Falls Count Anywhere

10-05-04

WWEebles wobble but they don't fall down.

RAW
Ric Flair and HHH opened the show by coming out to the ring. Ric laid it on thick, saying that HHH was the best ever. I’m sure HHH and anyone else in the locker room who likes having a job agrees. Flair announced that he’d be facing Randy Orton at Taboo Tuesday in a gimmick match. Interesting booking on the fly there.

I was impressed with HHH’s promo. He said all the same things he and Bischoff have been saying the last few weeks, but I was still entertained. Jericho came out and constantly referred to Triple H as Trips. I love that. The two were then set for a match later in the evening after Jericho took an impromptu poll that revealed that much of the wrestling audience believes that HHH is a horse’s ass. I wanna know what the margin of error is on that one.

Shawn Michaels and Christian had a nice match. Shawn got a good reaction, though not as big as he was getting before he took time off to be with his new kid and superhot former Nitro Girl wife. Shawn worked a headlock for a while and managed to make it seem like a 1987 NWA World Wide main event. They traded a bit and Shawn hit his excellent Flying Elbow followed by Sweet Chin Music for the win. Really good stuff that went at a pace that not a lot of wrestlers on SmackDown can make work.

Lita was interviewed backstage and got all her best bad acting out for company. She was awful. It’s not her fault; she’s just not an actress. She’s best used as either eye candy at ringside who physically interferes or as a wrestler. She said that she hoped Kane would kill Gene Snitsky.

Meanwhile, Bischoff was trying to coax Carmella into seducing Eugene. They tried to make us think it was someone else, and I half thought they might have brought Stephanie McMahon back for the job. Coach interrupted saying that he didn’t want to interview Gene Snitsky, ‘cause he might get hurt. Bisch said that he’d give the job to JR instead.

Kane killer,maybe...

Gene Snitsky came out to the ring pushing a stroller. For authenticity, they should have made sure there was a miniature bag of Cheerios in it. He brought it into the ring and the crowd chanted baby killer at him, though the crowd continues to refuse to chant the same at Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the leading killer of children under two in the Hispanic community. Talk about inequity. Kane came out and Snitsky, who I should remind you is actually a jobber, tossed the stroller at him and then bloodied him up with the lead pipe. He then left, possibly through the secret passage through the conservatory.

Batista and Chris Benoit had a match that was highlighted by the big man taking Benoit’s German Suplexes like a champ. He gets higher than almost any other opponent that I can think of. Randy Orton ran in to cause the DQ win for Evolution’s prime source of roid rage. Orton got a fairly good reaction out of the MSG crowd.

Bischoff came out and called Eugene to the ring. He told Eugene that there was a woman in the back that had a crush on him, and he brought out Carmella. She said she thought he was cute and that she loves bald men. She said that it should be a haircut match and he should let Eric win. That was brilliant! He said that he required a kiss up-front. She couldn’t do it, and Eugene was heartbroken, until Christy came out and gave him a kiss, followed by jumping into his lap while he was standing up. While an inventive way to try and get an undeserved win, the whole thing didn’t click. Eugene was great, Bischoff was his usual self, but the chicks weren’t up to snuff.

They are pushing the break-up of the superheroes with the loss of Hurricane and Rosie to La Resistance. They should have gotten Brian Michael Bendis to write it. La Rez got the pin with the Au Revoir, but then Conway jumped on Rosie’s back and turned his mask so that he couldn’t see. He ended up giving Hurricane the swinging Sidewalk Slam when he tried to check on him. Not much to it, since they aren’t really giving it any attention.

Edge said that he had never wrestled HHH (which, I believe, is not true, since I am fairly certain that they met on Raw in 1998) and that everyone else has had hundreds of shots. He came off like a whining heel, which is what they are going for.

Stacey beat Molly Holly. The match was atrocious, with the finish being Stacey sitting down when Molly went for a roll-up. Meh!

Trips took on Chris Jericho in a Lumberjack match where all the guys who have the chance to get the shot at Jericho at Taboo Tuesday were the lumberjacks. The match was pretty good, with HHH working hard and Jericho being Jericho. Jericho did a dive onto Flair on the outside, then hit and elbow off the top. He could have gotten the pin, but Rhyno gored him, for some reason, and HHH got the pin. Randy Orton ran in and started giving everybody the RKO. The Coach got one, which was the end of it.

I enjoyed some of the show. The problem is the overall effect that RAW has right now and not the singular moments. There are too many glaring problems that need to be dealt with, and it seems as if Vince is unwilling to admit it. It's possibly because he’s distracted, or possibly because everyone else was wrong in 1996 when he changed the course of wrestling history and he thinks he’ll do the same now.

NEWS
Kane may be leaving the WWE. Honky Tonk Man’s website, that has once in a while broken big news, said that Kane and WWE were far apart on money in new contract negotiations and that the two would probably be parting ways shortly. This is really bad news for the WWE which is already short of heels and has been unable to create any successful new ones save for Booker T and on the underside, Billy Kidman. There is some word through Dave Meltzer that there’s nothing to the rumors, but I heard a rumble of some unhappiness on Kane’s part a few weeks ago, though that was mostly over his direction and future plans. My guess is that this is something being blown out of proportion.

The Observer reports that Gaea, the promotion that is chronicled in the film Gaea Girls, is closing down in April. Gaea was one of many groups that popped up in the mid-and-late-1990s. Gaea had a lot of the older girls, like Aja Kong and Chigusa Nagayo, as top stars. They had become the top women’s group for a while.

Marianna Komlos died this past week. She was somewhere in her early 30s. She was a bodybuilder, and a pretty hot one too. She was a part of the WWF in 1999, managing Chaz, formerly of the Headbangers. Her reign isn’t well remembered, as when I heard she had passed away, I had only a vague memory of the Headbangers. She had been fighting breast cancer for quite some time.

No Mercy
All in all, No Mercy will be considered the sign in the ground pointing to the exact problems that the WWE is facing right now. It will also be remembered for making the most of a bad situation. The opener was Eddie Guerrero vs. Luther Reigns, and we all expected Eddie to come up big and carry Luther. Luther was obviously trying, but Eddie may not have been. He seemed very lethargic compared to most of his other matches with real stiffs. There’s something up with Eddie, perhaps it’s the fact that he had his shot at the big time, but had it pulled out from under him coupled with the stress. I don’t know, but it’s sad to see a match like this on Eddie’s permanent record. Eddie did get the win with the chair followed by a Frog Splash.

Dawn Marie and Miss Jacky did an interview where Dawn Marie, who is hotter ‘an fire, said that Jacky was forcing Haas to marry her and that Dawn Marie wants to sex him up. Who wouldn’t? I mean look at him, he’s breath-taking!

Spike Dudley got the win in his Cruiserweight title match with Nunzio. It was short, but these are two highly talented guys working a very smart match. These two could have a very interesting feud that would showcase a type of Junior Heavyweight wrestling we don’t often see anymore. Nunzio worked the ground mostly, using all sorts of grabs and locks. This is what Junior Heavyweights used to do instead of all the flying. Spike was Spike and got the win when D-Von interfered. Still, decent enough match.

Paul London and Billy Kidman did a fine match. The story was pretty obvious from the beginning: would Kidman do the Shooting Star Press? London worked as a face and Billy worked pretty heel in the match. There was better flow in this match than in any other match all night. The two traded moves and London worked his spots perfectly. He’s severely underrated. London went for a powerbomb, but Kidman turned it into a facebuster. Billy was about to walk out when he turned around and got back into the ring. London then set him up and gave him the Shooting Star Press, but Kidman got his knees up! There was blood coming from London’s mouth! Kidman then hit his own Shooting Star for the win. Really good match. Kidman give him another Shooting Star Press after the match. He coughs up more blood and the SSP is now over huge.

Kenzo Suzuki remains my favorite interview guy by singing "Born in the U.S.A" before the Tag Team Title match. It was funny. The match between Dupree and Suzuki against Rey Mysterio and RVD wasn’t bad. RVD was better than he has been of late, and Rey was really strong. RVD and Rey did synchronized flip dives onto the outside. They worked about nine minutes and the faces made it enjoyable. RVD and Rey are both sort of beign wasted on the mid-card recently when they could be carrying smart feuds. I don’t think the WWE sees the value in them except to give a better overall match quality on the big shows, and with RVD, that’s not always a given. Dupree looked good, and Suzuki has that weird charisma. Suzuki got the win holding the ropes. Decent enough and better than expected.

When Pawns Fight...

The Big Show is a very smart guy. Kurt Angle is a very smart guy who is also hurt far worse than he’s letting on. The two of them had a match that wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible, either. Big Show knows how to properly use his size, and in this match, he showed it. Kurt went for a go-behind takedown, and Show rammed him into the corner. Kurt tried to walk out, but Theodore R. Long announced that if he did so, he’d be fired. Nice touch. Kurt and Show worked a solid match, and eventually, after delivering an Angle Slam that didn’t take him out, Angle got the tranquilizer gun. Big Show grabbed it and busted it, and Kurt then had to take the Chokeslam from the top rope. Kurt was obviously not going all the way out and back, but everything he did was smart and worked towards Show’s story. Big Show tried and went along just right. I’d say that this was the second best match on the show, as it wasn’t as technically good as Nunzio vs. Spike, but it told such a good story.

John Cena won the Best of Five, which is unexpected, as he’s going to be off making The Marine in Australia. The match wasn’t bad, right along the lines of what their other matches have been. I would have liked to have seen them pull out all the stops on this one, but I’m guessing that the next SD! PPV will feature the two of them in a cage or some such. Booker looked good and Cena remains one of the three most other wrestlers on SmackDown!.

Well, the Dudleys teamed with Dawn Marie (excuse while I roll my tongue back into my mouth) and faced Charlie Haas, Rico and Miss Jacky. There is little good to say about the set up to this, but the match itself was on par with what the card was offering. The girls got to catfight, the guys got to work some spots and the finish was a Haas Flying Forearm followed by Rico’s Moonsault. Somewhat surprising how decent it was, all things considered.

JBL beat the Undertaker in the Last Ride Match. Wow, this was awful. The two of them did what they could, there was blood, there was storytelling, but there was also Heidenreich getting involved and following it up with Undertaker being loaded into the Hearse and then being rammed by the Heidenreich piloted truck. Man, this was bad. It’s everything that is killing the WWE. They need to work hard on their writing since this stuff just isn’t working. The crowd obviously hated this, especially the end. It was just bad, repetitive, and obviously stupid writing. We’ve seen this before. JBL as champ isn’t bad, as he’s a good interview and can have a good match with someone like Kurt or Eddie. They should get the belt back on Guerrero, if for no other reason than to bolster his confidence and see if he can start to turn things around with a real, significant, title reign.

That’s all for today. The Strangler Lewis Article is up on Friday, unless some piece of news demands its own FlashBack!

Chris Garcia