Falls Count Anywhere

01-10-03

Discovering the joy of Big Poppa Pump.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere, my name is Chris and these are the times that try men's souls.

The Week In Review
I went to the SmackDown-brand show on Friday at the Cow Palace, and can honestly say it was better than most of the shows I went to in the late-80s at the Palacio de Vaca.

Nothing big happened, though Spanky and Gail Kim were introduced to Bay Area fans, and both looked good. The crowd was hot, particularly for local boy Rikishi and his stink-facing of John Cena, and Eddie Guererro as the Mexican favorite. Cena and Paul Heyman did anti-San Francisco segments that riled-up the crowd. Heyman was hilarious, giving us what-for. It was a good crowd, six thousand at least, and I doubt anyone would complain about the quality.

On the Raw side, I'd say the show was only fair, with a slight disappointment for me. Nothing offensive about the show, though at times it plodded along, particularly during the posedown, but there weren't many highlights.

I'd say the best match would have to be fine Tag Title switch. Booker T is excellent, and I feel he should be getting a major league push. Regal and Storm are excellent wrestlers, though the crowd doesn't appreciate their style. I think they should have left the belts on BookDust, but if it frees up Booker for top-level run, it's worth it. The main event wasn't bad, just sorta there for my tastes.

The surprise of the night? The women's tag match. A nice little match among four women, all of whom can put on a good show in the ring. I am particularly impressed with Trish's development as a worker, since she was already as hot as could possibly be. Victoria and Steven Richards legitimately make me believe they're insane (though Victoria, too, is HOT!HOT!HOT!).

There was some things that were cuttable: the Test vs Chris Nowinski match, the Dudley's getting beat down, and a good deal of the talking. The posedown went long, but they are doing the right thing, building the feud as they would have built it in 1987. They meet in all sorts of other events, but never on camera, in a match until the big event. I am not a Big Poppa Pump fan, but he is working in this feud, especially since he makes HHH look small, so his fear is justified.

I still think RAW is watchable

SmackDown! was a show designed for people like me who enjoy the in-ring stuff more than the shenanigans, though there were shenanigans that rather annoyed me. The Al Wilson and Dawn Marie stuff has to end, hopefully with the match at the Rumble. The whole thing is just dumb. The Big Show vs Rikishi match was bad, but there is something inherently interesting about Rikishi, so this was not unwatchable.

Once the opener ended, we were treated to four consecutive matches that ranged from good to exceptional, though all were shorter than I would have liked. Matt Hardy vs. Billy Kidman showed these two doing what they do best, working the Cruiserweight style against Cruiserweights. The Shooting Star Press to the Outside was awesome, and I have finally bought into Matt's gimmick. Cena vs. Chavo was solid, the credit for which goes to Chavito. In my eyes, the Guererro feud is Cena's only chance, and this worked. The crowd loved Chavo. Chavomania was running WILD!!! Jamie Noble vs. Tajiri was really good. Tajiri used one of my favourite old-timer moves: the Oklahoma Roll. Noble is a top-notch worker, though his matches are usually run aground by Nidia interfering, which she did not do this go round.

In a year, we will all be talking about Team Angle. The back-to-back Charlie Haas vs Edge and Shelton Benjamin vs Chris Benoit matches were fantastic, showing just how much talent these two have and what they are going to be capable of if given the big chance, which folks in the know say is going to happen. The crowd was into their match, Benjamin looked very crisp in the ring, and Edge and Haas meshed very well. These guys are going to be the next big tag team, as evidenced by last week's show, but this week showed both have singles possibilities. Angle didn't talk for them this week, which was a bummer.

Bill DeMott squashing Shannon Moore ended the streak, though Eddie Guererro dragged a decent match out of B2. Brock vs A-Train was what I expected, and the bit of giving a Tale of the Tape every Brock match will help him as a monster.

I wish I taped it, so I could watch it anytime the WWE's product gets me down. I recommend this show, especially since it built towards the Rumble well, entertained the wrestling fans, and kept the other stuff short.

A Little News
Bret Hart, former WWF Champion who Vince McMahon (rightfully) screwed over at the 1997 Survivor Series as chronicled in Wrestling with Shadows, is supposedly in talks with the WWE. What level of return, either a one-time appearance at either Wrestlemania, or the RAW Tenth Anniversary Spectacular, or a longer-term situation, is not yet widely known.

Folks close to the WWE have said that there is the possibility of Hart making a couple of appearances, but that's more than likely it. Hart is still recovering from the effects of a motorcycle accident and stroke suffered last year, and has entered year three of writing his book.

Flashback to 1987
As much as I talk about the beauty and purity of scientific wrestling, there is a streak in me that requires old-fashioned violence now and again. Proof of this came on the morning of the Survivor Series, when Joker and I went on a quest for the video of the greatest cage match ever: War Games/The Match Beyond from Atlanta's Omni on July 4th, 1987.

In the late-80s, the NWA had a national summer tour. The 1986 version did well at the box office, but they needed a way to turn around bad times in the land of Flair. Dusty Rhodes, the booker at the time, had an idea, a ring with a roof on it, to keep the other guy's cronies from running in or passing a weapon. The match may have been planned for the Flair-Rhodes Title Change, or so some folks who were around at the time mentioned.

Instead, there had been an on-going feud between the Four Horsemen, consisting of Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson and Lex Luger, and the Road Warriors with the SuperPowers, made up of Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Kolloff. The 8 men had had some great matches, getting unbelievable crowd reactions.

The Flair/Rhodes plan then changed to the eight of them, with each team's manager making it an even ten. To give enough room for 10 men, they made it a double ring with the roofed cage around. The rules: The War Games began when the first two men entered and fought for 5 minutes, then a coin toss determined who would send the third man in. That team had the advantage of being 1 up on the other team four times through out the match. Every five minutes, the teams would alternate sending in a different guy. After all the contestants were in, the Match Beyond began, where you had to make one member of the other team submit.

We went to 7 different video stores before we found it at a Blockbuster. Re-watching it, I realized how different wrestling is today. There was blood. LOTS Of BLOOD. Ten guys in the ring, eight donning the crimson mask. The crowd was so hot, that they had no commentary over the match, just the reaction of the crowd.

When Dusty Rhodes, the biggest hero in the NWA, Low-blowed Anderson, the fans knew this was a different type of match. Nikita got a spike piledriver, the ultimate in illegal moves, and the crowd went into a riotous frenzy.

Everything they did turned the audience into a mob, something you don't see today.

True, simpler times, when a column like this wouldn't have appeared, but people got lost in matches, something I think the smartening of the American wrestling crowd has killed. When the Road Warriors got JJ Dillon to submit, the crowd erupted; the good guys won. They were legitimately overjoyed, overwhelmed. A shot of the crowd showed a kid wearing a Rhodes shirt, jumping up and down, his father was giving high-fives and screaming victory. The two of them probably went home happy as could be, just because their guys had won. Much simpler times, and who's to say it wasn't better?

Well, that's another Falls Count Anywhere. Come back next week when I'll review the week, drop some gossip, and present the first Must Own!, where I'll recommend the show that changed the face of wrestling forever.

Chris Garcia