Falls Count Anywhere

10-24-03

Wanna see ME do The Worm?

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris, and does anyone know the appropriate age to introduce children to old ECW DVDs?

SmackDown!
OK, the pre-credit segment, while well-produced, was an awful reminder of the fact that are way too many McMahons on TV. Seriously, by opening a show like this you completely negate so much of the drawing power of the guys on top. Vince's little tirade was so perfectly heel. Why doesn't he train undercard guys to deliver promos, helping new guys get over and giving a solid future for the company?

Best line: "You do have sex with the guy who signs your checks."

Bringing back Paul Heyman as an on-air personality is a nice move, as he has a lot of charisma and the crowd, especially in and around NYC and Philly, hates him and always reacts to him. He also seems to have dropped a little weight. His mic work is as strong as Vince's.

John Cena did a powerful tirade in the ring that failed to get all his heat back after his loss in a fine match. A-Train teamed with Cena against Angle and Benoit was a solid contest. Kurt managed to pull some good stuff out of A-Train, including a fine opening mat exchange. Kurt is so good at carrying guys, and the other guys always seem to work harder when he's in there. Benoit was great too. Cena should work with Benoit more as Cena has picked up a lot from Angle and could do the same with Benoit.

It was a short but action packed match that had some nice stuff going on. Even the Angle vs. Benoit stuff was strong, though it gave them a no contest. By the way, there is no clearer sign that Heyman has power behind the scene than that they have gone back to Benoit vs. Angle. Not that I'm complaining.

Jamie Noble did a serious interview that was meant to sell Nidia's blinding by Tajiri. It's a good idea to do things like this, but the way they set it up by having it apparently shot on a webcam was kinda lame.

This guy really might have power...

The Heyman stuff with The Self-Proclaimed World's Greatest Tag Team was very cool. Heyman is always strong out of the gate. They should have given them the match as Shelton's return. Nice to see the Bashems get a run, though. I kinda look at it as a reward for Shaniqua's boob job. The SPWGTT got a match with Rikishi and the returning Scotty 2 Hotty. Man, I never thought I would see Scotty back.

Funny thing is, Scotty can actually work. I can remember a match between him and Taz from ECW that was sweet. If he hadn't of leaned so heavily on the dancing freak gimmick this would have been a really good match, and the wrestling that Scotty does is very strong. Shelton greeted Scotty with a "Welcome Back, Scotty" and a hard punch. Shelton is very good in his role. They should give TSPWGTT a feud with the Bashems over the belts. The crowd still loved the worm and 'kishi's stinkface. There is no reason that Benjamin should have done a job on his return. I really did not miss the dancing. I do love watching Vince trying to lay his groove thing down. Undertaker did not seem impressed.

Eddy and Chavo did the short interview that foreshadowed their losing the belts and breaking up. Shaniqua came out with the Bashems and got a little bit of heat for them. She's going to be Chynna huge in a few months. The match was fast-paced with the Guerreros on offense, including some very nice double team moves. Chavo looked good, and Eddy looked like Eddy should. The Bashems offense isn't bad, but Shaniqua's interference is very believable. Awesome snap suplex by Doug Bashem, who is easily the better of the two, and is certainly the faster of the two. Chavo with an AWESOME swingin DDT. Excellent backbreaker / Pescado combo from the Guerreros. Nice switcheroo ending. Good match.

Zach Gowen and Tajiri had a match that expertly showed off Zach's upside. He pulled some great moves out of nowhere, like a beautiful dropkick and a nice rolling cradle. Everything he does gets a pop; everything he takes gets a gasp. He's obviously a McMahon favorite as he gets a lot of positive exposure.

Bob Holly gave a very serious interview that I liked quite a bit. They have an immediate program with Brock that might actually work to get the hardworking guy a little of the limelight.

The main event was Brock and Big Show against Undertaker. Hey, say what you will, but this was a match that did not annoy me. It moved and Undertaker and Big Show seemed motivated, which seldom happens. The constant restarts were an old gimmick done beautifully with Shawn Michaels and Vader at SummerSlam 1996. It ended right and the stuff with Vince afterwards was strong. Too bad its too much McMahon one again.

I'd say that the show worked, though there were a couple of drops of the ball. Let's hope they can push Eddy right, which is likely as folks backstage have started to get big on Eddy as a possible main event guy. I'd say that this was as good as it can get without Angle or Benoit getting a long match.

News
Well, no one has died in the last couple of days (unless you count Elliot Smith's way emo suicide or Fred "Rerun" Barry's), but there has been lots of commentary on Road Warrior Hawk's passing. If you haven't already, go to 411mania and read what Animal has to say of his long-time partner. The Observer has a great article on Stu Hart's death.

Randy Savage is insane. Wait…let me think on that one. Randy Savage is ultra-insane. With his new rap album, he's been going around challenging Hulk Hogan (I believe most of the tracks on the album deal with Hulk not accepting his long-standing glove toss). Now, here's the newest weird wrinkle. Savage is currently insisting that The Hulkster threatened his father over the phone. I can't see this actually happening, or Angelo would have been the first to speak up about it. It was reported on 1wrestling.com, which tends to be a reliable source, but it's still Savage's word alone. There are also plans for 2 more Randy Savage albums.

It's been said that the delightful Marissa Mazzola McMahon and her husband Shane-O Mac are expecting their first child. The over-under on the kid's first appearance is 6 months.

Dave Meltzer also reports that HHH is a big favorite among the folks shooting Blade: Trinity. He has been very studious on the set, watching and asking the right questions of the right people. He was also said to have had his part expanded due to the quality of his performance. He and Stephanie McMahon are getting married this weekend. Just about everyone in the company is going and insiders at the company are saying that there is high anxiety all over the company about what will happen due to this union. Some are saying that Steph will jump to RAW so that she can tour with HHH and still stay true to the firing that occurred on SmackDown!.

FlashBack!
Starrcade 86: The Night of the Skywalkers. The show was perhaps the best of the Starrcades, as it was, top to bottom, a fantastic card that featured great wrestling with everyone from Rick Flair and Tully Blanchard, to the Rock 'n Roll Express and Boogie Woogie Jimmy Valiant. It was a great show that got its moniker from the match that was headlining: the Scaffold match between Hawk and Animal, the Road Warriors and The Midnight Express, Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey.

The Scaffold match is pretty simple; get a couple of guys up on a scaffold about 15 to twenty feet above the ring and whoever gets thrown off loses. That simple, really. The first one on record was in Memphis 1971 between Jerry Jarrett (Jeff Jarrett's dad) and Don Greene. Jarrett won, and we didn't see another scaffold match until 1983 when Bill Dundee took on Koko (later to add B.) Ware in Memphis. There were a few more around the South in the early 1980s, and tag teams competing on the scaffolds became more likely than singles, as it gave two big falls instead of just one.

The Road Warriors and the Midnights were having the perfect feud for a scaffold match at the time. The Road Warriors were thought to be invincible at the time, having just lost the AWA belts and competing in the NWA full-time. The Midnights had just lost the tag titles back to the R 'n R Express, so they were given a feud with the hottest team in the world at the time. They also hired a huge bodyguard, Big Bubba Rogers (aka Big Bossman) to protect their manager, Jim Cornette.

The feud was great, as Bubba would interfere or Corny would smack one of the Warriors with his tennis racket to get a DQ and keep the heat high. The match was a smart way to go, as it meant that Bubba and Cornette couldn't interfere. There was one problem: the match was awful.

Never all that interesting until somebody breaks their spine.

Now, having seen several of these types of matches over the years, I can say that they are rarely any good. The Rock 'n Roll RPMs and Eric Embry had one at Texas Stadium against the Fantastics and Steve Simpson that was pretty good, as did Miguel Perez jr. and The Iceman in Japan's W*ing, but for the most part, these matches suck since you can't take real bumps on the scaffolding. Hawk also had a broken leg. They used all sorts of heat getting tricks, having the heels throw powder, kicking low, all those things. The Warriors no sold, and eventually the Midnights ended up hanging from a set of monkey bars that had been placed on the underside of the scaffold. The Warriors followed and kicked them until they fell. It was a big pop for the crowd, but those of us who like watching actual wrestling were none too pleased. Cornete then climbed up the scaffold to avoid being beat on, and took the fall, which ended up blowing out his knee real bad. He was on crutches well into the next year.

The Scaffold match went through a period of explosion following the Starrcade match. There were matches from 1987 through the early 1990s in Texas, Japan, Puerto Rico, and ECW. They died down only to be reborn when the hardcore gimmick matches became all the rage. ECW did matches where you had to knock your opponent off the scaffold through a bunch of tables. XPW did similar matches, and I believe FMW (or maybe IWA Japan) did some using barbed wire. They all still tend to be dull until the fall, but what are you going to do?

That's another week and Falls Count Anywhere. Next week, your education continues with the story of Mitsuharu Misawa, the greatest wrestler of the 20th century.

Chris Garcia