Falls Count Anywhere

11-30-06

The wrestling columnist formerly known as human.

The main event with Hardcore Holly vs. RVD was good too, though not as good as their previous match. I thought RVD looked better here than he did the last couple of weeks. I think Hardcore Holly could be a pillar of ECW if they let him run wild.

Survivor Series
Honestly, I wasn’t too impressed. I watched the first match, the legends vs. Spirit Squad and was very disappointed that they gave the win to the SS. True, Dusty Rhodes got to eliminate a guy, but mostly it was just a way to give SS a pin over Ric Flair, which means that this feud must continue. True, they did have Eugene snap and attack Jim Duggan, and there’s nothing better than that. It’s a shame to see Ron Simmons reduced to what he is now. They pinned Flair to win the match that also featured Arn Anderson.

Roddy Piper has Lymphoma, which is why he had to pull out of the show. Get well soon, Roddy!

Chris Benoit retained the US Title with a win over Chavito Guerrero. It was a good match, though it was rushed. They really need to start giving Benoit’s matches more time to develop into greats. Look at his matches with Kurt Angle: the longer they went, the better they were. The same could be said of his matches with HHH if you took the Iron Man matches out of the equation. Vikki got bumped off the apron and Benoit managed to get the crossface on Chavo and that led to the clean tap.

The last handstand.

Funny bit: Edge and Lita were doing a promo and Cryme Tyme were stealing stuff from their locker room. I’m actually starting to like this Cryme Tyme stuff.

In a good match that sounds like a squash but was actually very competitive, Team DX took on Team RKO. Mike Knox got punked out in less than a minute, and that kinda shows his level of talent. Punk got to beat Nitro with the Anaconda Vise in a match-up of two guys I’m sure we’ll see put together down the road. Gregory Helms got to take a bunch of finishers and then Matt Hardy pinned him. That left us with everyone against Edge and Randy Orton. Michaels pinned Edge, H pinned Orton and that was that. I thought it was a good way to give guys they really wanna build good wins without damaging anyone too badly…except for Mike Knox who deserves it!

I don’t usually like First Blood matches, and the one with Kennedy and Undertaker was no exception. The same thing always happens: the heel starts to bleed, somehow manages to hide it or have their manager wipe it off and then the face gets busted open and that’s the match. MVP played the role of the manager and after he wiped the blood from Kennedy’s mouth, he went to hit him with a chair, but hit UT and that busted him open. UT then beat on Kennedy. Weird ending.

The match between Team Big Show and Team Cena was weird. It was short and not very good at all. It wasn’t given a chance to be any good, but the crowd hated Cena. No, that’s not right. They despised the fact that John Cena walked the Earth. They liked Bobby Lashley, which is a good thing since they should be building him into the next big thing. Cena pinned Show with the FU. That’s an impressive thing, but everyone’s given Show their finishers so it’s less impressive now.

Booker vs. Batista wasn’t quite a train wreck, but it wasn’t good. They had Teddy Long say that the title could change hands on a DQ or a count-out. Just a reaction to the TNA title change. Batista won using a belt shot. Well, it wasn’t what a Main Event should be, but it wasn’t awful. I only hope that they get some mileage out of it. I’m worried about Batista’s ability at this point.

RAW
I didn’t get to see it all (or any of SmackDown! since I was at LosCon), but what I saw was interesting. The first thing I saw was Candice Michelle getting cold kicked in the face by Victoria who then won the woman’s battle royal. I swear, it was one of the stiffest kicks I’ve ever seen in a wrestling match. Mickie James was on commentary and you could tell that she was aghast. I was too. Candice ended up with a broken nose. Victoria might have been JBLing her, which sucks, but she must be miffed that these pretty girls are getting bigger pushes than the really tough woman wrestler. Still, there could be consequences for Victoria over it.

Eugene beat Hacksaw Duggan in a match that’s just another step in the proper use of old stars. Hacksaw put over Eugene clean in a way that helped get his character over more. Afterwards, Eugene got on the mic and told people not to laugh at him. I was hoping that Eugene would slowly slip out of the character and then say something like “screw this retard bit!” and leave for ECW.

Dusty Rhodes and Arn had a nice chat with DX who said they had soda and chips for their party. HHH then upgraded their promises to booze and broads. Ron Simmons joined them for the party.

The Cutting Edge featured Edge making jokes at DX and others. He called for his guest, but he didn’t show his face, which led to Randy coming out and saying that he had the guest backstage. Flair was there, beaten and bloodied, and they called out DX. They beat on Flair some more. This was a powerful segment and I think that the Edge-Orton team is a good one.

Lawler beat Chris Masters. Masters had the Masterlock on Lawler, but Carlito came out and he broke the hold and Carlito spit apple in Masters’ face, allowing Lawler to get a schoolboy. Weak match. They have so many better things they could be doing with Carlito.

They did a really dumb bit where they recreated the Michael Richards stand-up blow-out with Cryme Tyme coming out and attacking the comic and then stealing his wallet. This wasn’t good, but I thought Cryme Tyme did a good job in it.

The Hardy Boyz, who had been pushed in short vignettes all night, beat Edge and Randy Orton via DQ in a decent match. The Hardys went for the Legdrop/splash combo, but Randy pushed Matt to the floor. Matt missed a moonsault, which is a move that I think he doesn’t use nearly enough. I mean, his is really nice and clean. Randy almost got an RKO on Jeff, but Matt managed to give Orton the Twist of Fate. Jeff managed to get Orton with The Swanton which led to Edge using the belt to get DQed. This was a decent match and there are worse things than the Hardys vs. Edge and Orton.

ECW 11-28 Note
OK, here’s the stupid thing: CM Punk didn’t beat Test. That’s just about the worst thing they could have done. Well, the worst thing would have been to have Test pin him clean without letting him get any offense. They did a Double Count-Out, but if CM Punk doesn’t rate a clean win over Test, then what hope is there?

Team Extreme, Matt and Jeff Hardy, were back together. I’m of two minds about this. One is Matt can work really well as a solo. Second, Jeff needs Matt to reign him in. Still, it is kinda good to have a team from the Golden Days back together.

OK, that’s all for this week. Back to regular sched as of Monday...

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Chris Garcia