Falls Count Anywhere

12-21-04

Amy Weber still wins in my heart.

RAW Year-In-Review
Well, it wasn’t a great year for RAW, but it wasn’t a bad review show. The matches they chose were good and the show came off well, making the year look much better than it actually was.

Though I missed it (Christmas cookies were burning), I understand they reran the Shelton and Trish skit making fun of the one they did on Monday Night Football. Still one of my faves for the year, as I thought it was really well done.

They showed part of the really good Christian vs. Chris Jericho match from WrestleMania. Solid match, very well done and good in edited form.

They did a retrospective on Eugene, which was funny. Speaking of funny, if you get a chance to listen to William Shatner’s latest album, do it. His cover of Pulp’s Common People is brilliant and features personal prize pianist Joe Jackson.

They showed a video package on Shelton Benjamin before going into his match where he beat HHH. This was an awesome match and I am glad they showed it again to help get Benjamin over. Really, if HHH had come out the next RAW and made a huge deal of losing, he could of gotten Shelton way over, but instead he played it off. Shelton is going to break out next year, I hope.

They reshowed a bunch of the Kane and Lita stuff. I fear this is the stuff that will be remembered from 2004. Lita had some good matches, and one great match, but this Kane stuff was awful.

For Eugene, it was a very good year...

Kane took on Gene Snitsky at Taboo Tuesday. I like Snitsky, as he’s the only one they’ve done mostly right in the last year or so. Kane was getting stale, since he was constantly being thrown into terrible feuds and dumb ideas. This was a decent match with Kane working hard. Kane was good in his matches against Austin and Foley, and here he really tried to make the Chain match work. I still think it’s brutal when Snitsky Pillmanizes Kane’s head and neck with the chair. Just brutal. They probably showed this and the following Divas shooting T-shirts with Snitsky interrupting to remind us that the Snitsky vs. Kane feud is still on and that Kane is returning shortly. A smart move.

They review the situation leading up to Benoit getting the title shot at WrestleMania. This was good, and showing Austin on TV was not an accident. They are talking about bringing him back for a match at this years Mania. Good thing too, as they need a bump to keep interest up.

They showed the WrestleMania match between HHH and Shawn Michaels and the eventual winner, Chris Benoit. Great, no, CLASSIC match between three should-be Hall of Famers. Shawn Michaels may have been better in 1996, but he still knows how to mork a smart match. HHH had his thinking heel boots on and Benoit is Benoit. This match, complete with the Double Back Suplex through the Table, the superplex, the many Crossfaces, and the just plain old fashioned work was so good that it will easily be US Match of the Year in the Observer (unless Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk manages to win) and will probably only lose to Akiyama vs. Kobashi internationally. Benoit’s win cemented him forever as a top guy, though his reign was nowhere near long enough. Go to Hell, HHH!

They go over the Diva search. The first thing that seeing the recap shows is that it should have been Amy Weber. She was great, seemed to be in it for the right reasons, and was the only one who showed real emotion when she was eliminated. Christy, while hot, was nowhere near her level. That may explain why Amy got put with JBL, the guy who is Vince’s personal fave. They did kick in a funny bit where Christy came out and Jerry Lawler was wearing Bod body spray and Christy, in full drunken Sorority Chick mode, screamed “I want you Bod.” That was kinda funny.

They showed the Lita vs. Trish Stratus match from Raw a few weeks ago. This looked even better in highlight form. The two of them are the smartest women working in the biz right now and this was a great match that really built drama. They showed the Lita dive over and over from various angles. It looked so much like Brock’s misses Shooting Star Press, only it was to the floor, which should have been worse, though Lita walked out of it and had a really good match too. Lita’s win was huge, and I’m glad to see her back in form.

They reviewed the tossing of Randy Orton from Evolution, which seemed like a big deal in review, but sure didn’t feel that way when it happened.

They showed Chris Jericho getting KOed from Batista’s clothesline. I have still never figured out if it was a legit knockout or a smartly done angle. My guess is the latter, though it looked harsh.

Let him eat cake. Just stop ruining the WWE...

The closer was the Survivor Series match between Benoit, Maven, Jericho and Randy Orton against HHH, Batista, Edge and Gene Snitsky. Good match, at times great. They made a big deal of Maven running in and beating on Snitsky. I hope they really run with Maven’s turn, as I think he could be a solid player for RAW. The match had some great highlights (I really like Jericho working with Batista) and everything sorta flowed together. I’d say this was the highlight of the last half of the year and it certainly led to the rebound rating that we are still basking in.

NEWS
There is talk of Brock trying to get back into the WWE and Vince giving him the cold shoulder, mostly because of the way he suddenly left. There is a lot to this and it’s obvious what’s going to happen long-run. There are sticky issues, like Brock not being able to handle a full schedule and Vince wanting him to work one to get house show business back. Brock was the last guy the crowd really bought as a monster heel and he should be back and working SmackDown! which really needs a top heel right about now. Plus, he has a number of possible angles that can be played, including not giving a damn about the fans and that’s why he left. It’ll happen; he’ll be back, but no one knows when.

In what may be a tie-in to that story, RAW and SmackDown! will be doing a joint taping at the San Jose Arena (a mere 200 yards from my house) on January 31st. This is likely a Draft show, but imagine if Brock returned and there was a bidding war for his services. No one is sure what they’re thinking of doing, but it’s gotta be something big.

There is talk of a WWE-run ECW PPV in June. There’s a lot of controversy over this one. Vince is insisting that Paul Heyman not be involved, which is not a good idea. According to the Observer, Stephanie only wants to use regular WWE guys while everyone else wants to get non-WWE guys in for the show. Sabu, if he’s healthy, Sandman, Terry Funk, Super Crazy, Psicosis (that would be awesome), Juvy, and many more who are not in TNA are all options. Of course, I doubt they’d do it without Foley. I’d love to see this work, since they are even using the Hammerstein Ballroom, where ECW ran a few great shows. Why not the ECW Arena? Well, it’s too small for a WWE-sized production. This could be great, if they let them go all out, or it could be bad, if Steph gets her way. The ECW DVD has really revived interest and may well be responsible for a strong quarter for the WWE.

FlashBack!
When I was a kid, I used to watch GLOW. I loved it. It was a more cartoony version of the WWF at the time. When GLOW died, there was LPWA. When that went under, rather spectacularly, there was a void that wasn’t filled with Women on WWF and WCW shows. Then WOW popped up.

Oh yes, WOW.

The one shining spot...

WOW was easily the worst wrestling of 2000. They had girls who were cute, but couldn’t work. They had a couple of girls who could work a bit, or at least brawl, but they saddled them with awful gimmicks. Bronco Billy might have been the worst of them in the ring, but she was also likely the hottest. Wendi Wheels was cut from the same mold as early Reggie Bennet. The champ was a lady named Terri Gold.

Terri Gold was a pretty good-looking chick. She was cut, not overly muscular, but certainly athletic She was cute, and they played that up. Going in, it looked like they were trying to push Selina Majors, aka Bambi, to the title. She hurt her leg, though I believe that may have been an angle, so Gold won a Battle Royal to win the title. She was terrible in the ring. That’s not fair, actually, as she had some idea of what to do, but she certainly couldn’t’ carry an opponent who had no idea how to work, so she had a lot of terrible matches. She did have one thing no one else in WOW had.

An amazing Moonsault.

Terri Gold’s Moonsault might have been the best in women’s wrestling at the time. It was even better than Lita’s. I was always impressed when she did it, but it was often like a cherry on a pile of vomit.

When WOW went under, or I should say on hiatus as they keep threatening to come back, Terri Gold went away. There was really no place for her. She didn’t fit the WWE’s ideal for the ladies, and honestly, she couldn’t work well enough to overcome that requirement (see Jazz). She certainly wasn’t up to the level that would have allowed her to regularly work Japan, and the financial troubles for Japanese Woman’s wrestling wouldn’t have allowed her to work it anyway. She is still pushed on WOW’s website as their biggest star, though I doubt we’ll ever get to see her again.

That’s all for this week. Happy Holidays and enjoy the rest of the spend-season. I’ll have the review of SmackDown! from Iraq and RAW on Monday and then the Christopher J. Garcia Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Wrestling Excellence on Thursday.

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Chris Garcia