Falls Count Anywhere

11-16-04

Call me Elderly Unkempt Illegitmate Son.

RAW
I have to say that I fell asleep a couple of times during the show, notably during the Randy Orton vs. The Coach match and the pillow fight. That should say a lot of what I thought of those two particular segments.

The first to get his night as GM was Maven, who opened the show with a few of his ideas: The Pillow Fight between Christy and Stacey Keibler, JR vs. The Coach, Maven fighting HHH for the World Heavyweight Title, and Shelton Benjamin and Chris Benoit vs. Edge and Christian. He started the whole thing while La Resistance was in the ring and he announced that they would be defending the tag titles in a Three-way Elimination match. That brought out Tajiri and Rhyno and William Regal and Eugene.

The match was actually pretty decent. There was a fair amount of comedy, but everyone worked like they can and I appreciated it. I really wish they’d give Regal more to do. The crowd was into it, and Eugene. It’s funny, as when they just have him go out and do his bits, he’s great and gets good reactions, but when they rely on him, the crowd quickly turns. I guess that’s to be expected with the type of gimmick he has. Ryhno missed a Gore and Grenier pinned him while Conway held his feet. That left Regal and Eugene and La Rez double-teamed Eugene until he hit a Rock Bottom. They tried to hit Regal with a flag, but they missed, allowing Regal to hit the High Kick. He tagged in Eugene, who delivered a People’s Elbow and got the win for the Tag Team Titles. Solid.

You can't drink it slow...

After a break, Regal was talking to the new girl, who is pretty hot, and Eugene came in and dumped chocolate milk in place of champagne. He was talking about the British Bulldogs and the Hart Foundation and did a shout-out to LOD. Really funny. Regal then made a great comment when Eugene was ogling the announcer: ‘If you keep that up, you’ll go blind. I, on the other hand, could afford to lose one eye.’ That is why William Regal is awesome!

They showed a WWE 24/7 commercial which listed all the feds that they had acquired and would make available. I may never go to work again once it debuts.

Maven and HHH had a chat where Hunter offered Maven a spot in Evolution. That had been discussed for a while, including, I believe, Maven being the one that beat up Randy Orton and taking his spot. This was good and Maven has a lot of potential and can do a promo. HHH was very good here, but it’s starting to feel a bit stale.

Lita beat Molly. This was a short match, but they took it seriously, having Lita actually do a few moves and ending it with Lita doing a Choke-out. That’s the best way to get a hold over: use it as a finish and keep using it. The women’s division is dying, with all the releases of late, and they need another few women to make it work.

Trish came out and blamed Lita for busting up her beautiful face and forcing her to wear a protective mask thing that I remember Kurt Rambis wearing in the 1980s. She got in the ring and pushed Trish down by her face before leaving. Not bad, but they need to get a woman’s division rolling.

This is where the Coach was supposed to wrestle JR, but Maven came on screen and said that the J was silent and he’s be facing JRandy Orton. Like I said, I fell asleep.

The did an interview with Edge and Christian backstage. They made a big deal out of Edge and Christian teaming for the first time in almost three years. And they’re right back where they were then. They made like they didn’t get along, then they left. Randy Orton talked to Maven, telling him not to join Evolution.

This put Garcia to sleep.

Chris Benoit and Shelton Benjamin beat Edge and Christian. This was a good match with Edge and Christian playing like they weren’t on the same page. Shelton is so damn good. Benoit worked his ass off, as usual, and this went very well. It managed to keep sleepy ole me awake for the duration. Finish was a Stinger splash followed by a T-Bone by Benjamin and then Benoit with the headbutt for the pin. Edge beat up Christian, which is may just be to turn Christian face instead of what I hoped they would do and make Edge a heel-leaning tweener. Good.

Ric Flair brought a couple of ladies to try and force Maven to take the spot in Evolution. This was classic Flair.

Then came the pillowfight and another nap.

I woke up in the middle of the Muhammad Hassan segment. He did a more heel interview, talking about beating the prejudice out of Americans. Hmmmmm…

HHH beat Maven in the most disgusting style possible: by over-coming the odds and beating him clean after Jericho, Benoit and Orton interfered. The match wasn’t good, but it did have some heat, certainly more than Maven’s had in a long time. Snitsky came out, so the cut must not have broken the orbital bone at Survivor Series.

HHH would rather cuddle with the Belt than Stephanie.

With a few exceptions, the show was good, with good wrestling and an interesting storyline. I’m betting we get Benoit or Jericho next, since it’s obvious that Orton is the last of the members to get his week.

NEWS
Randy Savage, after walking out on TNA, has apparently gotten back on terms and will be appearing. This is a good thing, as they need him. I know he’s 52 years old and nowhere near a worker any more, but still, he’ll bring some visibility.

Survivor Series
I thought Survivor Series lived up to the proud tradition. There was some really good stuff at the top and bottom, and a few useless things in the middle. Still, better than many of the WWE’s PPVs, even during the Golden Age.

We were treated to the Cruiserweight Fatal Fourway. I had said that Spike would retain the title, which came to pass. Most of the net-noise was on Kidman or Chavo taking it. So there. Good match. The thing about the Cruiserweight style of wrestling on SmackDown! right now is the convergence of styles. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Spike Dudley may have the most innovative style of any wrestler on the roster when it comes to mixing it up. A great spot where Kidman went up to grab Chavo and the two of them got suplexed. Nice! Chavo hit the Gori Bomb, but Kidman gave him the Leg Drop over the top rope which allowed Spike to get the pin. A solid match. Maybe we’ll get crazy Chavo back sometime soon.

Shelton Benjamin is ready for a big push. After watching his match with Christian, there is no question that he has what it takes to go to the middle of the top. This was an excellent stage for Shelton to show his athleticism. Few stars make it based purely on being great athletes anymore, but I think Shelton has the skills to do it. He’s sort of a New Century version of Ricky Steamboat (from 1984) or Sting (from 1988). He worked his spots nearly flawlessly and I think that he really put out an effort that will be noticed. The fans seemed into this match more than I expected. I called a Shelton win, and I got a Shelton win. That’s not to say that Christian didn’t put forth a great effort, in fact, he did just that, but it was obvious that this was being done to make Shelton look as good as possible. Benjamin won with the Exploder. I’d say this was my match of the night.

Edge and Angle had a little chat backstage. Angle said he read Edge’s book, which makes one person in the audience. He didn’t like the way he came off. Like me in most of the books that have mentioned me. Both of them, actually. Eugene then came out and was so happy to see Kurt. He started the crowd in on a series of ‘You Suck!’ chants. This was fun.

The SmackDown! Team Angle vs. Team Guerrero match wasn’t very good due to injuries. Carlito, due to the shoulder injury, hightailed it and left via car. RVD got eliminated, then Eddie took care of Jindraik and shortly thereafter we had Big Show finish off Reigns, leaving Angle against three guys. He had the ankle lock on Big Show but he managed to kick Kurt out of the ring. Kurt started walking to the back, but RVD come out and made sure he headed into Big Show, who chokeslamed him. This allowed Cena to get the FU and Eddie to give him the old Frog Splash for the win. Not a good match, but I called it right. Three for three, so far.

Two Fanboy Planet worlds collide.

Maven got attacked by Snitsky before their match, but the most notable thing wasn’t Maven getting’ beat, it was Fit Finlay making another rare appearance on the screen! Bring him back! Bring him back!

Want to make fifteen minutes seem like forever? Watch the Heidenreich vs. Undertaker match. I know, it’s Undertaker, a Hall of Famer, so he gets as much time as he wants, but this was so overkill. Heidenreich did us the Boss Man Slam on taker, which was nice to see. UT got the win (after more than fifteen minutes!!!) with the Tombstone. Bleh. I got that right too, but who wouldn’t have?

I seldom say this, but Lita vs. Trish Stratus was far too short. They did a nice little angle where Lita went nuts and started beating Trish with a chair and got DQed, which made another of my predictions come true. No Snitsky, though, which was surprising to me. Trish was busted open, poor thing. Crowd was chanting for Lita. A bunch of bloody savages in Cleveland.

The crowd did not get into the JBL vs. Booker T match, which I called for JBL and which also came out right. The match wasn’t great, they did everything from interference to ref bumps to objects, and it was Booker getting knocked out by the belt that finished it. Still, Booker looked good and Bradshaw plays a good heel champion. In another age, this would have been the hottest match on the card, but in 2004, it was sit on your hands time.

OK, I got one wrong, and it was the big one. HHH’s team lost to Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit and Maven. This was a good match with lots of good story going on and the early elimination of the weak links: Maven (before the match had even started), Batista and Snitsky. Batista hit his spinebuster, but then got a belt shot from Orton followed by a running enzuigiri for the pin by Jericho. Maven came out and Snitsky laid a shot into him that just sickened me. Seriously, Maven is willing to do anything to get over, but I don’t think it’s going to work.

Snitsky also ended up with a brutal looking cut that might have broken his orbital bone. Maven was then eliminated. Edge was doing a bit where he would not be on the same page as the rest of the team. Edge did eliminate both Benoit and Jericho. Edge got eliminated following an RKO. HHH’s elimination at the hands of Randy Orton won the match for the good guys, which surprised me. They have a lot of places to go now, but they’ll probably stay in the same direction they’ve been going.

I’d say that this was a show that started high, peaked with the Shelton Benjamin performance, and then went slack until a very solid ending. Still, I liked it enough to say thumbs-up.

That’s all for now! Friday features Wendi Richter!

Chris Garcia