Dark Pegasus Video Review: Falls Count Anywhere: The Greatest Street Fights and Other Out-of-Control Matches (Disc Three)

Falls Count Anywhere: The Greatest Street Fights and Other Out-of-Control Matches by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Your host is Mick Foley. Unsanctioned Street Fight: Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels (8/25/02). Shawn returned to wrestling, joining the nWo, but when that fell through, he tried to reform DX. Hunter was too big for any reunions at that point and Pedigreed him. Shawn starts out like he hadn’t missed a step, hitting a plancha and skinning the cat – all within the first five minutes. Shawn misses Sweet Chin Music and takes a backbreaker. And another. Hunter hits him with a chairshot to the back. The crowd is legitimately freaked out about Shawn’s infamously crippled back (which, apparently, wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought). Shawn gets a rollup, but Hunter hits a facebuster and DDTs him on a chair. Unintentionally hilarious moment: Hunter locks in an abdominal stretch, and *that* is the moment that pushes Earl Hebner over the edge. He forces Hunter to break it up in spite of the rules. Shawn blocks a superplex and goes up, but Hunter shoves Earl into the ropes to crotch Shawn. He follows it up with a backbreaker on the chair, then a side slam on the chair. That gets a series of two-counts, but Shawn goes low to block the Pedigree. Hunter grabs a chair, but Shawn superkicks it back in his face. Both guys are busted open now. Shawn fires away with rights and the flying forearm. The kip-up gets a huge pop, and Shawn drills him with the chairshot. Hunter takes the Harley bump to the floor where Shawn nails him with a ladder in the face. Hunter has some good blood flowin’ there. Shawn clotheslines him out, and Hunter lands on the ladder. Shawn sets up a table and splashes Hunter through it. Back in, Shawn drops the elbow off the ladder. Hunter blocks Sweet Chin Music and goes for the Pedigree, but Shawn counters to a rollup for the pin at 27:20. Far and away the best match between these two. Shawn’s notoriously bad back played a huge part, with every backbreaker and sideslam drawing a cringe from the audience. There were a few points where it seemed like it would wear out its welcome, but then they would change it up. One of the best matches for both guys. ****3/4 World Heavyweight Title, Street Fight: Triple H (w/Ric Flair) vs. Kevin Nash (w/Shawn Michaels – 6/7/03). Nash got sucked into the HHH vs. HBK feud against his will. Hebner admonishes both Shawn and Flair to keep out of it, although he’s really powerless to do anything about it since it’s a Street Fight. Nash takes it to the floor early, and Flair takes a cheapshot. Shawn attacks Flair and tosses him into the post, busting Flair open in old-school fashion. The fans don’t seem nearly as impressed as JR, bombarding Shawn and Earl Hebner with “You screwed Bret” chants. Even Nash doing the old “double clothesline the heels” spot doesn’t get them in it. Referees finally run down and drag Flair and Michaels to the back, thus killing off the possibility of something interesting happening. HHH tries to make things fun by bumping around, but he’s just not as mobile as he used to be. Nash backdrops him on the entrance ramp and hits him with a chair. He takes HHH over to the announce table (remember, it used to be up by the entrance). Hunter scurries back to the ring, though, and goes after Nash’s legs. Nash blocks the figure-four and whips Hunter to the floor. Hunter snaps Nash’s neck on the top rope and tries to smash his head in with the steps. Nash uses his catlike quickness to drop toehold Hunter. Oh, the fickle hand of irony. Hebner gets bumped (as he is contractually obligated to in all HHH matches). Flair runs down with a chair, but Nash sees him coming. Hunter grabs the chair and nails Nash as a new ref runs down. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Hunter knocks out the new ref, and HHH and Flair put the boots to Nash. Shawn returns and makes the save. Sweet Chin Music to Flair! Shawn keeps Hunter from using the sledgehammer but eats a Pedigree. Nash is up, though, and hits the Jackknife. New ref! ONE, TWO, THR-Flair pulls him out. Nash tries to Jackknife Flair, but HHH nails him with the sledgehammer as Earl Hebner conveniently comes out of his coma to count three at 14:57. If not for Shawn and Flair running around trying to save the match, this probably would have bottomed out. The “Hunter Formula” was being driven into the ground, and Earl Hebner’s probably lucky he got out when he did because he was taking more bumps in Triple H matches than his opponents were. HHH would wrestle the same basic main event match from 2001-2006 (which was one of the criticisms of Flair as well), and the only difference was how good his opponent was. Nash, who was coming off a knee injury and wasn’t very mobile when he was healthy, was not the guy to have good matches with. *3/4 WWE Women’s Title, Falls Count Anywhere: Melina vs. Mickie James (3/5/07). Ashley is your special ring announcer, hyping her “Playboy” spread. Melina stops to pose for the paparazzi and gets dropkicked. Melina tosses Mickie into the barrier and runs to the back. Mickie catches up with her in the women’s locker room where Torrie and Maria get involved. Victoria jumps Mickie from behind but gets sprayed in the eyes with hairspray. Candice comes out of the shower in a towel, which immediately gets ripped off. We head to commercial before we see her jubblies. Not that anyone with Cinemax hasn’t already seen them. We come back to Mickie fighting Melina all the way back to the ring. A Fisherwoman’s Suplex gets two for Mickie. Melina blocks a rana, and Mickie nearly Litas her own neck. Melina stacks her up for the win at 7:24. Melina objects to Ashley holding her title, so she gets in her face. Ashley shoves her down and helps Mickie up. Having the match over black increased their workrate exponentially. *1/2 I have no recollection of the following match, although I apparently liked it. Street Fight: Triple H vs. Umaga (10/27/07). They brawl all the way up to the entrance ramp where Hunter spears Umaga through the set. They brawl back to the ring, and Hunter nails him with the trashcan shot for two. Umaga comes back with the Samoan Drop. Umaga continues to maul him like a badger on a canary. It happens! A bearhug kills some time, and Umaga switches it up into a belly-to-belly suplex. BUTTALANCHE! It only gets two. Hunter goes low and DDTs Umaga on the chair. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! To the floor now, Umaga misses a chairshot and gets speared over the Smackdown table. They fight over to the Raw table where Umaga runs across the tables and splashes Hunter THROUGH the table. Back in, Umaga tries another splash but misses. Hunter grabs his sledgehammer, but Umaga intercepts him. The Samoan Spike misses, and Hunter nails him with the sledgehammer. That sets up the Pedigree at 17:23. Good enough thanks to Hunter’s ability to sell like a champ. The only problem was that no one in the arena gave Umaga even a snowball’s chance in hell of winning so his nearfalls didn’t have much heat on them. ***1/4 Street Fight: John Cena vs. Umaga (6/16/08). This is not their shockingly good Rumble match. This comes from Raw. Both guys go for their finishers early before we go to commercial. We come back to a brawl on the floor. Cena charges right into a Samoan Drop on the entrance ramp. Umaga charges but posts himself. Back in, Cena jumps right into the swinging sideslam. Umaga doesn’t cover right away, allowing Cena to come back with the Civilian Slice. Cena crumbles while going for the FU, and Umaga gets two. Umaga grabs the steps and charges, but Cena scoops him up with the FU at 7:28. I’m not sure why, but Umaga comes off much more like a monster than Kane or Big Show, or any of Cena’s other “monster” opponents. These two had good chemistry, and it showed here in spite of the short match time. **1/2 Submissions Count Anywhere: D-Generation X vs. Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase (9/13/09). HHH’s trying to foist responsibility for screwing Bret onto Shawn in the pre-match promo is pretty funny since he openly admits to being the one who proposed it. Also funny is that even Montreal stops booing long enough to yell “Are you ready?” and “Suck it!” The brawl quickly spills out into the crowd. The fans sing “Ole!” making me hope El Generico might do a run-in. Back down to the floor, DX comes back with an awesome chair-assisted crab-chinlock on Cody. Ted makes the save and puts Shawn in a modified Gory Special. Hunter makes the save, and they take it back up to the stands. Cody kicks Shawn over the railing, and Shawn lands on a conveniently placed mat. They treat it like he landed on a bed of nails, but the live fans don’t buy it. Hunter takes on both Legacy members near the catering table to give Shawn a chance to recover. Ted knocks Hunter cold with some sort of object, leaving Shawn alone in a two-on-one. Shawn tosses Ted but gets caught in an awkward anklelock from Cody. Shawn makes the ropes, but as Michael Cole points out, it doesn’t matter. Good catch, Mikey. Shawn squirms out and hits Ted with the superkick. Figure-four on Cody, but Ted recovers and saves. Cody slaps on the ringpost figure-four, and Ted adds the Million Dollar Dream. HHH is crawling down the ramp, but Shawn taps before he can get there, giving Cody and Ted a big victory at 21:40. Not as brutal as I thought it would be, as it focused more on strategy and creative submission spots. That’s a plus in my book, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as the Summerslam match, probably due to the all-over-the-arena booking that killed the heat. It was still a fine match, and it’s hard to believe there was a time earlier this year where I thought Cody and Ted could be “future endeavored.” ***1/2 Street Fight: Rey Mysterio vs. Batista (12/11/09). This came about because Batista was sick of Rey’s failure as a wrestler, a human being, and a paper weight. Batista manhandles Rey, but Rey uses his speed to fluster the big guy. Nice to see Rey moving crisply. We go to commercial and come back to Batista trying to break Rey in half against the ringpost. We see what happened to turn things around as Rey went for the vertical press, but Batista ducked and threw him into the steps. Matt Striker goes off on a silly rant about Batista taking in so much more protein so he has stronger bones (and that’s why they tell you to drink milk). Striker just got bizarre towards the end of his run on commentary. Mysterio springboards into a splash for two, but Batista kicks out and spears him. A chairshot ends Rey at 7:52. It started out like a real match and ended up as a Batista squash with him whipping Rey around like a rag doll. I approve. **1/2 Street Fight: Randy Orton vs. Cody Rhodes (11/4/11). Orton starts out with a good, old-fashioned wrestling match, even working in a side headlock and his dropkick. To the floor, Cody tosses Randy into the stairs. Orton fights back, and they brawl into the audience. Cody tries to use his bag man as a shield, but it backfires. He does it again, and the bagger takes an RKO. We come back from a break to Cody beating Randy down on the ramp. Randy reverses a suplex and plants Cody on the ramp. Back to the ring, Orton delivers a superplex. Cody surprises him with a dropkick of his own. These guys have great dropkicks. I once saw Jim Brunzell versus Jim Powers when someone no-showed, so I know something about great dropkick match-ups. Oddly enough, I don’t remember anyone hitting a dropkick in that match, so it’s probably moot. Cody tosses Orton onto the announce table as we go to break. We come back to Cody stomping Randy in the face and the legs. He locks in the figure-four, which would be a fine secondary finisher for him. Rhodes takes off his protective mask and smashes it in Randy’s face. Orton ducks another swing and steals the mask. WHACK! Orton nails Cody with it and “goes to the place.” That’s a silly meme. The RKO is blocked, and Cody hits a fluke Disaster Kick. Randy backdrops out of CrossRhodes. To the floor, Randy hits a barricade-assisted DDT. Crazy! Back in, the RKO finishes at 16:01. I’m surprised Rhodes didn’t get more of a rivalry out of this. It seemed to be a stop-over for Orton. This blowoff, though, was excellent and probably should have been on PPV. ****

The 411: Up-and-down blend of matches, being heavily weighted toward the last decade. There are a number of glaring omissions, but the main problem is that the concept (much like the Steel Cage or Elimination Chamber DVDs) gets old after your fifth or sixth match. Foley doesn't add much as host outside of a running joke about being forced by corporate to wear slacks. You'd think a guy who built his career on hardcore wrestling would have been more enthusiastic than to just crack jokes and collect a paycheck. Lukewarmly recommended for the classic matches and some fun crap.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]