Falls Count Anywhere

10-08-04

Insert non sequitir here.

SmackDown!
The show opened with our good friend John Cena coming out to talk himself up after his big win. This was a good hometown boy promo that I’d say was the best he’s done in ages. After a while, CCC, Carlito Caribbean Cool, came out and jawed with Cena a bit. There was a great line about CCC where Cena said that he looked like Manny Ramirez but was a bigger jackass than A-Rod. No, he’s not that big a jackass. I personally thought he looked more like the lead singer for the Melvins. He asked for a title match, and then he DDT’d Cena on his belt and spit apple on him. Good way to intro the new guy. Cena’s new haircut was appreciated by my girlfriend, though not by the five-year old.

Kenzo Suzuki kept alive his streak of entertaining me by singing "New York, New York" to the Boston crowd. He always makes me smile. The match against Rey wasn’t great, though Rey controlled and worked some really nice spots, like giving Rene Dupree a 619 to his mid-section. Kenzo didn’t look actively bad, and he’s got enough personality that I enjoy his being there. Rey got a sudden roll-up pin.

John Bradshaw Layfield did a promo and called Hardcore Holly a NASCAR watching, Southern Hick! Well, he was once Thurman “Sparky” Plugg. Their match wasn’t great, but JBL bled from his wound from Sunday. Basically it was a “kick the crap outta each other” kind of match. JBL ran off and later Theodore R. Long announced that they would have a Hardcore Rules rematch next week.

They did an awesome package announcing the Chavo would be back in two weeks. Please, PLEASE bring him back as crazy Chavo!

Paul E. and Teddy Long had a discussion when Teddy told Paul that the Undertaker wasn’t in the back of the hearse when they managed to get it open on Sunday. Well, duh! Paul E. said that Heidenreich would read some poetry later.

Hmm...this joke's a little flat...

Kurt Angle did a promo making excuses for his loss at No Mercy. It was good for what it was. Big Show, who does indeed look a lot like a bigger King Kong Bundy, squashed Mark Jindraik and it was exactly what it should have been: Big Show playing Andre to a tee. Eddie’s only appearance on the show was to beat on Luther Reigns.

In one of my favorite moments in ages, Billy Kidman snapped and beat on Miss Jacky. The Haas vs. Kidman match was pretty good. Hass isn’t spectacular, he’s more like 1979 Ted DiBiase, but he’s so solid. Kidman was about to go for the Shooting Star Press when Jacky covered Haas. Kidman then gave Jacky the KidmanBomb and beat on her, though he stopped before she got the SSP. Great little angle to build a feud I will really like. They are doing just about everything right with Billy Kidman’s turn.

Orlando Jordan ran into Booker T. They talked a bit and Booker gave some angry words to Orlando. They’re gonna turn Booker, which isn’t a great idea, but it’s the only place they can really go right now.

By the way, on The Apprentice, Apex is to reality TV as the J.O.B. Squad was to wrestling.

Heidenreich read some poetry, or at least he tried to. The crowd kept booing him so he would stop. He tried again and failed. He then went into the crowd and attacked a couple of fans. This kinda thing would have blown the house down back in Georgia circa 1980, but now it’s just too obvious and we’ve seen it all before. Heidenreich is going to be a fairly big player in the next couple of months, but after that, I’m not sure.

Cena can defy gravity, but not the will of the ring...

CCC beat Cena for the US Title in a match that was a really good intro to CCC. They talked about Carlito’s dad, Carlos Colon, a fair bit. He may be the Puetro Rican version of Eddie Guerrero pretty soon. Carlito and John worked a pretty smart match. I was really impressed when John Cena gave Carlito the Slingshot on the outside, over the barricade and into the crowd. Carlito may well become the WWE’s next big bump taker. The match went on and the crowd was into it. I think we’re seeing the first meeting of the two biggest stars of 2006. Carlito brought in Cena’s title belt, but Cena took it away and it was grabbed by the ref. While the ref was getting rid of the title, Carligrabbed Cena’s chain and nailed him with it. This was about as smart a debut as you can get.

The show as a whole was unexceptional to most fans, though I really liked it. The Kidman and CCC pushes are being done right, which is good. No great matches, though the Cena/CCC match was at least good.

NEWS
Vince McMahon flipped out in the locker room after Flair’s rather graphic promo on RAW, calling Randy a virgin and wanting to make him bleed. Yeah, so that’s pretty tame considering, but Vince was so furious that folks thought they might fire Flair. There’s been tension between the two of them before, dating back more than a decade, but it seems to many that Vince is starting to crack under the pressure.

Kane isn’t leaving the WWE…yet. The story goes that there was something of a dispute perhaps, but his contract isn’t up yet. Kane hasn’t been getting the push he would have liked, especially since he’s had to sell for job-boy Snitsky, but he’s got that movie Eye-Scream Man to make in the next few months. Most folks think he’ll stick around and hammer out an agreeable contract when the time is right. It’s not like McMahon can afford to lose him. No word on where Honky Tonk Man got the idea that Kane was headed out.

RAW did a really low rating this week, which can be blamed on the combination of football and the recent direction of the product. 3.0 was the lowest rating, which should be terrifying.

Mick Foley has a new book coming out on October 19th. It’s about growing up on Long Island in the good ole days.

Nothing new to report on Steve Dr. Death Williams. Apparently the surgery went well, but to know whether or not they got all the cancer will take some time.

FlashBack!
Ed Strangler Lewis was easily the best known name in wrestling before the television era. Without the aid of TV, he managed to become a national, and occasionally international, star. He was even mentioned in The Music Man! His real name was Robert Freidreich, which isn’t nearly as intimidating, though he was a solid-built tough guy through and through.

At the time, there was another big name on a national scale. He was Joe Stecher. The match between the two of them on October 20th, 1915 at the Welles-Bijou Theatre in Evansville, Il, was the first of many, and Stecher won, remaining undefeated, though claims of undeatedness were often bogus as news didn’t travel fast in those days. Stecher maintained his grip on the World Title over Lewis in a match that was controversial for the time. During the first fall, Stecher sent Lewis out of the ring and he hit his head on a chair. This caused Lewis to want to back out of the rest of the match, but they would hear nothing of it.

The rematches were big ticket draws

Against Lesnar? Meh.

The longest match in the known history of wrestling took place in the 1920s, going five and a half hours between the two of these fine combatants. There was, at some time, a good deal of footage of this match. As recently as the 1950s there was a filmed record of at least 20 minutes. It’s gone now, at least no one has shown it in years, but there is the thought that the film still exists. In fact, it’s actually younger than the oldest known film of wrestling, Stecher vs. Earl Caddock from 1920. The match featured a couple of classic moments, to hear old timers tell it, where Lewis was caught in the leg scissors by Stecher for more than twenty minutes. There was also a segment where Stecher was in the headlock that made Lewis famous. There’s a lot of debate over what happened in the match, but for sure it was a draw due to the lateness of the hour. Many have claimed that this was one of the last real shoots, and that Stecher and Lewis proved that they were equals in actual ability. There’s no one who would debate the fact that the two of these guys were among the best real wrestlers of all time. But there is one minor thing…

The general quality of wrestling at that point was almost nil.

Truth be told, as good as Stecher, Lewis, Gotch, and Caddock were, all of them would be eaten alive by most wrestlers just a few decades later. Thesz could have handled any of them. The same could have been said of guys like Dory Funk and Danny Hodge. The sport did a ton of evolving in the 1950s and 60s, and these guys would have been left in the dust. While you can’t argue that the boys of the early days were tough, they didn’t have the training techniques or the new concepts that actually win you match. Today, probably seventy percent of the MMA boys and guys like Angle could easily handle these bad men of the 20s and 30s. I would say Lewis would probably do the best of that group, with Farmer Burns being there along for the ride. It would be fun to see one of those two against the Dan Severn from 1995 or Brock Lesnar.

That’s another week. More next time!

Chris Garcia