Friday Night Fallout: House That Naitch Built

What up O-sters, it's time once again for "Friday Night Fallout". But this time, it's a little different because I was there! Hopefully you all saw Tha O Show sign during the Edge segment, and Tha O Show shirt flapping throughout the show (note: I was sitting directly behind the right turnbuckle from the hard camera, and my mom was on TV holding a "V1 Next World Champ" sign after the Hardy/Finlay encounter).

The night opened with a dark match with The Majors Brothers defeating...yes defeating Deuce and Domino! The only reason I mentioned it is because of a promo package made for them later in the show.

The televised version of "SmackDown!" opened with the one and only Rated R Superstar coming to the ring. The Cutting Edge mourns the death of one Mr. McMahon (note: WWE corporate has stated that the character Mr. McMahon has "died" on TV, but the chairman Vincent Kennedy McMahon is alive and well).

Edge blasts Torrie Wilson and says that it was she was responsible for his death, because we least expect it to be her. It was a great way to lead into the match, but MVP really made this promo. He had the crowd cheering him for 35-40 seconds, but when he dropped the lie detector test bomb, the place went insane! That was one of the best heetseaker jobs I've seen and heard in a long while.

Woooooo! As was evident on TV, the place went apeshit for Ric Flair. They popped even harder for no words, just punches. Batista's save was well recieved, and the immediate bailing of the champs added fuel to the fire of a star studded main event.

Jimmy Wang Yang and Shannon Moore took on Chavo Guerrero and Jamie Noble in a pretty good opening match. "SmackDown!"'s new great opening match streak is at 'dos'. The match saw the brilliance of Chavo, Yang, Noble and yes Shannon Moore. The Prince of Punk gimmick has been dropped as his fantail mohawk is gone, the hair is still there, but the hawk is no mo.

In what was the best cruiser tag match on "SmackDown!" not containing Paul London and Brian Kendrick, Chavo and Noble showed amazing team work that harkened back to the old school teams using the isolation tactics and the teaming up to take out a body part. Yang is one hell of a move-putter-over guy, and if not for WWE hating on the smaller guys, he could be a good U.S. Champion for the company...keep that in mind if the E wants to up the Asian viewing statistics.

I understand that Yang needed to be focused on due to the big match this Sunday night at Vengeance, but Shannon getting the hot tag that was odd...cool but odd. After some good moves and a sick looking and sounding shoulder crack to the turnuckles by yer boy, the match took the hot tag turn. Moore came in with some good corkscrews and flippity dippity do's only to be put out with a Gory Bomb/Special which yours truly popped for. Good solid match...short, but solid.

Mark Henry VS. Funaki...yadda, yadda, yadda. Silverback hug for the victory in what may be the biggest upset since The 49ers beat the Chargers in the SuperBowl. The only reason I mention this...and I know it was nothing...but on Henry's way out, if you noticed, he looked to his right and said, "Yeah, I did it." Hmmmmmmmm.

Teddy Long and Vickie Guerrero backstage...for some reason, I felt Theodore was going to make a pass at Vickie. Hey I know its tasteless, but so is this whole McMahon death BS. Let's face it, nobody was really excited about Daniel Beck's huge announcement. Anyway, Kristal comes in looking O SO FINE, and Teddy tells her he wants to ask her...to make an announcement and he would like her to accompany him, GEE WONDER WHAT THAT'S ABOUT?

Matt Hardy VS. Finlay. To anybody who says Hardy ain't over, watch this match! In an O-tastic match, Finlay went old school and focused on the knee. There were some stiff looking shots as always. Finlay is one of the best workers in the E and I know it isn't all look...dude must be stiff. Some decent chain wrestling in this match with a number of locks and takedowns.

Hornswoggle made an appearance, getting pulled from under the ring by Hardy's foot to a huge pop. The hand stomp was also pretty over, but to top that - the clothesline was insane.

Hardy attempted several comebacks, getting the crowd into it, both men really worked the crowd when this match could have been one of those that was on the verge of the "boring" chants. These two great workers kept it interesting. Finlay kept Matt on the ground with the knee, and the middle rope knee smash to the ground looked really good. Taking the brace off was a nice addition, considering that it isn't done too much anymore.

After more back and forth, Hardy hit a side effect which got the crowd back into it big time. The double shillaleigh was a nice touch, especially since Finlay got a shot in while Hornswoggle was distracting the ref. Great heel work by these two guys. The comeback of Hardy with the Twist of Fate after the shilleleigh was a really, really good finish.

The crowd cheered Hardy through the curtains. On a side note, look at the "Hardy 4 Champ" signs in the crowd. JBL also did a good job of putting both men over...the 20 minute match hurt neither.

The Stephanie promo...Jesus, enough already! Teddy Long came up next. Again, I wondered what Captain Cialis was going to say. Teddy proposes to Kristal...and she leaves crying hysterically. The E took out the Charlotte chant of "You got dumped!"

Later in the night Teddy finds Kristal and after Kanye's favorite girl (please get the reference) sees the ring he bought her and realizes that due to the money Captain Cialis spent on her, she'll agree to marry a man 85 years her senior.

Chris Masters VS. I think...Danny Shannly. Good way to get Masters over I reckon, but Masters did get a pretty decent reaction. JBL put over Masters in a big way on commentary. Did anyone else get a lot of distortion from his voice on their local broadcast?

We have a Vengeance rundown that doesn't feature WWE Tag Team Champions Deuce and Domino. They weren't even featured on the broadcast of "SmackDown!", which tells me that the boys from the "wrong side of the tracks" could drop the straps to the boys from ECW.

Michelle McCool promo. I swear, she could be one of the best looking females on this planet, and that tennis outfit didn't hurt. She's on the same page as Kournikova and Sharapova.

The main event of the evening was up next. Ric "Woooo By God" Flair. After all the pyro of the main eventers, that arena was 10X more smoky than the TV showed. It looked like the set for "Cheech and Chong Go To Bobcats Arena". The reason I titled this article as I did was because Ric was known for making people look good, and tonight that was his sole purpose.

He made Edge, MVP and Batista look like a million bucks. EACH. I have officially changed my opinion on Ol' Dave. He isn't a good worker, but in the past few months he has picked back up what he lost after his injury. He not only can be carried to a great match, but can pull off a good match himself. He also works and plays to the crowd almost as good as any babyface on the E's roster. Edge and MVP pulled off tag team work much like Noble and Chavo did earlier in the show. They played excellent heel team tactics and had the crowd basically spitting at them.

Ric sold like a champ, did his little funny dance, strut and wooo, and did basically nothing wrong. With the main eventers in this match, and the need to focus solely on Batista and Edge with a little bit of Naitch and MVP mixed in, Ric did what was needed. He sold to MVP and got in enough offense to make us think he could walk out of Vengeance the new WWE United States Champion.

Edge nearly botched his spot getting out of the ring, but played it off nicely sliding up onto the announce table and pointing. The ending sequence of this match did a few things. It showed that Flair really doesn't care about being the top dog, as he watched as Batista won the match and cheered him on the whole way. Edge did a nice leap frog over the initial spear and did an even better job selling the block and spinebuster.

After Batista hit the buster, as much as I hate it, he channeled the spirit of the Warrior, and got the crowd amped. Batista hit his much criticized Power Bomb a little better tonight and got the 1-2-3 that we, the fans, needed to ensure that Edge would remain the World Heavyweight Championship at Vengeance: Night of Champions.

This just in folks: for the World Heavyweight Championship match that took place after ECW, Batista defeated World Heavyweight Champion Edge...via DQ. Edge kicked Tista in the nutsack region and got DQ'd. After this, Batista came back and obliterated Edge and posed for some 15 minutes. He even gave a "this is for Ric WOOOO" which wasn't bad.

He also, in a move that I liked, walked around the entire guardrail slapping hands (Batista Boucher style) with the crowd. This went on for a solid five minutes. Not a fan in the arena who paid for floor seats didn't touch Dave. Women were crying, children were crying and I could only shake my head at the markism that is Charlotte. On a serious note, I do applaud any wrestler who takes the time to do that.

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