Falls Count Anywhere

11-30-04

You don't see the WWE apologizing.

SmackDown!
Fresh from his assault by Hardcore Holly (who should have been fired and had charges pressed), Rene Dupree took on Rey Mysterio. This wasn’t the match I’d have wanted to see from Rey, but it would have to do. It was a nice little match, with Dupree doing a nice Stall Suplex and Rey hitting his signature moves. It ended when Rey hit a 619 and then did the Leg Drop Off the Ropes. Decent, short and a fair start.

They did all these little animations of a turkey dressed as various WWE Superstars. My fave was the first one where the turkey was dressed as Carlito. That was funny, but I still think the Computer Animated Animals of the Year awards goes to the running Donkey and Elephant from the CBS election coverage.

The Tough Enough segment was next and they eliminated Daniel Rodimer. Seriously, I hated that guy. The only ones I like in the field right now are Puder and the Silverback. They did an Arm Wrestling thing won by Daniel Puder. Is there any way this guy could lose? He’s perfect for the WWE, or would be if he was only a little bigger.

Eddie Guerrero and Booker T were backstage getting ready for their match when the “Holy Mary Mother of God is She HOT!” Amy Weber walked in to have a little chat with them. She was easily the second most attractive woman on WWE in ages here. Who’s the first? Read on…

They are being very smart and keeping Carlito Caribbean Cool on TV by having him do interviews. CCC was fairly OK on the mic and announced that Jesus had been given his wrestling license and would be competing against John Cena. I really like CCC and hope he gets back soon.

Kenzo Suzuki continues his powerful run of terrible matches by having one with RVD. At least it was short. Kenzo got DQed for choking Rob and Torrie “Why did Al have to die?” Wilson, who had done a terrible job ring announcing, beat on Hiroko a little until Kenzo pulled her off, put her in the corner and then gave her the Rick Rude pelvic gyration. It’s the little things that Kenzo does that make me smile.

A quiet moment for the WWE...

Joy Giovanni was looking about Boob Factor 11 as she set up the Thanksgiving feast. The Big Show came down and made a few jokes, brought in the announcers and others and then Luther Reigns came out and said that he hated Thanksgiving. The Big Show said that he could come in and have some food, which he did. This led to Luther pushing a pie in Joy’s face. Big Show booted Luther as a real food fight broke out. Joy eventually pushed a pie into Big Show’s face, and he looked like he was gonna explode, but then he hugged Joy and started laughing. This was the traditional Thanksgiving food fight, which I always enjoy for no reason. This year, you had the extra-crispy hot Joy to make it worthwhile!

The Kurt Angle Challenge was answered by Cody Steele. They did most of it from the hands and knees amateur starting position, and when Steele went down, Kurt gave him a big kick. This angle better be leading to the eventual contest between Angle and Puder.

They are doing a weird Haas as Lothario heel thing, where he checked out Michelle McCool’s (that name is so made up) ass as he and Jacky were headed to the ring for Jacky’s match with Dawn Marie. The match featured Dawn Marie looking as good as any woman ever has and ended as a Double DQ to keep it going. I don’t like this, save for the smoking hotness of Dawn Marie getting TV time.

Yes, we'll have that turkey SMOKED!

Booker T and Eddie Guerrero took on John Bradshaw Layfield and Orlando Jordan in a match that was pretty good. I really like the way that JBL works. He’s not a great worker, but he does a lot right in playing his character. Orlando did a Thesz press that would have been better referred to as a Tommy Wildfire Rich Press, as it wasn’t of a high quality. That reminds me, how come all us internet types have Scott Hall on our Dead Pool lists and no one has Tommy Rich? His BAL is at least 1.2 Halls. Booker and Eddie worked pretty well together. The end was weird, as the Bashem Brothers, dressed as fans, attacked and allowed JBL to get the pin. A weird ending.

I’d say this was your average Thanksgiving show. I liked it as one of my guilty pleasure, and Amy, Joy and Dawn Marie made my eyes fall out, so I didn’t feel at all cheated.

RAW
The show opened with the promised Battle Royal, and it wasn’t bad until the tie ending. Seriously, they’ve done that ending to death. They did do some good elevations with this match, including making Snitsky look like Diesel in 1994 by having him toss Rosie, Regal and Conway before being eliminated by Jericho. Batista looked good here too. The match ended with Edge and Benoit falling off at the same time. Seriously, give us a clean finish that you can dispute somehow, like the Austin Royal Rumble win in 1997.

GM for the Day Randy Orton asked Vince what he thinks he should do about the tie and Vince said that he was the GM and it was his choice. Edge came in and practically begged for a match. Orton said he’d think about it. Orton had good semi-heel charisma here, which is why he never should have been turned.

Maven and Benjamin were commiserating in the Century 24 Locker room when Eugene wandered in. Maven was upset that Eugene, a dullard, eliminated him though he couldn’t even spell title. Eugene then shocked the World by successfully spelling T-I-T-L-E. Shelton then drove him out to Vegas to play some blackjack in their matching suits. No, actually Maven went after him and Regal told Maven off for it.

They introed a couple of hot ladies on the show, which led to a terrible segment later.

Orton announced a Flair vs. Lawler match. This made me smile as I can only think of once I’ve seen the two of them wrestle and that was nearly 20 years ago. Orton also announced a Triple Threat Match between Benoit, Edge and HHH for the Main Event.

Lita and Victoria, who has not been getting the amount of air time she deserves even after the firings, beat Trish and Molly in a solid woman’s match. It didn’t go very long, but they did what they had to and they let Lita get the pin after the DDT. Jericho would later announce that the first match he was setting for his week as GM was Lita vs. Trish for the belt.

Another Muhammad Hassan package aired. This one was different, but still highlighted same things that are wigging people out. Still, there’s a great thesis paper on Arab and Muslim characters in wrestling waiting to be done.

Ric Flair beat Jerry Lawler in a match that was really good in my eyes. They did little things like Lawler strutting and Flair doing the Terry Funk air punches out of the corner
before doing the face plant. They did a little bit of the Jimmy Garvin Cage finish where Lawler went up for a second fist drop and hurt his knee, allowing Flair to get the Figure Four for the submission victory. Once in a while, a match like this is a really good thing.

Another Shelton Benjamin video showed and it wasn’t as good as last week’s, but it was strong. They are really pushing him the same way that they tried with Booker T. It was a very Confidential piece and will probably see the light of day again when Shelton gets his own DVD.

Orton brought out the girls and had them do an impromptu lingerie show. This was an awful waste of time even though the ladies were lovely. This went about five minutes too long and about three concepts too dumb.

Regal and Eugene beat La Resistance again to keep the Tag Titles. Short match, with Eugene flipping out and beating on La Res pretty good. Maven came out and attacked Eugene, completing his turn. They should have had him go into Evolution, but that’s besides the point.

Benoit, HHH and Edge went to a No Contest in a good match. They really built the entire show up to the match and I thought it delivered. It helped that they had two great workers and a really smart wrestler who knows how to play heel defending the belt, though he too often uses babyface methods. Triple Germans, Snap Suplexes, big headbutt, spears and missed spears, it was all there. They did another strange ending where Benoit caught a crossface on Edge and then Edge rolled, getting a pin on Benoit as he tapped out.

The ending should lead to Edge vs. Benoit with the winner getting the title, but there’s no way H will let that happen. This was a solid show that I enjoyed, though the women doing the undressing was not good at all. Seriously, Vince, start a softcore channel and get it over with.

NEWS
Hawk, the dude from Tough Enough, had his episode of Blind Date show on Thanksgiving. Good episode, actually.

Big hurt on Sabu, who was in the hospital for seven weeks due to a viral infection that he may have picked up in Puerto Rico. He’s not in good financial shape, so there are various indy fundraisers being done to help him out.

FlashBack!
OK, I found a video store in the rugged little town of Perris, CA that had a huge selection of wrestling videos, as well as Bones Brigade Three: The Search for Animal Chin, which I rented and watched the hell out of. I figured it would be a good time to watch a classic Thanksgiving show and I chose the 1992 Survivor Series. The match that I fast forwarded to was the rushed classic of Mr. Perfect, making his wrestling return after almost a year injured, teaming with Randy Savage to beat Ric Flair and Razor Ramon.

The story that led up to the match is a pretty good one. The Perfect team was supposed to be the Ultimate Madness, as Savage was originally going to have to carry his team by being saddled with The Ultimate Warrior as a partner. This wound up not happening due to The Warrior leaving the WWF a little over a week before. Vince panicked, not sure what to do since they had already taped TV up until Survivor Series, but then came up with a great plan. Mr. Perfect had been on the shelf and was an ‘advisor’ to Ric Flair and Bobby Heenan. Randy Savage asked Perfect to be his partner and Perfect accepted on Prime Time Wrestling. Heenan fired Perfect, who retaliated by dumping water all over the Brain. This led to the match.

The match itself was both good and bad. Hennig and Flair worked some really nice spots in the opening section, though Razor was not at the level to keep up with these guys. Savage was really good here to, and a lot of folks forget that 1992 was probably Savage’s last great year. There is a segment where Savage looks to be about ready to submit, and Curt starts to walk away from his partner, but then he turns around and comes back to a great reaction from the crowd. The hot tag they do a little later also draws the type of response we don’t see much today. This was a ridiculously hot match with all the fixin’s. They did long periods of Face-in-Peril, where the heels would stop any possible tag, all of that led to amazing levels of heat. Seriously, it’s a shame that this match doesn’t get more mention save for the Warrior troubles, as this might have been one of the few matches that could stand up to the late 1990s WrestleMania heat.

The heels got DQed, but they kept beating on Hennig until Savage returned with a chair and cleaned house. If you wanna talk about heat, watch that section alone and you’ll realize what modern wrestling is missing.

So, having said all of that, what do we learn from this match that could help up today? Faces. That’s right, faces are what made this match work. Faces people cared about. Yes, they did a sudden turn on Perfect, but he got himself over as a top face within 5 minutes of the match starting. Savage was a great face at the time. They had two top notch faces taking on the top heel in the business and Razor Ramon. They built the faces right, they used them in spots that made sense, and they delivered.

The WWE would never do anything like this now since HHH has decided that no one can look better than him. By using face techniques (like the whole General Manager trying to take out H thing they are doing right now) he is making it impossible for a real face to use it and look like a real face. HHH is killing the possible smart ways to get faces over by using those same methods to glorify himself. That’s a shame.

That’s all for today. Friday will feature more and more of the good stuff and a look at why Roddy Piper and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine are two of my all-time faves.

Chris Garcia