Falls Count Anywhere

11-09-06

Shoe me the way to go home...

RAW
So, Raw. Yeah…well…you see…what I’m thinkin’ is…OH, let me just say it: it sucked.

There were some good ideas, like bringing back Eric Bischoff, but the execution was just awful. This show was far worse than SmackDown! too.

They opened with Randy and Edge talking. They had their thing going on and Edge got the right level of heat. They announced that Eric was GM for the night, which was a nice touch. Yes, the Heel GM thing has been overdone, but Eric is just such a great character. The face GM thing they’ve done for more than 18 months on SmackDown! has always been underplayed so it’s not nearly as tired. I rather like it.

Piper and Flair came out to talk with Eric. Flair brought up the past between the two of them. Piper mentioned that The Cutting Edge was just Piper’s Pit in a different skirt. As far as I'm concerned, Piper made the segment.

Johnny Nitro won the IC title from Jeff Hardy. This was an interesting match. They did the weird re-started match deal after Melina got Nitro DQed when she interfered. Bisch restarted everything as a No DQ match and Nitro won after Melina interfered and Nitro hit Hardy with the belt for the pin. Hardy worked better than he has lately in this one, including doing the BrainDriver suplex variant that we haven’t seen lately. Good enough, though they devalued the belt a bit with the change under these conditions. I really shouldn’t have expected any different.

TNA ran a commercial for Impact on USA. Smart people, those TNA folks. They actually probably ran it through the cable providers, which is a sneaky deal, but a lot of the country saw it.

Anybody seen my movie career?

The shocking news of the night: K-Fed challenged Cena to a match on New Year’s Day. I, I will begin again…sorry. I’m on a U2 buzz. Anyhow, they showed Federline’s taped challenge and I really think if they’re trying to make Cena into a real face, this is the way to do it. K-Fed (or is it Fed-Ex now?) is the real life version of what Cena is seen as and it makes him look more like a face.

Eugene and Hacksaw took on Johnny and Kenny of the Spirit Squad in a match where the losers had to break up forever. This had an interesting finish. You could see the tension between Johnny and Kenny and it was obvious that they were going to break up, but instead when Hacksaw went for his 3-Point Stance, he got distracted by the other SS members and rolled-up for the loss. Eugene snapped and beat on Hacksaw with his 2 x 4.

OK, here was a weird one: Umaga vs. Maria. Now, they had Umaga destroy Maria and for the first few minutes, John Cena, watching backstage, does nothing, even after she took a Samoan Drop. When he goes for the Spike, Cena runs in and makes the save. Maria has to get some credit for taking so much punishment. They then interview Cena, who does some comedy, and then accepts the K-Fed challenge. That’s followed by him giving the interview dude an FU. I don’t quite get what they’re going for.

Chris Masters was out with Bischoff and he said that Masters was going to take on Jim Ross. Instead, Jerry Lawler answered the challenge and Bisch said OK, as long as Lawler had one hand handcuffed to the top rope. Yep, I’m serious about that one. Masters eventually got the Masterlock on Lawler, which caused him to be out of announcing for the rest of the show. This would have been OK, if not for a match later on in the show.

Carlito beat Shelton in a short match. Cryme Tyme came out and worked with Jim Ross on announcing and they were in character. Shelton had earlier said that he didn’t win the vote at CyberSunday because he was black and that black people everywhere looked up to him. This allowed Ron Simmons to say ‘Damn’, which is interesting since he seems to be drawing a paycheck simply for saying one word. He says it well, but seriously, that’s a good gig.

Cryme Tyme distracted Shelton and that allowed Carlito to hit the Backpack for the win. It is criminal what they’re doing to Benjamin. Put him in ECW and let him and CM Punk have a feud.

"Shucks. I plumb tuckered 'er out!"

Lita beat Mickie James. Lita came out and said that she’d convinced Bischoff to give Mickie the rematch as long as Mickie had one hand tied behind her back. Wow, that’s creative, considering the Lawler match. This was better than the match from Cyber Sunday, but that’s not saying much. Lita won.

I was so annoyed at that point that I turned off the TV and went to bed. I understand that Roddy Piper and Ric Flair pinned Edge and Orton when DX interfered and they followed it up with an out-of-shape male stripper and a stinkface to Eric. Glad I missed it.

Stephanie McMahon is back in charge of RAW and it shows. She’s never been a strong creative type and she lives in that world that Vince Russo made so popular. They have loads of talents both in the ring (Shelton, Carlito, Edge) and outside (Cena, Flair, Piper) and they aren’t using any of them right.

This episode was just awful and I’m hoping that they’ll finally straighten things out and give pushes to the right guys. I’m afraid they’ve destroyed any chance of Shelton ever being a player, unless he leaves and goes to TNA. Carlito’s got a chance and I think they see that he’s talented. Cena and Edge are too close to having their heat erased.

NEWS
It seems that one of my favorites, Kevin Randleman, will be suspended for giving a false drug test sample. That’s a bad no-no, and if Pride doesn’t go along with the suspension world-wide, they’re not going to be issued their permits to have shows in Nevada.

ECW
Didn’t watch as much ECW as I should have since I was interested in the election results, but there were a couple of things that caught my eye.

How 'bout this straight edge?

CM Punk beat Mike Knox in a match to qualify for the ECW December to Dismember Elimination Chamber. That was an average match because Knox had the advantage most of the way and he’s not very good. Punk made his comeback with slaps and got the win with the Anaconda Vise.

Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay did a promo saying they were coming to ECW. Terkay’s a decent match with ECW. He’s got a good gimmick and he’s the real deal, but they shouldn’t have him up against CM Punk too soon.

After some election results, I came back to see Test beat Mr. Tommy Dreamer to qualify for the Elimination Chamber. Dreamer was very much over this night. This was a short match and Dreamer got his offense before Dreamer got low blowed and then TKOed to give Test the place in the match.

The tag match with Big Show and Paul Heyman against RVD and Hardcore Holly was OK, but basically it was there to have Holly turn on RVD. It was a fine match, but really, they shouldn’t have turned Holly so soon, since he was over as a face, especially here.

Basic show and not too bad, either.

That’s the last of this week. More on Monday!

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Chris Garcia