Falls Count Anywhere

10-15-04

Never trust anyone over 30.

SmackDown!
SmackDown! opened with Theodore R. Long telling the locker room all about the John Cena incident where he was supposedly stabbed several times and that doctors are trying to save his kidney. He’s really in Australia making his movie, but it adds a little bit of intrigue. Actually, it doesn’t matter what Teddy was saying, because all I could think of was Rey Mysterio in his boss suit. He looked like a miniature Sonambulo!

The opening match saw RVD take on Rene Dupree. Before the match, my favorite guy, Kenzo Suzuki, regaled us with James Brown’s Livin’ in America! That was keen. He was then sent away from the ring. Dupree gave us the French Tickler again, which was nice to see back. The match was pretty good, but then RVD gave Rene the most damaging-looking German Suplex in WWE history. Seriously, he dropped him directly on his neck, and since he released his grip, he fell hard. Rene seemed out of it, but they worked a little more before RVD got he pin. They showed the replay of the Suplex like six times.

Charlie Haas, fresh from a European knee injury, lost to Billy Kidman in a match where not too much happened, due to Haas’ knee, but they turned it into a smart angle by having Kidman give Haas the Shooting Star Press onto his hurt leg. Smart booking! They’re giving all the good stuff to Kidman. They continued the Dawn Marie bit by having her come out with Haas and stay at ring side, giving the fans all her hotness. She was easily the most attractive woman in the arena, and that included the Page Three girls. When they were helping Haas to the back, Dawn Marie made sure to put Charlie’s hand on her boob. Nice touch.

Luther Reigns hit on a murder of Page 3 girls in the back while he was oiling himself up. They said that they already had plans with Eddie Guerrero. They are feeling the Latino Heat. Luther then scared them off.

John Bradshaw Layfield did a solid interview talking about how he was better than all the other champs. Sure you are, John. It wasn’t a bad interview though.

They did another battle royal, this time for the number one contendership for the US title. This was a solid piece of work, especially when it got down to Angle and Rey Mysterio. They did a bunch of near eliminations until Rey bounced Angle off the ropes to the outside. Solid match with Rey and Kurt pulling out a lot of great tricks.

Masks are cool.

Carlito Caribbean Cool then came out while Josh was trying to interview Rey. CCC said that masks weren’t cool. WHY DOES HE LIE?!? He also said that he wasn’t going to wait, that the two of them would have their match in Manchester. CCC looked like he left, but then he blind-sided Rey.

JBL beat Hardcore Holly in a Hard Core Rules match. They kept playing up that the WWE Title had never been defended in a Hard Core Rules match, which I am 100% certain is not true. They beat each other with some plunder, including a sign from the M5. The fact that I could identify it as an M5 sign proves that I am far too Anglo-centric. Holly brought the ring steps into the ring, but JBL nailed him with a chairshot to get the pin. Not too bad a match.

John Heindenreich got into the ring, apologized and then started acting all weird. Seriously, we were asking for white hot passionate fury and he gave us a hissy fit.

CCC beat Rey Mysterio in a match that was pretty good. CCC is not a great worker, but he’s willing to take a bump, has some decent offense, and will always allow himself to be carried. Rey did a really good job of making Carlito look as good as possible. Rey turned a PowerBomb by throwing Carlito into the ropes in the 619 position. Rey Hit the 619, but CCC blocked the West Coast Pop attempt and then used an armbar. Rey went for a Sunset Flip, but CCC rolled out and covered him, using the ropes to get the win.

Eddie Guerrero took on Luther Reigns in a match that was really good while it lasted. Luther did the backbreaker into the stretch, which is a personal favorite. Eddy hit two of the Three Amigos Triple Suplex, but Luther got a block. Reigns also used a Springboard Back Suplex which was dope. Eddie worked his magic, and as he was going for the Frog Splash when Jindraik came out. He dove onto him, but then Luther and Jindraik double teamed him, sent him into the stairs for the DQ. Angle came out with scissors, but Big Show made the save. And we’re out.

Aside from the brilliant stuff they are doing with Kidman and the strong push they are giving CCC, everything else is only slightly better than average.

NEWS
The big news is that Pat Patterson, one of the Stooges, first IC champion, long-time headliner around the US, has quit the WWE. This is HUGE as the reason that is being reported is that he quit after having gone on the road and telling Vince that Triple H had too much power and it was hurting the product. Now, Pat stepped down, but there is talk that Vince requested that he step down since he was talking against the biggest star in the company (and that is how Vince sees his sin-in-law). I’d say that Pat’s departure is the biggest loss to the WWE in ages, probably since the Vince Russo move to WCW. He had been there for so long, and was smarter than most at figuring finishes.

The booker of New Japan Pro Wrestling also left. That’s even bigger news, as it shows that New Japan is teetering on the brink and the booking, which has been good at times, will almost certainly suffer.

FlashBack
With all these folks leaving, it is a good time to talk about the Russo departure. A lot of folks will remember the Wrestling Wars, but this one shot changed the course of the business forever.

Vince Russo started out as a writer for WWF magazines. He had been a big fan growing up in New York and was a pretty decent writer in the style of the WWF’s magazines. After a while, he started to get involved in the actual booking. There are a couple of different stories about how it happened, but the one I always believed is that he kept dropping hints to Vince about where things should be headed by writing articles about things that hadn’t happened yet and giving them to him. Vince was given the reins as head writer in 1997.

He had it all once...

Russo was prone to doing all sorts of line-pushing angles, including most of the Sable stuff where she would pop her top and being wearing the pasties. He was also big into the violence, and it was his direction that led to blood on free TV. He also booked a great deal of the McMahon vs. Stone Cold angle and Degeneration X, which is what most folks would say led to the turn-around. The WWF took control of the wrestling game in 1998, and that was a lot of Russo’s work. At the same time, Russo brought in Ed Ferrera, a Hollywood writer-type, to help with the booking. The two were the top guys through 1999, which featured the Rock going from big star in late 1998, to global sensation by the time of his 1999 turn. They had written the best stuff of their careers leading into October 1999.

Then the word hit the sheets.

Vince Russo turned in his resignation on a Friday afternoon. Supposedly, he had signed a few days earlier with WCW. Ferrera had not yet signed, but he came right on the tail of the announcement. McMahon was reeling for about 10 seconds. At that point, it all went the other way and Vince took over most of the writing with Shane and Bruce Pritchard as his 1 and 2 guys. This was a smart move, as they did some very decent work.

Why did Russo quit? There are several stories, the most of which being that WCW was dangling a large chunk of cash and that Russo wasn’t making nearly enough in the WWF for the amount of time he was working. The word was that he was working 80 weeks for less than 70 grand. I can’t seem to find the exact numbers, but I remember it being about 150k a year with WCW. That’s a ton of money for a writer.

As soon as he came in, he shook things up.

Vince Russo did indeed make things raunchier as he came in, but he also used himself and Ferrera as on-screen characters. Trying to tie into the seemingly successful trend of shoot angles, they tried to do everything they could to turn the tide away from McMahon and the WWF. Stone Cold was on fire, so RAW kept winning every Monday night. Russo did two things early on that caused problems.

He reformed the nWo, this time with Bret Hart, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. This wasn’t a bad idea, but it was certainly the wrong thing to do when you’re trying to convince people that you’re different from the last guy. The other was pushing Ferrera as Oklahoma, a knock on Jim Ross, and having him win the WCW Cruiserweight title. He also had Goldberg punch through the window of a limo, which cut his forearm pretty bad so that he couldn’t wrestle for months during a very serious point of the wrestling war. WWF continued to pull away in the ratings, and even more so in the popularity in the mainstream.

Russo was removed from his position in January of 2000. Eric Bischoff, who had been sent away the previous year, returned in March of 2000. So did Vince Russo. Russo then hit the reset button. He vacated every title and promised to push the New Blood to the top of WCW. This irked Ric Flair, who was still the top draw and biggest ratings mover other than Hogan. The Russo/Flair feud was a major focus for WCW, but the entire fed was being mismanaged and misbooked by Russo, which led to the downfall that gave the WWF/E a permanent lead in the wrestling business.

That’s all for this week. Next week: my birthday!

Chris Garcia