Falls Count Anywhere

06-24-03

Briefly crawling out from under my bridge to deliver the finest in wrestling commentary.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris, and I am not going to put up with any bullcorn!

My Take on Monday's RAW from MSG
This week's RAW had a great deal of build-up leading in, which raised my expectations. Previous RAWs from the friendly confines of the World's Most Famous Arena have included Mick Foley bringing Cactus Jack into the WWF and Austin delivering the Stunner to Vince McMahon for the first time.

This one didn't reach the level of those, but it was solid, had a couple of great moments and some big time heat for a couple of matches.

The good starts out with the "We Love Mick Foley" segment. A great video recapping his career, a nice surprise in the presentation, and a continuation of his feud with Evolution. Solid stuff that will be picked up when he gets back from his book tour.

Mick Foley -- Novelist.

The movement to kill any chance of Lance Storm ever being taken seriously by any audience continued with the Highlight Reel followed by a fine tag match in which Lance Storm made everything that the Dudleys did look amazing.

It's a terrible idea as the crowd was chanting boring every time Lance got offense. Yes, I know any heat is good heat, but it puts the message in a fan's head that that style is boring and that's the style they are trying to push. Good segment, though.

Goldberg came out and ended the Rodney Mack 5 Minute Challenge streak. The crowd went nuts for him, biggest heat of the night, and the match was fast and proved its point. They can rebuild him!

Flair and Orton and Nash and Michaels had a match that really falls into the middle ground. I'd say it was well thought out and Orton looked good, but Michaels was a step or two off, Flair was slower than usual, and Nash returned to his useless, heatless ways. FIRE HIS ASS!

Stephanie McMahon without her make-up...

The Main Event of Kane and HHH was a very hot segment, with the crowd going nuts. The match wasn't amazing, but better than it could have been since HHH has found his path back to glory. I was amazed by the reaction to the unmasking, and that face…that horrible, horrible face….will haunt my dreams.

The bad wasn't really that bad. The Maven win over Chris Nowinski was just an excuse to get them out on TV and give Maven a little heat now that he's getting back into the mix. The Teddy Long pre-show promo was great. Line of the night: "Don't you know? Light-skinned brothers went out years ago." Teddy Long is the manager of the year.

The Steiner/Booker vs. Christian and Test wasn't bad, it just didn't have me all the way. Test is getting better, and Booker looked OK, but it just didn't feel right, somehow. Stacey did a terrible ankle sell job.

OK, I gotta say that having Sarge come back was a nice touch, but the match wasn't really anything. I do like the return of the Nikolai Volkoff gimmick of singing the national anthem before the match.

What the hell was up with the Kane dream sequences? I couldn't believe that I was watching wrestling doing the wavy dissolve into the past. Weird.

I'd say this was a 70 percent good show, with nothing on the level of awful, just a few things that never really clicked. RAW has been on a roll, but I still wanna see more top notch wrestling.

News
Not too much. Zane Brezloff, a WWF/WCW promoted who had a huge impact on the 1980s wrestling wars, died after a serious car crash.

The WWE finally closed on the ECW rights, so those will be used on DVDs shortly, including what some believe may be an actual History of ECW DVD next year. No one is quite sure, but there has been talk.

I have also heard of a new Fed trying to get TV time in New York. They call themselves Culture Vulture Wrestling and have held performances in Art Galleries. I am not sure if anything will ever come of it, but I think it is a weird enough concept to catch on.

FlashBack!
Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. The name brings back a lot of memories, particularly for those of us who were paying great attention throughout the 1980s. A performer who through three different eras defined what it meant to be the top in-ring performer, and who left the business at all the wrong times.

He also may be the only performer to have a stage name far less marketable than his real name: Richard Blood.

Ricky Steamboat started out in the late 1970s, just about the same time as Ric Flair was coming up towards the top of the game. He was known early for his good looks and amazing style that was years ahead of anyone else in the game, with the possible exception of Jimmy Snuka.

His flying, especially his high cross body off the top, was amazing in the age of slow, lumbering men pounding the hell out of each other. The Dragon could work the ground as well, and had top-flight matches early on with guys like Ray Stevens, Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, and Greg Valentine.

Steamboat and Flair met a number of times in the late 1970s and early 80s, including some very famous matches for the NWA World Heavyweight title. One in the Nassau Coliseum was widely considered to be the match of the year. The friendship, or at least the understanding, between Flair and Steamboat began then, and the two would wrestle dozens of times around the world in various forms.

Few folks remember that Flair had a few tag title reigns, including NWA title spans with Greg Valentine and Blackjack Mulligan. Steamboat was considered to be a tag team specialist, holding the belts with #1 Paul Jones and several times with Jay Youngblood. The two met several times in tag matches that led to singles feuds.

Because nobody would believe a guy named Richard Blood.

Steamboat was a very important part of the NWA in the early 1980s, including appearing on the first two Starrcade cards, including a great match with Tully Blanchard at Starrcade 1984. As many of the stars were doing, he jumped to the WWF and made a big splash.

There was a major transition going on with the undercard at WWF shows. Older, slower wrestlers were beginning to be fazed out, except for George Steele, and younger, faster, more technical talent was being brought in. Arriving in the WWF in the 1985-1986 time frame were the British Bulldogs, the Hart Foundation, The Rougeau Brothers, Rick Martel, Barry Windham and Mike Rotuna, and Steamboat's other great adversary, Randy Macho Man Savage.

Steamboat fit right in, having good matches with just about everybody, which included matches at the Wrestling Classic against Randy Savage and Davey Boy Smith. The Savage match was meant to lead into his feud with Savage over the IC title, which began a few months later. Steamboat used to bring in a Monitor Lizard with him to the ring, which led to a fine feud with Jake Roberts. Ricky and Don Muraco had some great matches, too.

The Savage/Steamboat feud is legend, with the classic match at Wrestlemania III being the highlight. I've covered it before, but there are a few other classic moments. In a match on Saturday Night's Main Event, Savage came down on Steamboat with the ringbell, supposedly crushing his windpipe. Steamboat was doing a great sell job, which even had some of those people at ringside in tears. While he flailed on the stretcher, Ricky happened to kick a young fan in the face. That cost the WWF a lot of money. The Steamboat title reign was supposed to last a year at least, but there were issues with money and Steamboat ended up dropping the title in a quick match to The Honky Tonk Man, who I believe still has the longest reign of any IC champ. Steamboat stuck around a while, but eventually left to be with his young son and wife.

In late 1988, Steamboat returned to team with Eddie Gilbert against Flair and Windham in a TBS tag match. Steamboat pinned Flair and the great feud of 1989 began. Steamboat won the title, they had a few rematches, and then lost it back in some of the greatest matches of all time. I know of at least 5 major lists that include Steamboat/Flair matches from 1989 in the top ten of all time, and almost all of them list the final title switch back to Flair as the greatest match of the 1980s.

Steamboat left again, briefly returning to the WWF after another contract dispute. He returned in 1992 to WCW, and wrestled in some very good matches with Rick Rude, and a War Games match that deserves a full FlashBack of its own. Steamboat's last run as in 1994, where he returned to WCW and had a small feud with Flair. The magic was still there, and after that, Ricky has only appeared a few times, most recently with TNA/NWA.

To this day, Ricky Steamboat remains one of the most memorable figures of the 1980s. From the WWF boom period, to the best matches of all time in the NWA, through the beginning of the WCW that slowly took over wrestling in the 90s, Steamboat was always around, though he seldomly carried any fed. I would say he was the best wrestler in the world that never really drew a dime.

That's another Falls Count Anywhere. More on Friday!

Chris Garcia