Falls Count Anywhere

11-02-06

I'm an unwrapped candy.

Smackdown!
Batista called out Finlay, but Paul Heyman came out instead. Heyman pitched to Batista, saying that he should come to SmackDown! where Theodore R. Long won’t hold him back.

Heyman’s security attacked when he decided he didn’t like the idea and then Big Show and Booker. Cena ran in to make the save. Interesting, but not overly so.

Weird match. Dave Taylor, who sadly seriously injured himself just a couple of days after this match, teamed with William Regal to beat Tatanka and Lashley. Basically, this was a match to turn Tatanka so he can have a little feud with Lashley. I’m surprised that Tatanka has lasted this long on SD!.

MVP said he was sick and couldn’t face Kane. Kennedy came out, knowing that Undertaker wasn’t in the building, and challenged UT to a match. Theodore R. Long then put Kane against Kennedy.

The long-line of Hardy vs. Helms non-title matches continued with a pretty good match between the two that Helm won. Helms hit a big Crossbody off the top. He does those really well, reminding me a lot of Sean Waltman in the 1992-3 time range. Hardy did make a solid comeback, including hitting the Side Effect and a sort of Samoan Drop. Of course, Helms held the ropes to win. Not a bad match.

Kennedy vs. Kane was a No DQ match and it wasn’t great. Kennedy needs to work with more top-level workers (like Benoit) instead of guys like Kane and UT. Kennedy worked the leg early, hitting it with a chair and wrapping it around the steel. MVP, who was at ringside, interfered freely, including pushing Kane off the top rope when he went for a Flying Clothesline. Kane went for the Chokeslam, but MVP hit him with a chair and pushed Kennedy onto him so that he’d get the win. I don’t like MVP.

I need some medical attention.

They had a Trick-or-Treat Battle Royal where Michelle McCool was hot as a nurse, Kristal looked good as herself, Jillian came out as Elvis, Ashley came out as a Fairy and Layla looked stunning in her little cat ears.

This had The Miz as ref and wasn’t much of anything. Kristal managed to win, but then the Boogeyman returned. Nothing like the WWE’s revolving door. He was about to go for The Miz, but Miz pushed Kristal into Boogeyman and that he spit worms onto her. This was a weird redebut.

Booker and Big Show lost to Cena and Batista in a match that wouldn’t light your world on fire, but it was OK. What’s funny is that Lashley and Batista’s move sets are so similar that you could really just exchange one for the other, except that Batista has more charisma.

Cena was working over Booker, and when he tried to tag, Show wouldn’t take the tag. As a note, Show has been thinking about retiring due to his collective injuries, which is why the new Main Event for December to Dismember will be a 6 Man Elimination Chamber, so he can be limited instead of having to do a big match with RVD on his own. Batista exploded on Booker and he hit the DemonBomb for the win.

Average episode.

NEWS
Lita is leaving, though the timetable isn’t finalized. The WWE expects that she’ll act and probably even work some TNA when the money gets tight. The WWE has a very interesting attitude about TNA. It’s much different from the old anti-WCW attitude and I’m not sure if they’re giving up too many people and possibilities to the opposition. Of course, the WWE will never say that TNA is opposition.

The WWE is in talks with giant Japanese K-1 star Bob Sapp. He’s huge in Japan, and he’s a personality that’ll translate well to the US, but he isn’t a household name. There’s a lot of talk about him signing, though there are probably schedule problems and money that’ll need to be hammered out. The WWE doesn’t have a great record with shootfighters, with Dan Severn never really getting over. Ken Shamrock did, though he was a wrestler before getting into the legit stuff.

The WWE is also talking with Monty Brown. He’s really not happy with the way TNA has been treating him, and in all honestly, he’s WWE material. The only other TNA wrestler I think would make a good WWE star is Lance Hoyt.

RAW
I didn’t get to see it all, but what I saw wasn’t bad. There’s just nothing that I feel very strongly about on the show.

I got in when Coach was in the ring with Vince McMahon. Coach had a few ideas that Vince shot down in favor of having the viewing audience vote for who John Cena should wrestle. The choices were Booker, Big Show or Coach. This kinda sucked.

Carlito beat Johnny Nitro and Shelton Benjamin. The depush of Shelton continues, as does the fact that he’s easily the best worker going. They had Jeff Hardy watching from the outside since he’s the one they will have to face if the crowd votes for them. That’s a very simple thing that sets up the gimmick very nicely.

Carlito has been working hard, but Shelton came out with the big moves, including a Springboard Bulldog for a near fall. Carlito hit the Backpack on Shelton for the win. They did a bit later with Carlito saying that he needed someone to talk to since the loss of Trish Stratus. Torrie Wilson agreed to meet up with him later. Ah, the Latin Lover gimmick!

This is like Heroes For Hire...

Lita beat Maria with Mickie James on commentary. She was going full face, which is weird since she works so well as a nuts heel. Lita got in a lot of offense, but Maria didn’t do nothing. She hit a Bulldog. Wow, a wrestling move from Maria. Lita won with a DDT. Mickie was the highlight to the match.

HHH beat Randy Orton via DQ. Edge started as Ref, but HHH gave him the Pedigree early and Edge sold it like Kenta Kobashi in a Six-man. What’s weird is that it buried Edge to have to sell for so long, plus Edge didn’t DQ H, which kinda makes sense since he was KOed, but then when he attacks Hunter, Randy gets DQed. That’s just plain dumb.

Umaga beat Eugene and Hacksaw. Really, Hacksaw’s not the best worker anymore, but he tried here and I thought it worked. Hacksaw took the spike to do the job for the big Samoan. The Eugene turn continues and it’s a terrible idea.

Cryme Tyme did a brief promo where they stole a monitor. I’m not quite sure what they think that accomplished, but it was at least funny. They beat Big Viz and Charlie Haas. Haas is so being wasted right now.

The Main Event featured Coach winning the vote in a landslide and that led to Coach taking on John Cena. Coach tried to run away, but Cena grabbed him by the ear Sister Mary Teresa-style and dragged him into the ring. Big Show and Booker attacked, which allowed Coach to take over for a while. This is really the right way to use Coach, getting him beat up once in a while to the delight of all. Cena reversed things and got the STFU for the win. Basic match, but it served its purpose, which describes the show itself to a tee.

ECW Notes
I only saw the Kevin Thorn loss to Sabu this week since there was Trick-r-Treatin’ to be done. Sabu flew all over the place in the match, which is good. Vince has been talking about the direction of ECW and that he wants no more hard core matches on House shows and to seriously limit them on TV. Anyone can tell you that’s a bad idea, but Vince has stopped listening to anyone but the voices in his head. They’ll stop doing ECW-only house shows in November, which is both a good and a bad thing.

ECW has been a minor disaster, but they’ve managed to make a few things work very nicely. One of those things is CM Punk. I’m hoping he’ll get over big enough to become a regular WWE star.

That’s all for this week. More on Monday!

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Chris Garcia