Falls Count Anywhere

12-04-06

Mako's back in town!

SmackDown!
Booker came out and said that Theodore R. Long had helped Batista win by giving him new match stipulations at the last possible moment to keep Booker off kilter. Good point. He invoked his rematch clause, but Finlay came out and they made a Triple Threat. This got things rolling.

MNM vs. Paul London & Brian Kendrick. Most won’t remember that this is a rematch of the match where London and Spanky won the Tag Titles a few months back. It weird that they’ve held the titles so long and no one seems to care. Still, these two teams have had good matches and this wasn’t for the title. MNM worked over Kendrick hard, putting him in the role of Face in Peril. Brian managed to flip out of a double suplex and made the hot tag to London. MNM managed to throw London to the outside and Dave Taylor and Stene Regal attacked him, which allowed MNM to hit the Snapshot for the win. Not a bad match.

Kennedy and MVP got in a lover’s quarrel backstage. Kennedy doesn’t trust MVP. Smart move.

King Booker vs. Finlay vs. Batista - World Heavyweight Title
Batista opened up on fire and even used Finlay’s Forward rolling Fireman’s Carry on Finlay! The match was OK, in fact at times it was dang good. The Little Bastard made an appearance to distract the ref, which allowed Finlay to use the shillelagh on Booker and Batista. The crowd picked up towards the finish of the match, which was Batista giving Booker a spinebuster and Finlay a spear and the DemonBomb for the win.

The Little Bastard just creeps me out.

King Booker and Finlay argued with Teddy Long. Long put them in a tag match at Armageddon against Batista and a partner of his choosing, who they told us later is going to be John Cena.

Chris Benoit and Chavo had a little match that I enjoyed, though it wasn’t given enough time. Benoit worked a little different than he has recently, or in fact in ages. He threw some straight lucha in there, including doing the Quebrada! Benoit was in control for most of the match, giving Chavo the Rolling Germans and the SuperPlex among other moves. Benoit managed to reverse the Three Amigos, but Chavo slipped behind him and rolled him up for the pin. Decent match.

Kristal beat Leyla. I left after about a minute of the match and didn’t get to see MVP vs. The Undertaker either.

Not a great show, but they’re pushing things right it seems.

ECW December to Dismember in Brief
I didn’t get to watch the D2D live, but I’ve caught a few of the matches on the web and read the results and reviews. Most folks didn’t like it at all, and I have to admit that the booking seems almost idiotic. They pulled Sabu from the Main Event, which is the stupidest thing they could have done unless he was actually injured, which may well have been the reason for the change to put Bob Holly in the match. If they were gonna pull anyone out of the match, it should have been CM Punk, who didn’t need to be doing a job for RVD when there’s probably money, or at least a decent rating, in that singles match down the road.

The best of what I managed to see was the match between MNM and The Hardys. A really long, 22 minute, match that had the guys pulling out all the stops. None of them were ever in ECW, but Team Extreme was the first to really bring the ECW High Risk style to the WWF back in 1998. Jeff would have fit in nicely in 1996 with Mikey Whipwreck and the Giant Paul Loria. MNM is a really strong tag team and they should be getting another chance. It’s nice to see the Hardys together again.

The Main Event. I only managed to see parts of it. Lashley looked very strong going in and pinning Test and The Big Show to win the title. He got a decent pop at the finish too. I’m not sure how long he’ll keep the belt, but I hope it’s for a while because it can only help him move up into the range where I really think he can hold his own with Batista and Cena. Lashley’s win was a good start at building credibility for the ECW title.

I’ll try and update in my Thursday edition when I’ve seen the rest of the show.

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That’s all for today. More on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia