Falls Count Anywhere

11-02-04

They are keeping me heavily medicated.

RAW
Nice touch when they opened the show with the graphic of Bischoff; he had his head shaved.

Gene Snitsky took on Eugene in a hardcore match. Snitsky did a lot of violence using weapons such as a No Babies sign and the like. He pinned Eugene with the Pump Handle Slam. He was about to Pillmanize Eugene’s neck when William Regal made the save. The crowd was into Regal running out, which is a good thing, as they could use a guy like Regal to be over for the mid-card.

HHH did a video saying he wasn’t there and that he was the only good thing on RAW. OK, you can have that be true and not say it and that won’t scare off fans. This was a flat out shoot and it’ll hurt business.

The new announcer is Maria. She’s way rad. Still, my heart will always belong to Lillian…

Tajiri did a little interview saying that the entire locker room hates HHH and that he’s ruining RAW. Nice touch. Batista and Flair jumped him, then started railing on against Bischoff for last week. Bisch announced the RAW matches for Survivor Series. There’s a HHH, Snitsky, Edge and Batista vs. Jericho, Benoit, Orton and Maven match made. That’s interesting.

Why is Snitsky there? Why isn’t Flair, which Flair asked. Bischoff said he was tired of kissing Evolution’s ass because of how little good it’s done, especially at Taboo Tuesday. They are hinting at a Bisch turn, which is interesting.

Christian beat Hurricane, whose heel turn is being forgotten. Edge came out during it and started talking about his book, which is available today, and he presented a signed first edition to Good Ol’ JR. Christian hit the Unprettier for the win. Shelton Benjamin then ran in, but Christian had invested in a One Night Problem Solver: Viscera. Vis gave Shelton an Avalanche and hurt his ribs. I like Viscera for no good reason.

Simon Dean was in the ring and did his live informercial. This was lame, though I really like him as a wrestler. He made fun of the folks he called to the ring and eventually beat down and applied a Cobra Clutch to one of them. They really need to just let him wrestle. This went on way too long.

Just another every day betrayal...

La Resistance won back the Tag Team Championships from Edge and Benoit. Benoit came out and there was no Edge. So they started the match. Edge finally came out and stood on the ring apron. He looked like he was trying to make the tag, then he walked out on Benoit, went to the announce table and plugged his book some more. Benoit was about the win it all alone, after hitting German Suplexes and a headbutt from the top rope, but Edge returned to the ring, distracted the ref and allowed La Resistance to hit the Au Revoir, which Benoit didn’t get fully up for, to earn the belts. Edge then hit Benoit with one of the belts and beat him down, eventually making him tap to the Crippler Crossface. Actually, this was really well done.

Flair was pushing that Bischoff change the stipulation for the Survivor Series match to not have each member of the winning team get a week where they are the heads of RAW. That should be interesting. Bisch, in response, made a HHH, Flair and Batista (Free Batista, my brothers) vs. Jericho, Orton and Maven match. Flair complained that HHH wasn’t there, but Bischoff wasn’t buyin’ it.

They debuted Mohammad Hassan and his little friend Khosrow Daivari did an interview saying that he just wanted a shot and that since 9/11, arabs are being discriminated against. This is going to very touchy, especially since Hassan has such a great look and with the right push, could turn out to be a draw. But I seriously doubt this is the right push.

Shelton beat Viscera. The match was bad, but at least it told a story, with Shelton overcoming his damaged ribs. When Shelton hits the ring, he has more intensity than just about any other wrestler in the WWE, except maybe HHH. He tried a T-Bone, but Viscera fell on him. He hit a kick to get the pin.

Trish Stratus called Lita a Walking Kiss of Death, which is a great gimmick for a Goth Babe manager. Why haven’t they done that yet? Trish railed against Lita for a while, eventually causing Lita to run out, which led Gail Kim to come out to lead to a double team. Trish hit a Chick Kick to end things.

This was Faces Get Revenge week, as Flair and Batista took a major beating from Maven, Jericho and Randy Orton. HHH wasn’t there, and they just got beat by the faces using their numbers advantage. Everyone did their finishers, and Flari was steamed. They did a great bit. HHH’s music hit, which caused a pop, and they had Tajiri come out dressed as The Game. I was laughing hard.

The show was OK, but there are a lot of issues currently with the direction of RAW that need to be addressed. Now that SmackDown! is rebounding, RAW needs to get its act together.

Great. One day he will be Governor.

Brief News
HHH was at the Mr. Olympia event this past weekend. He was said to have gotten over with everyone there. SmackDown! did a solid 3.5 last week. Steve Williams is still improving, but he’s not out of the words yet and can’t eat solid food for another couple of months.

A-Train, Test and Billy Gunn released. A-Train had been injured and Gunn went into rehab and lost his spot. These guys are just what TNA is looking for right now. They are all injury prone, but they are all big enough names that they’ll probably help TNA out.

SmackDown!
In between bouts of moving, I caught SmackDown! and must say that I was impressed with a few of the directions they seem to be going. They opened the show with the guys from Tough Enough. Big Show intercepted them and pushed one of them across the locker room, saying that he paid his dues to get where he was. Oh yeah, and he’s 7 feet tall and was given the World Title within a month of his debut. They ended up in the ring and all did terrible promos. Then Big Show came out and bodyslammed them. They edited it a bit, which meant that Steph won the argument. No one looked particularly good, save for Al Snow.

Chavo Guerrero got a good pop coming out to face Nunzio, who did not receive his own entrance. Poor Nunzio. The match was fairly good, though from these guys I expect better. Billy Kidman did some commentary, trading barbs with Tazz. I miss Tazz in the ring. I wish they’d bring him back.

JBL did an interview saying that he’s not lost since WrestleMania and the pin by Booker T doesn’t count because it was in a tag match. JBL said that he was the greatest singles wrestler of all-time, which caused psychic blasts to emanate from every dead heavyweight champion and their kin. Bradshaw then said that Booker T wasn’t even in his league, which forced Booker to come out and play. He called Orlando Jordan a houseboy and told him to go make him a sandwich, which is rather edgy. Theodore R. Long then said that if Booker can beat Orlando in a match that he’d get the shot at John Bradshaw Layfield’s WWE title at Survivor Series.

Paul Heyman was in a darkened room pleading with the Undertaker to sign a match with Heidenreich. Eventually, Taker did just that. It was shot in such an odd way that it was actually memorable whereas most of these things just seem to slip off of my back and into the world of nothingness.

Match of the Night.

Match of the Night, and the week, goes to Rey Mysterio and Kurt Angle. These two have had really good matches before, and this one, while not as good as those, was entertaining and told the right story. Rey got tossed around almost spectacularly, and Kurt sold brilliantly for Rey. Kurt and Terry Funk have a lot in common.

Lots of 619 attempts, with Kurt taking a couple and moving a couple of times and Mark Jindraik took one for Kurt, thus earning him consideration for the Secret Service. Luther Reigns gave Rey a big backbreaker, and RVD ran out to make the save. Eddie Guerrero came and attacked Kurt. A weaker ending than I would have liked, but they’ve started to tie things into a Survivor Series mode. They kicked it Old Skool, yo.

Torrie Wilson was trying on her Halloween Costume and Kenzo Suzuki interrupted. Kenzo didn’t do his great Real American bit (which I would love if they were building to a feud with Hogan), so it was only sorta there.

Theodore R. Long announced that Team Angle would be taking on Team Guerrero in a 4 on 4 Survivor Series match. This should be good.

CCC debuted his new bodyguard (played by Aaron Aguilara, who had been one of the Conquistadors in 2002 or so). They talked about what happened to John Cena and how CCC may have been involved. Poor guy.

What about a fairy in a nurse's costume?

Torrie Wilson took on Dawn Marie in a Halloween Costume Contest. Torrie was a faerie queen. Dawn Marie dressed as a nurse. By the way, a nurse’s outfit makes any woman 12.7 times hotter, and so, Dawn Marie melted the ring. She said that it wasn’t actually a costume, since she was nursing Charlie Haas back to health. Miss Jackie came and tore Dawn Marie’s outfit to pieces. AWWWWWWW YEAH!!!

They rounded out the teams for the Survivor Series match. Team Angle is Kurt, Jindraik, Reigns and finally added The Dudley, whichever one they choose. Team Guerrero is Eddie, RVD, Rey-rey, and Big Show. Show be interesting.

Orlando Jordan lost to Booker T, which earned The Book his shot at Survivor Series. This was a long, pretty solid match which saw them do all sorts of reversals and smart work. Orlando is a strong worker, and he’ll end up being the next Booker T in that he’ll have the in-ring talent but never the strong push. Still, his Flyign Crossbody off the Top was really sweet. The Book hit all my faves: the Flying Forearm, the Shuffle Kick, and of course, the scissorskick for the win. They’re doing Booker’s programming right and I am betting he’ll drag a decent match out of JBL and I am thinking they may want to give him the title for a while.

That’s all for today. More on Friday, including a FlashBack! to one of the early UFC pioneers: Dan The Beast Severn .

Chris Garcia