens and KC James. These guys are great and they did it the best way, where one guy from each team is in the ring at the same time. These guys are all flyers and I gotta say that the DropSault of London is always awesome. Noble went for a roll-up, but KC James gave Noble a clothesline and that allowed London to get a pin. This was really short, maybe five minutes, but it was good.

Sylvan Grenier came out and the crowd was way into him. It’s not like he’s a major star, but he’ll always get a huge pop in Montreal. He took on Tatanka, who got a decent reaction, too. Tatanka had the advantage until Sylvan made his comeback which led to a giant reaction. The crowd was absolutely nuts for the guy. Tatanka tried to pin Sylvan with a Sunset Flip but Sylvan sat down and grabbed the rope to get the pin. Not a good match, but the crowd: Wow.

The Undertaker beat Booker by DQ. This was the hard-working Undertaker, so the match was very good. The match got about fifteen minutes and it worked really well. Booker had the advantage and it was really good. Undertaker was strong in his work and I like the fact that he tries, but they’d be better if they had a younger guy to build to as the big new giant. Lashley could have been that guy.

The match ended with a Tombstone reversal leading to a King Booker Low-Blow to give Undertaker the DQ win. UT takes a belt shot from Booker, but Lashley stops him and throws Booker back in. That’s one way to get him in the mix up top. Undertaker gives Booker the Chokeslam and the Tombstone.

It was a good show, but beyond the short term, there’s just not a lot to this show that makes me feel like SmackDown! has much of a future without something big happening. The show managed a 2.6 rating, which is very good for recent months. The move to the CW seems to have helped things out.

UFC in Brief
I saw a couple of the matches from UFC this weekend and the matches were good. I’m really happy with UFC in the non-Big Match events; they’ve managed to put on a lot of good ‘B’ shows as it were.

You thought we weren't going to show this, didn't you?

Melvin Guillard and Gabe Ruediger had a fight that I thought was very exciting. The first round was really good, with a lot of work that just plain made me smile. There were a bunch of take-downs from Guillard and a big knockdown. At the end of Round One, Ruediger managed to get Guillard’s back and almost had him choked out, but the bell saved him. The second round was fast with Guillard winning with a chest punch. Tough match and a good one.

Mike Swick, one of the best fighters to come out of Tough Enough, had a decent, though unspectacular, match with David Loiseau. The first round was very safely played. Loiseau worked very defensive. The second round was very close, especially with Loiseau landing leg kicks. The crowd got restless because the fight was very cautious. The last round was mostly Loiseau, but the fight went to Swick in a close one. I like these smart fights because they’re interesting to dissect. It wasn’t the action-packed thrill ride you’d love to have, but it’s a smart match.

Matt Hughes and BJ Penn had what I think may be the fight of the year. Penn worked hard in the first round. Matt Hughes, the best takedown Welterweight there is, couldn’t take down Penn. That was incredible, especially with Penn controlling the stand-up with punches. A accidental thumb to the eye caused a stoppage. Round Two was big-time excitement. Hughes managed a take-down and got a few elbows in too. Penn managed to reverse and nearly got a Triangle on too. Hughes managed to escape. The final round saw Penn really tired and Hughes got a take-down and tied him up so he could just throw punches at him. It was a great fight with a great ending and I want to see a rematch between these two.

NEWS
TNA PPV I didn’t get to see, but I heard what the big announcement is and it’s HUGE! They announced that they’d signed Kurt Angle. This is exactly the wrong thing for Kurt. He’ll still be taking a lot of damage all the time with less money than if he’d signed with one of the MMA groups. True, he may be able to do both, but he’s risking injury and that could be permanent. He announced that he was retiring from Pro Wrestling and would be signing with an MMA group, but then TNA noticed they got lower ratings than usual and they needed a big name to sign. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays, but I’m betting there’s a lot riding on this signing and it could be the make or break for TNA.

That’s all for today. More on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia