Falls Count Anywhere

11-16-06

I win again!

RAW
There were moments this week where RAW looked like they were going far better places than they’ve been in ages. Doing the show from the UK is always a good idea because the crowds are hot and they pop for every little thing. Luckily, they were given a few good things to pop for this time, but there was all the DX around to gum up the works.

They opened with DX talking, which is actually getting mighty annoying. They did the classic twenty minute opening and that was it for me. Coach came out and did one of my favorite gimmicks: the 10,000 dollar bounty. They then had a match against Cade, Murdoch, Hass and Big Viz. Michaels had to sell for all four guys early, before tagging in HHH, who went on to clean house on the guys and pin Haas, easily the guy with the most talent in that ring, with the Pedigree.

The Spirit Squad conspired to figure out a way to collect the bounty themselves. They sent Johnny and Kenny out to wrestle while the rest stalked the wild DX. DX treated them like jobbers when they fought SS off. Kenny and Johnny defeated The Highlanders, who got a better than usual reaction, though nothing like the crowd in Edinburgh. The Scots were about to win when Johnny saved him and Kenny followed by rolling up Rory for the win. This wasn’t a good match.

Wanna see what's under my kilt?

Jerry Lawler entered the Masterlock Challenge and lost. Lawler and Ross are both really good at making the ridiculous look decent. The worst part was we were stuck with Todd Grisham the rest of the show instead of Lawler and he just isn’t very good. They really need a new announcer for when Lawler and Ross are too old to go anymore. There’s no one they’ve got who works in the role with Vince giving them cues.

Eugene had a good segment where he wanted to collect the bounty, He knocked on DX’s door, and was given a roll of Bounty paper towels. He knocked again and tried to punch them and failed. He knocked a third time and charged through, but ended up missing. That was funny, mostly for the performance of Eugene.

Masters tried to collect and HHH beat him into unconsciousness.

John Cena beat Umaga by DQ. The start of the match was Umaga no selling, setting up that he’s a monster and that even the WWE’s Golden God can’t take him down. Cena took a Samoan Drop, but was making a comeback when Big Show ran in and attacked. Big Show Chokeslammed Cena and then Umaga gave him the Samoan Spike. Not a good segment, but they’re working on getting Umaga over as the Big Show unbeatable replacement and this was in that vein.

Shawn Michaels made off with the bounty money. I’m so bored.

Jeff Hardy beat Johnny Nitro for the IC title. The crowd was really into this match. Melina is hot, and here, for some reason, was hotter than I’ve ever seen her. Seriously, the girl should be much bigger than she is right now. She could easily be in the Lita position if it weren’t for a bad attitude at the beginning (and I understand that she’s improved greatly over the few couple of months) and she would be huge in TNA.

The match was solid, with both guys working really hard. Johnny Nitro is a star in the making, and it was kinda obvious that they took the belt off of Hardy so that Jeff could win it back at the UK show. Hardy has his moments, and when he is hitting, he’s really great. Here he hit a nice Powerbomb and Swanton, but Melina distracted the ref. That led to Nitro getting a neckbreaker and then hitting the SkyTwister Press. I remember when there was only one person in the world doing that move: a 4’7 girl named Chaparita Asari. Hardy took a two count, but then crucifixed Nitro over and got the win. Good match and the crowd loved it.

Mickie reminds Lita to always use a condiment.

Mickie beat Lita with her legs shackled together. Mickie said that Lita was the one who needed the shackles to keep her from spreading her legs. That was a funny line. The match was OK, nothing like their trainwreck last week, though this had a very weird finish. HHH sprayed Lita with mustard and then Mickie hit Lita with a giant sausage to set up her Jumping DDT win. I still think Mickie James is money, if they can only push her right.

Edge and Randy Orton became the Tag Champs when they beat Flair and Piper. Piper ended up taking a massive chairshot early. The heels then doubled-up on Flair, who made a go of it. He went for the Figure Four on Orton, but Edge Speared him instead. DX ran in and fought off security guards.

I don’t like the direction they’re going with DX and I kinda wish they’d drop the whole thing, though I do hear that the merch numbers are so good that it ain’t gonna happen. The Hardy match, the Eugene stuff,and even Cena vs. Umaga was good, and the heat was excellent, but the DX reign is hard on me.

NEWS
UFC’s Special Rating was really low. They got just a 1.1 for the Saturday Special. This may be a sign of over-saturation or it could just be a bad night. We’ll see when the next edition of Ultimate Fighter swings around.

ECW Note or Two
I didn’t see this week’s show, but I hear they debuted Bobby Lashley, which is a very good thing, and they started Kelly Kelly’s heel turn in the CM Punk thing. Punk’s the biggest thing in ECW right now and management has started to notice. Lashley’s going to be working with Hardcore Holly, which is a nice fit style-wise for him. It’s looking like the Elimination Chamber will tell us the next six months or so in the future of ECW. My money’s on Lashley.

Voting this year
As always, FanboyPlanet is giving out our annual wrestling awards. Most of them will come from my fertile mind (in categories like Best Wrestler, the Lou Thesz Award for Excellent Wrestling, Woman of the Year, Match of the Year, Tag Team of the Year, and so on) and there’s the Reader’s Portion. This year, there are four catagories: Best Babyface, Best Heel, Fanboy Planet’s Favorite Wrestler and The Fanboy Planet Match of the Year. If you want to vote, send your vote to ska666@aol.com by December 25th and it’ll be counted!

TNA Impact Replay
I couldn’t sleep so I managed to catch a good deal of the Wednesday night at 11pm replay of Impact. The opening three-way match, between AJ Styles, Ron The Truth Killings and Robert Roode was all sorts of fast action, but there was little build and hardly any drama. I love the way they worked Miss Brooks into things by having her try to interfere and end up getting a chest full of Coke from a planted fan. Killings almost over-shot Roode on a running hilo over the top rope. Aj looked great, as always, especially doing his Pele kicks. AJ won, of course, and won the right to face Abyss to see which of them got the title shot.

There was a pretty good three-way with Austin Star, Petey Williams and Jay Lethal. Honestly, I love the X-Division, but too many of the guys are alike. Austin Star is a giant step backwards for Austin Aries. The association with Kevin Nash has turned him into something like a West Hollywood Blonde and it’s not great. He’s a big deal in Ring of Honor and he was the one that ended Samoa Joe’s two year reign. The match was actually slightly better than the opener, mostly due to the presence of Williams. He ended up winning after Star went to the top rope and Chris Sabin got pushed into his crotch with the camera. At least I think it was Chris Sabin. Williams hit the Canadian Destroyer for the pin right after that. Good match.

Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle did a pair of nice interviews where each guy got a line or two off and then they cut to the other guy. Kurt and Joe are among the most intense performers you’ll ever find, and I thought the interviews were very effective.

I still think it’s too early to put them in the ring together; they should have waited another few months, if not a year. There’s the idea that TNA is bleeding money badly right now and they needed a big PPV to get things rolling. They should have gone with Jarrett first. Give Kurt Jeff, who can talk just enough to make it worthwhile. Then Captain Charisma, Chris Cage, followed by someone like AJ Styles or Christopher Daniels so that could build to the Samoa Joe match. I think most of those would draw, too.

At the end of the interviews, I didn’t want to buy the PPV any more than I already did, but I really wanted to know who would do the job. It’s like Sabu vs. Taz at Barely Legal in 1997. You just can’t make a good argument for either, but you know that one of them is gonna do the job.

That was all I saw as I fell asleep.

And that’s all for this week. I’ll have a report on Monday and then another edition the following Thursday since I’ll be in the desert of Riverside County for Turkey Day.

Talk about today's column in the forums!

Chris Garcia