Falls Count Anywhere

08-19-03

...but I'll settle for just groping.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and I am blindly groping towards fame and fortune.

RAW
The Highlight Reel was fairly good. I like the interplay between Shawn Michaels and Jericho and the whole segment, even with Evolution coming out, worked for me. The Elimination Chamber isn't being built up properly, but the match should be good.

Holy Sweet Jesus H Tap-Dancing Mother of Christ! How did Trish get hotter? I didn't listen to the interview she gave since there was no way it came close to the hotness she reeked all over the place. The match with Molly wasn't bad, but it didn't look crisp. It's strange that these two have never had a lot of good matches, though they are two of the best women in wrestling today.

Shane came out and did a nice little promo. The gas can was a nice touch.

The interaction between Goldust and Lance Storm is cool. They aren't getting any real attention, but they have this weird charisma when they are together. Sort of a low brow version of Ray Stevens and Nick Bockwinkle back in the 1960s.

Speaking of feuds that never end (see FlashBack!), the Test vs. Steiner feud seems to have finally come to an end…if we are lucky. Test did a magnificent sell job on his knee, as it actually looked like it went out on him. I can remember a classic Jimmy Garvin/Ric Flair cage match where Garvin was supposed to fake an injury to his knee on a leap frog, and then he actually injured his knee on a leap frog. It was a cheap match, but I am more impressed with Test now.

Hey, the old "Our service man is really a Vichy sympathizer" trick worked for La Resistance. I am not a big fan of this, but La Resistance are learning how to make strong heel heat.

I gotta say that I think Nash should never see a wrestling ring again. Chris Jericho can make a watchable match with anybody, so their hair match was entertaining. I liked the psychology that Jericho brought to the match by working the back. Nash seemed to be trying to a degree, which helped this a lot. I liked the ending as it helped the main event at SummerSlam as well as making a decent RAW segment. Jericho was great cutting Nash's hair.

There is such a thing as good camp, and the SuperHero In Training bit was funny camp. The Hurricane talking about comics made me laugh a lot. I love the sound effects.

Lemme holla at ya, playa! Yeah, Brother Theodore R. Long is back in full effect and I am glad, as Rodney Mack's only selling point to me is TRL. Rosie played his part as well as he could. Not a good match, but good to see Teddy again.

Man, Linda McMahon is stiffer than The Big Show's Dad. Why IN THE HELL are they using a stupid doorbell gag for this? True, at least Bisch has a little charisma, but still this wasn't great until Bisch brought up Shane being given WCW. Then he got all sorts of intense. I really believed that he was willing to kill Shane for buying WCW.

OK, and then we get to the Bischoff the Rapist stuff and it went down hill. Why do they keep doing these things? It was so strong as Bisch just talking about breaking Shane in half.

RVD and Christian have a match that I felt was a little below their average. RVD just didn't have it going for him, and Christian was good, but lacked a little fire. It did get better as it went on, but I was only halfway The chairshot while RVD was in mid-dive was an awesome sight that I had seen in ECW a bunch of times.

Waiting for the McMahoncipation Proclamation.

Man, the whole "Stacey is Test's property" thing was lame, save for Steven Richards and Rico doing great facials. Facial expressions, that is.

The "RVD getting doused with gasoline and almost lit aflame had it not been for the will of the people" was OK, but lacked fire (pardon the pun).

Well, Goldberg and Randy Orton have their little match and it was what Goldberg needed as he got the win clean and clear. The post match brawl and staredown was a step in the right direction, but they needed to do more. Gotta go with HHH coming out on top on Sunday.

I'd like to have seen this show two weeks ago, when it could have helped the PPV buyrate by allowing for some build on top of the events that played out here. I would say that this was an average show, with definite moments of boredom and a little annoyance.

News
There's not much. The Observer had a letter from Sean Waltman, aka Syxx/X-Pac, dealing with the Chyna situation. Just a bunch of denials and the like, but still, there may actually be more sides to this story than Celebrity Justice told us. (Joanie Laurer, aka Chyna, did make a public appearance at WizardWorld Chicago last weekend.--Derek)

FlashBack!
Owen Hart and friends will have to wait, as I have a bunch of footage of Owen that I haven't gone over yet. Here's one that I wrote ages ago but never got to send in.

How many times can you watch a match between the same two guys and not have it go stale? I've seen at least 20 Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair matches from the late 70s through 1994 and that never got tired. I bet I've seen about as many matches between Terry Funk and Jerry Lawler, Dean Malenko and Eddy Guerrero, and Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle, and those have never gotten old. But the one that I have seen more times than I can count has to be Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer.

Dreamer had been a wrestler in ECW pretty much from the beginning, including being the first guy to ever kick out of Jimmy Snuka's Superfly Splash in 1993. In 1994/5, Scott Levy (previously known as Scotty the Body and Johnny Polo) came in as Raven and ECW wanted to program them together.

Say what you will about the way the WWE sets up their feuds, but seldom have they gone to such ridiculous lengths as ECW to justify a feud. The story was as such: Dreamer and Raven went to the same summer camp, and poor little abused Raven had been tormented while Dreamer was Mr. Popular. All grown up, Raven had never forgiven the fact that Dreamer was everybody's favorite and the feud started from there.

Stevie Richards, Raven's running buddy and flunky from the old days, came along, and so did the fat ugly girl from camp who grew up to be the delectable Miss Beulah McGillacuddy.

Yep, makes you think twice about voting Paul (E. Dangerously) Heyman into the Hall of Fame, don't it?

That's gotta hurt.

The feud began and quickly became the measuring stick for all violence. The high points of their feud included Raven snapping one of Dreamer's fingers in a brilliant bit of post-production work, Dreamer laying the sickest chairshot of all time into a handcuffed Raven, and a ton of DDTs all over the place.

Raven always got the upper hand, until he had come to terms with WCW, of course. It was his final ECW match where Dreamer finally got his pin on Raven, only to be laid out by Jerry Lawler to start the WWF/ECW feud of 1997.

They have had matches in WWE since, including a couple that were very good on Heat. With Raven gone, it's doubtful that we'll see any more of this classic feud.

Why did this feud work for so long in the age of the quickie month-to-month program? Because it wasn't a quickie month-to-month program.

While the rest of ECW was flowing fast, and the WWF and WCW were doing short deals, this single idea was kept strong for years, ebbing and flowing. Always having Raven on top of the feud, with Dreamer chasing his elusive win, gave fans a reason to want to see the match over and over, hoping to be there the night that he finally got it.

That was what wrestling was built on for decades before Crash TV came around to destroy the concept of wrestling as wrestling forever. It's doubtful that we'll ever see that kind of feud longevity again.

That's all for today. Friday will see more of me, including the promised Owen article.

Chris Garcia