Falls Count Anywhere

12-10-07

...and yet it sang.

TNA in Disarray
There was a lot of action on the PPV that TNA did last weekend. The Observer reports that Samoa Joe’s interview where he railed against washed-up WWE guys coming to TNA and taking the spotlight away from him was Joe going into business for himself. The story goes that he was supposed to do an interview against Scott Hall who had no-showed (and who folks say is in really bad shape emotionally) and he got side-tracked and did the much bigger promo that got Kevin Nash hot under the collar and made a lot of folks angry.

That’s the one thing about having scripted promos: you don’t have to deal with a guy coming off the track and saying something stupid. Joe apologized at a meeting the next day, but Joe and Nash got into a physical altercation a little while later (mostly it was Joe trying to explain and Nash not being happy and pushing him, from what folks are saying). The meeting where Joe apologized was an important one and folks were told that they could have releases if they wanted. That’s a sign of a ship that doesn’t have faith in itself. You say folks can bail out anytime they want and they’ll either do it or stay to sink.

This also fueled fires that Joe is talking to the WWE about coming in. I’ve tried to find out more about that, but came up empty, probably because approaching someone under-contract is a no-no. I think Joe is smart enough to understand that he’d be in a terrible position if he went to the WWE, that they’d push him in such a way that he’d never get over and he’d probably end up getting over anyhow for no good reason…kinda like Jeff Hardy.

Word on the World
Kenta Kobashi’s first match back went very well. He did the job in a hard fought match, but he looked pretty good and the crowd was hot. The place exploded when he came out.

Pro Wrestling NOAH’s future is strange and no one is sure what’s going to happen next. The plan seems to be Misawa, who is old and hurt, will drop the GHC championship to Morishima at the defense in March. Morishima’s time in Ring of Honor made him a favourite of Americans into Japanese wrestling and proved that he can hold a belt with some success. He’s a big guy and will probably be the one to carry NOAH for the next few years, but it revolves around him having a strong run. KENTA, the young guy whose real name is Kenta Kobayashi, will probably be his greatest opponent, even though he’s pretty small for the top of the card.

Mexico had a weird incident the other day with Mistico and his current opponent, Averno. Sounds a lot like the time The Iron Sheik and Hacksaw Jim Duggan got pulled over and charged with possession of cocaine.

Fight Night
I missed Hatton getting KOed by Mayweather. Yes, I know boxing is never MMA or Wrestling, but the way they’ve been presenting things lately, boxing has certainly taken what UFC and WWE have been doing the last couple of years and have turned that into what’s drawing big numbers. I totally chose Mayweather to get his face handed to him, but apparently he fought a really good fight.

The Ultimate Fighter Finale featured a couple of great matches. The Jon Koppenhaver vs. Jared Rollins was really good, and I’d say that it was easy the fight of the year if Clay Guida vs. Roger Huerta hadn’t been such an amazing fight too. The fight was great and watching Huerta fight is quite impressive. The guy’s a beast at one level and a very smart fighter at another. The Matt Danzig vs. Tommy Speer Ultimate Fighter Final was a quick match where Danzig just choked out Speer pretty quick into the first. There was no comparing Danzig to any of the fighters from this season. He was the obvious winner from about week four onwards.

OK, that’s some news. I’ll have a RAW report on Thursday since it’s the big three hour edition. Coming in the New Year, Falls Count Anywhere will be going to a once-weekly format since time has been getting crunchier and crunchier for me. Keep your eyes open for more on that development.

Chris Garcia