Falls Count Anywhere

09-05-03

I'm all greased up, too.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris, but from here on out you may call me Malik El Hajj el-DeBarge

SmackDown!
Another edition of SmackDown! that I had to watch mostly on tape, though I did see the last half as it happened.

The World's Greatest Tag Team pulled off a minor miracle by getting a decent match out of the APA. Don't get me wrong, Ron Simmons can still go on occasions, but the APA are best suited to gimmicky brawls. I am liking the way that the World's Greatest Tag Team are being played as heels, but I think it would help them if they started doing promos where they talked about always using superior amateur technique and then went to things like hitting folks with belts.

Vince wants Brock to release the Monster. Didn't we just see this on RAW a while back?

Eddy and Cena continue their fun little feud. If Cena keeps this up, he'll have to get the ACLU out to represent him in open court, since he's bordering on hate crimes. The angle where the car gets stolen was OK, but the Latino Street Fight / Parking Lot Brawl that they set up should be very cool, though it does limit Eddy's offense a bit. By the way, Eddy Guerrero is my favorite wrestler.

Chris Benoit vs. A-Train was what you'd expect, though slightly better than the last time they met. I liked the way the ending built, and Rhyno's gore that ended up hitting A-Train was pretty sweet. Still, I don't want to see this match again.

'Taker gave a taped interview talking about the fact that he will not tap. That pretty much guaranteed that there would be a screw job finish. It was a good promo, but they needed to do this earlier in the show and make it less obvious that this would play into the finish.

Now, Nidia and Torrie gettin' all greased up as if they were planning to go hunting pigs in the overhead ductwork was pretty cool. The pair (or should I say two pair) of them have actually played pretty well off one another.

What's behind the door? Why it's Brock Lesnar beating the hell out of somebody. The way Steph played her part and Vince did his thing made me realize that they can be effective in roles like this. I've seen this angle before, but it was nice to see it without the swerve at the end (also known and the Nitro Gambit).

I am always all over Undertaker. I just flat out don't like the style the guy uses. It bores me most of the time. Kurt Angle is good, damn good. The two of them had a fine match that I enjoyed the whole way through. It reminded me of the days when Bret Hart would carry UT to good matches. The length of the match coupled with the heat and the way they played the near falls made for good TV.

Taz was really good here, explaining the pseudo-short arm scissors and the triangle choke. Taz's experience in the ring really helps with the calling of match that guys like Angle, Benoit, and TWGTT put out there. UT edidn't interfere with Kurt's ground work, and Kurt sold every punch HUGE. Kurt Angle: US Wrestler of the Year.

The ending of the match wasn't good. They should have done a clean ending, or at least allowed Kurt to get a disputer pin. The way this set up Brock vs. Angle in the Ironman is acceptable, but still, the champ needs to be put over strong.

Bourbon Street Bikini Contest. Yeah, it was gratuitous flesh in bikinis. Nothing wrong with it, save for the glasses that Taz was wearing.

The APA has a butler! I used to love the Acolyte Protection Agency bits, and adding a butler is similar to adding a monkey to the cast! Hilarity may (or may not) ensue!

Rey Mysterio is the best flyer of his generation. Tajiri is the second most underrated star on SmackDown! (after Funaki). Their match was really good, long enough to build to the high spots and just plain fun. The kick by Tajiri when Rey tried to hit the West Coast Pop was cool. Rey giving Tajiri the Tarantula was even cooler. Fun stuff.

The Rock and Walk(en) connection showed a little preview of the new movie they share. It's going to either suck or be just good enough. I'm interested in that lovely Rosario Dawson lass that always lights up the screen.

Paging Richard Widmark...

The final angle with Zach and Brock will help keep Brock as the monster for a while. It was too long, and it would have been better for the belt if they had put the UT/Angle match at the end of the show. Zach had some great reactions.

If you were looking for a show with long matches, you got a couple here, and the quality was there. If you wanted a Brock-heavy show, you got that. If you were looking for a strong storyline advancing program, it wasn't quite on that level. I'd say that the way they are building to future shows (Eddy vs. Cena next week, Brock vs. Angle Ironman) shows that they understand that they can not go on cruise control whenever they don't have a PPV for that brand. UT vs. Angle was easily the highlight for me, with Tajiri and Rey coming close behind.

NEWS
RAW ratings continue on the up, as it appears that the Monday night rating was a 4.3, up .1 from the previous week. Maybe the Kane thing really is working.

Dover, Delaware is thinking about banning pro-wrestling. Both of my Delaware readers will be crushed. It also means that the word "Delaware" will be popping up in wrestling fan conversation and is no longer suitable for use as a safety word.

FlashBack!
Brawling is an art, an art that requires amazing endurance, realistic selling and offense. In the 1970s and 80s, there were many great brawlers working the various territories, as legends like Stan Hansen, the Sheik, and Abdullah the Butcher were having wild matches around the world.

The master of the brawl back in those glory days was a man born Frank Goodish. Goodish played football at University of Iowa before heading off to the wrestler's college, West Texas State University (where Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, and Tito Santana all played ball). He did some time in the Redskins Taxi corps before playing for the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos.

It wasn't until 1973 that Frank made his wrestling debut under his real name. He formed a strong tag team with Stan Hansen, but he didn't gain great exposure until he was given a new name: Bruiser Brody.

Brody made a huge hit across North America, winning the Florida heavyweight title, the Texas American title, and was a huge star in Georgia and Puerto Rico. His feuds with the Von Erichs in Texas, Bruno Sanmartino in WWWF, and Carlos Colon in PR were classics, and drew big money. He was a star in almost every territory, though he seldom stayed in one place for too long. In the AWA, since they had a long history of using Dick the Bruiser, Goodish was called King Kong Brody, which I always thought was lame.

On the edge of greatness...

No matter how big Brody was in the US, following his first Japan tour in 1979, Brody was a legend in Japanese rings. He worked for All Japan Pro Wrestling first, where he instantly became a star for swinging his chains and knocking around fans. He was the best wildman they had seen in Japan for ages. Brody was huge, and in 1985, he jumped to New Japan, where he had matches with Antonio Inoki. In 1987, after several no-shows, including Brody and Jimmy Snuka no-showing the IWGP Tag Title Tourney finals, Brody returned to All Japan. Brody had a feud with Jumbo Tsuruta where he wins the International title. In Summer 1988, the fans voted for a dream match: Brody vs. Stan Hansen.

The match never took place.

Brody was still working Puerto Rico regularly, acting as a face most of the time, and he was always the big thing on the tour. On this particular tour, Brody had been getting heat from many of the PR wrestlers, especially Jose Gonzalez, aka Invader.

Shortly after Bruiser arrived with Dirty Dutch Mantel (who wrote an amazingly personal account of the incident that you can read at here), Invader asked Brody to join him in the shower so they could talk business. Gonzalez had his hand wrapped in a towel and after just a minute or so, Invader stabbed Brody several times in the chest.

The locker room went into a panic, as Brody staggered out, bleeding. The wrestlers who were there included Tony Atlas, who carried Brody to the ambulance after the crew couldn't lift him, Mantel, Chris Youngblood, and the future Savio Vega. After laying in the lockerroom for nearly an hour, he went to the hospital, where he died at 5:40am. He was 42.

The murder itself knocked the wrestling world into hysterics. Brody had worked everywhere, knew everyone. He wasn't the most popular wrestler, but he was hugely respected and beloved in some circles. The fact that a wrestler had been murdered over the natural rivalry between hometown workers and imported talent changed everyone's opinion of Puerto Rico, so much so that many wrestlers would no longer work there.

The real black eye on the PR wrestling scene happened a few months later, when the trial was set. Many of the wrestlers, including Mantel, received their subpoenas late or even after the trial. Many others refused to testify, including Tony Atlas. The combination of the mishandling of notification of the witnesses, the refusal of many to speak, and the fact that in Puerto Rico courts a unanimous decision is not needed, led to Gonzalez getting off claiming self-defense. Even days after, many were pointing towards a cover-up.

The biggest mark was against Carlos Colon, the promoter and biggest star in PR for more than a decade at that point. Some think that he used his connections to get Gonzalez off, though just as many people point to incompetence in the system as the reason. Witnesses were informed that they would be brought back to PR for the trial and given lodging and security during the proceedings. None of that happened. Others believe that there was tampering with witnesses, including an unspoken threat that anyone who testified would never work for the WWC again.

Puerto Rico has survived, sometimes to strong levels, but it has never fully recovered from the murder. Carlos Colon, who many think of as strong candidate for the Observer Hall of Fame, has never made it. In 1987, he would have been considered a lock, but so much of the Brody situation has been placed on his back that it's doubtful he'll ever be able to overcome that.

To this day, no one outside of those who were there is sure what's true and what is rumor. The only things that are certain is that one of the greatest wrestlers of all time was murdered and no justice for it has ever been done.

That's another Falls Count Anywhere. Next week, more toe-tapping good times, a look at wrestlers who took up religion, and the story of the Von Erichs, the Kennedies of Pro Wrestling.

Chris Garcia