Falls Count Anywhere

05-20-03

...but you can just call me Emmy.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere. My name is Emmy Winner Chris Garcia.

RAW
Best RAW in a while, in my eyes, especially the Main Event which was HHH's best match in ages. This was a solid show, with more wrestling than last week, with a pair of really good matches.

The Good
Jericho can sell hatred and venom very well. Hey, Chris quoted Swingers! The segment helped Christian; he's always been a good talker, but the fans have yet to connect with him. I like the RVD insertion, as he's finally starting to grow on me. The call for the match made a lot of sense, and starting off a new belt with a big win is a good idea.

The RVD/Kane vs. Jericho and Christian was good, though RVD looked to be a bit slower than normal. Christian and Jericho wrestled a very smart match, playing to the strengths of their opponents. I would have liked a real ending, but Booker coming in builds the program.

Flair cried!

Making the main event matter is not an easy thing when it's supposed to be a squash. Michaels is great, even in the small doses he's gotten in recent months. Later, Flair styling with the robe was a great touch, getting him over as the legend and giving the crowd a pop before the La Resistance match. It's a technique that work: give the crowd something really short right before a match with no heat going in, and it'll help it.

The Main Event ruled. No question that being in the ring with Flair forces the boys to bring their A game. Flair was awesome, as he knows how to give a match emotion, and HHH was back in 2000 form. It worked so well. I hope that he keeps it up when he's in with other guys. The crowd was into it, and HHH bumped like a superball.

At last, HHA...

The Average
The opening segment was super long, and not terribly exciting, but Austin did a fairly good job, and HHH has started to get his interview back after a month of fairly plain talking. This exact thing was done in 1999, but at least this was fairly acceptable.

The 3 Minute Warning vs. The Dudleys surprised me by moving well, telling a fun story, and getting the crowd into it. Rico should be a real star, if only he wasn't saddled with the lame gimmick.

The Interrogation stuff was OK, with Austin peering through the blinds being the highlight. Storm gets no rub from it, but Austin was good. Goldberg had intensity, which is his strong point. The destruction was short.

The Bad
The White Boy Challenge is a bad thing. I like Teddy Long, but he can't carry the match with the fans in the arenas, as they are bored by Rodney Mack. Spike got some nice support when he was holding on in the cobra clutch. Also, it was announced that Teddy Long drinks not of the Haterade.

Bischoff has failed to entertain me. The "He's hungover, make noise" gags did nothing for me. Bringing in Mae Young and Moolah was so predictable, but I think Bisch dropped the F-bomb.

The La Reisistance rematch was bad, basically an excuse to extend the split between Test and Steiner. I was so waiting for Stacey to yell "You're tearing me apart!"

All in all, a really good match, with an event for the final. I hear that they did a big emotional scene for Flair, with everyone coming out to hug Flair and celebrate his career with him. They are going to release it on DVD, and may even play it on TV sometime. I hope they can keep this up, this more wrestling on a wrestling show, though having this quality main event is asking a lot. A guy can hope, right?

News
Well, not many injuries to report. Spanky got his eye cut, and was checked for a concussion. Probably won't miss any time.

Brock was wrestling with hurt ribs, but it wasn't anything serious and it didn't get much worse.

Nash gets a Hell in the Cell with HHH. This will be truly awful unless they pull some incredible booking.

...and yet we can't get a new Batman movie...

FlashBack!
So, this Saturday, Joker and myself went video shopping and found a video tape that we had to buy: The Rock 'n Roll Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Ape. We watched it as an appetizer leading into Judgment Day.

And all I can say is WOW!

In the 1960s, Mexico was putting out a dozen Luchadore themed movies a month. Most of them faded fast, though the ones with El Santo, Blue Demon, and Mil Mascaras did very well.

Women's wrestling has been more popular in Mexico than in the US, and there were a bunch of Wrestling Women movies, the most notable being Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy .

A few of these films got dubbed and released in the USA. In 1986, K. Gordon Murray started re-editing these films, using rockabilly soundtracks, and Rhino started releasing them.

The movie is not good, by any means. The story is strange, the dubbing isn't great, and the wrestling segments, while very cool, go very long.

That's actually Hulk Hogan without make-up.

That said, the acting is actually pretty good, with Lorena Velazquez doing a great job in both the wrestling and the regular scenes.

The story also led to the white masked evil doctor craze that continues to this day in Dr. Wagner.

The movie really doesn't have an Aztec Ape. Instead, it has a wrestler who had the brain of a ape put in.

After two thirds of the movie, they transfer his ape brain into a wrestling woman's body and she has the climactic fight with the girls.

Everything is weird, but it's fun, as the songs are awful, but they are saved for the wrestling segments, where they add an element of fun distraction when the matches go real long.

Would I say to watch it? Sure. It's a great document of the type of movies that Mexican fans were being treated to back in the heyday of El Santo. Also, where else are you gonna see 1960s woman's wrestling? I'll do a whole article on Lucha movies someday.

Chris Garcia