Falls Count Anywhere

06-27-03

I deflowered myself .

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris, and I'm with Blassie.

SmackDown!
This week's SmackDown! had problems. It felt very uneven, with some really good stuff followed by some dull stuff, mixed with segments that just set up too long. In-ring has shown signs of wear recently, but the matches still tend to be pretty good.

The Orlando Jordan and John Cena match was OK, with Jordan looking fairly well-suited to the SmackDown! style. However, Cena's challenge took way too long. He said he was going to main event WrestleMania XX, but he may be stretching a little on that one. Okay, more than a little.

UT and APA vs FBI was fairly OK. I have always liked the style of Ron Simmons and Bradshaw's Clothesline from Hell usually tends towards decapitation. UT was UT. I really hope they end this FBI feud soon.

Jamie Noble inherited a ton of money from his late Aunt Lucille. I was waiting for them to do the Beverly Hillbillies angle with him and Nidia. Best moment: Noble telling Nidia to give the lawyer a special kiss. She goes for his crotch and Noble says "Not that special!" I laughed.

Rikishi vs. Matt Hardy finally solidified that Matt is going to win the belt. They've moved him out of the Cruiserweight division and he carried Rikishi to the best match he's had in ages. US Champion Matt Hardy. I like the sound of it.

Kidman was back at ringside with a couple of cuties. I hope he is ring-ready in a month or so, as Ultimo Dragon is crying out for a feud with Billy.

Piper took the fall in the match with champs Tajiri and Eddy Guererro. The match wasn't great, but I had fun watching it. I did not expect them to actually pin Piper, but it makes sense with the fact that they fired him this week (see news).

OK, the part of the Vince segment where he said he deflowered Stephanie was icky, long, and pretty boring. The part where Zach Gowen came out to a huge reaction, did a great interview, had amazing fire and venom towards Vince, and then joined the "I won't kiss your ass, so here's a low blow" club was not. The last half of the segment was really good, and Zach is every bit as good on the stick as I've been told.

What, this old thing? I only put it on when I don't know what to wear...

Ultimo Dragon showed up finally and looked to be moving pretty slow. I know he's beat up, but he's done faster work recently. There was a little slop, but the crowd seemed to dig the spots. His finisher, a Diamond Cutter float-over into a reverse DDT, was rad.

Rey did some poor commentary, and then came into the ring to raise Ultimo's hand. They showed Kidman watching the match. This is how you do it, intro a guy and give him real challenges right from the start without building dumb storylines. Solid.

They recapped the angle with Lesnar and Angle and The Best Damn Tag Team Period and Big Show from last week, which I thought brought the show to a halt for a full commercial to commercial section. Just too long.

The match itself was good, with Angle, Lesnar, Hass, and Benjamin all carrying the weight of it, though Haas didn't do great selling Hogan's lame offense. Angle obviously reinjured his hamstring, but it didn't look too serious. Hogan…I mean Mr. America...took the fall. This may be the first show ever where both Piper and Hogan were pinned, and it's amazing that it happened in MSG.

The fact that Vince announced the Zach and Steph vs. Big Show match was fairly cool, since I know that it will allow Zach to show his stuff a bit, and that there'll be big storyline stuff going on with Mr. America and Vince. Too bad Steph has to be involved.

I'd say a slightly better than average show that suffered from its chunkiness.

News
WWE and Piper are no more. As of Thursday, Piper got his walking papers. After the recent HBO special, there had been huge heat on Pipes. Jordan, please come back from the edge.

Well, Raven, that lovable scamp, injured his ankle pretty seriously in his match on TNA on Wednesday. The limping that he was doing was not a great sell, but a legit injury. I've always respected Raven, though he has had periods of main-line sucking, but he always shows massive amounts of guts, and performing through the injured ankle is just another example.

FlashBack!
UFC is a strange event. While it has never been proven that any of the fights have been rigged, there have certainly been matches and even whole tournaments built to give a particular person an easy time.

Recently, the UFC decided to let Tank Abbot have a free lunch by giving him a match with Kimo, a fighter trained by Joe Son (founder of Joeson-do) who had made a name for himself back in the 1993-94 days by giving Royce Gracie a great fight and actually beating him enough that he was knocked out of the tourney.

The last days of a warrior?

If you only know Tank Abbot from his HI-Larious WCW days fighting over leather jackets and having ludicrous matches with guys like Norman Smiley, then you will probably be amazed that Tank was once the most feared man in UFC, though he never had a record to back up his rep. He once ended a fight with one punch and left the guy, a Hawaiian fighter if I remember correctly, paralyzed in the ring for several minutes. He lost a close match to Oleg Taktarov, but gave a great interview after that rebuilt his rep.

That was probably his greatest strength, recovering from losses with great promos. You could always count on Tank delivering solid build-ups, and if he managed to win, that was great. If not, he'd give an "F-this" type promo and all would be forgotten.

He had been away from UFC for several years, and recently came back. At the latest UFC, he got the match with Kimo. Kimo had done nothing in recent years, though I think he may have done some Japanese wrestling in 1999 or so. He had muscled up quite a bit, though I think he is over or at least very near 40.

The entrance saw Tank get a good round of cheers, and so did Kimo, though he did not remove his shirt since he was suffering from a severe case of backne. The two fought, and almost instantly, Kimo managed to take Tank down, and then beat him there before getting the win in less than a minute.

So, all Tank had to do was get the mic and give his interview, right? Well, Kimo, as if he knew it would kill his heat, didn't give him the chance, gave him a little kiss to show that he hadn't taken him seriously and now he had been seriously beaten. Smart move.

My though is that Tank is done. There is no room for him with the current fighters, and that he will likely be back in the special attraction form that he could compete in still. I don't expect him to be a contender, but you never know.

That's Friday's Falls! Monday will have more from me, and then on Friday, you'll have to suffer through another guest writer as I will be living it up in Seattle.

Chris Garcia