Yo. You’re reading the weekend edition of News and Analysis for which I thank you. I’m Eddie, I don’t hate the Lakers (though Martin had some fun with that last time), I don’t hate TBL, and unlike the rest of the world I don’t hate the Big Show. *GASP* I know. Well, before Adam kills me, I just wanted to say that I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of things on the site lately and Michael Blaszkowki’s as well as Trevor’s work is great! That’s where you clap. Ok, I crossed the line today, as usually my intros aren’t shabby or long, but hey, now we get down to business, or to quote my friend Michael Blaszkowski, “let’s get to shit.”
WWE presented that one show they call SmackDown! this past Thursday night. I’ll be honest — for the first time in a while, SmackDown! didn’t do it for me. The show had its good moments, but it was kind of just out there and it had a lot of “downs” so to speak. Brock Lesnar defeated the founder of Mattitude (*sniff*) to start off the show in a nice manner as the new champ is back on TV. Elsewhere, Team Angle had the match of the night in my opinion. Tajiri and Rey Mysterio teamed up to take on the tag champs in a non-title bout and were able to snatch the win! Rhyno faced Chris Benoit and Undertaker faced John Cena in the main event to figure out who the two finalists of the SmackDown! tournament for the #1 Contendership are going to be. As it turned out, John “Word Life” Cena is going to take on Chris Benoit next week for the covetted #1 Contendership. Piper’s Pit also returned to TV! If this recap didn’t do it for you, you can always check out Foz’s SmackDown! review. The ratings are in and SmackDown! scored a 3.2 rating which is down from what the show has seen in previous editions. And with that sentence being said…
I think it’s become pretty obvious that Paul Heyman writing = ratings and quality TV. It wasn’t that long ago that I said in this very space that SmackDown! is quality programming, and indeed it is. However, I am going to have to be honest and tell you that in my opinion, the show has gone downhill big time as of lately. The spark of it just seems to be missing, and WWE is trying their best to add more to the “entertainment” value on the program, which I don’t think they need to do. With feuds like Hogan vs. McMahon, and with the returns of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Sable, it’s understandable that things had to change. With guys like Edge and Kurt Angle out, you really can’t help it but try to get in WWE’s shoes. Well, I am, and in my opinion they can still have a much better show! Right now we’re just in the midst of a combination of not-so-solid (I wouldn’t call it “bad,” because it’s not) writing from the creative team, and a very unfortunate time injury-wise. I definitely think that things will be improving on SmackDown! in the near future. Well, this paragraph was mainly for those people out there who tend to look at the negative side all the time. Remember folks, the future can be bright sometimes, but if you don’t let it be bright, you’ll live in darkness forever. (I miss The old-school Undertaker as well, yes.)
Brock Lesnar is back on SmackDown! as he’s slowly healing from his match at WrestleMania with Kurt Angle. Brock had an awesome match with Matt Hardy on SmackDown!, which I thought helped out both guys and the product. I liked how WWE didn’t just job Matt out, but rather gave him a strong offense in the match by capitalizing on the injury of Lesnar. I also must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the way Brock sold Matt’s offense. It proved that the way they’ve built him as a monster, if done right, WWE can always get to push someone and elevate him through Brock without hurting the champ himself. Definitely a very good spot on SmackDown! this past Thursday night, if not the best one.
While Brock was busy battling Matt Hardy, the four remaining competitors in the #1 Contendership Tournament battled it out in the semi-final phase. Chris Benoit defeated Rhyno in what seemed like a super-long match to me. It’s not that I wasn’t happy with it, but when you have two guys who can constantly change pace go all technical and attack the mat, you simply have an Amateur Wrestling contest. The match seemed slow and out of it for me. However, after Benoit and Rhyno picked up the pace it really got interesting again. You can’t blame WWE for slowing down either, especially when you have two guys who have both suffered career-threatening neck injuries, and with the state of mind the industry is today where neck injuries go, again, you just can’t blame the company for making them slow down. I thought they did the best they could and got the better out of the match. Chris Benoit deserved the win more, as it seems that WWE always pushes him through the sky but are saving on that one big match that will get him the WWE Championship. It’s going to happen, I’m sure, but there are still some holes to be filled by Benoit on the way there. As far as Rhyno goes, it looks like the impact of his return is all but forgotten, and WWE just kinda put him on TV without much of a change. I see no character in him, so they need something fresh to help him out. He’s got the wrestling skills though, and that’s not under any critism from where I stand because he’s great!
The Undertaker faced John Cena in the other semi-final match, and ended up being cheated out of a win thanks to the interference by FBI. A lot of things to say about that match. First, I know that ‘Taker should be praised for willing to job to somebody like John Cena, but the way ‘Taker does the job kind of makes you want to forget all about praising him. He no-sold any of Cena’s offense, and even worse than that, there was hardly ever any Cena offense. If WWE is planning to put John Cena out there as a main-event competitor, they have to let him get through some big guys either clean, or via DQ or in any way, but as long as he gets his offense in. I read this somewhere already I believe, but if Cena does win and faces Brock, how are we supposed to believe that he’s capable of winning when he can’t get through one of his matches and can hardly even get any offense? I hope things change around for the final match with Benoit. The Undertaker also has an elbow injury to take care of and it seems he’ll be out soon. I think that could have made for even more of a reason to have him job to Cena as they could have explained it’s due to the injury that ‘Taker was weakened. Ah well.
Before I get into the random SmackDown! liners of thoughts, I just wanted to take a second and talk about the two French guys that are debuting in WWE soon, as promised in the last report. Rene Dupree and Sylvan Grenier (who refereed the Rock-Hogan match at No Way Out) are two French Canadian wrestlers who caught the eye of Pat Patterson. They were unable to work for WWE in the US up until a while ago due to visa troubles, and of course getting accustomed to the company. I don’t know much about their English “skills.” Anyway, from what I’ve heard, those two are pretty solid in the ring. WWE is very high on Sylvan Grenier, as they already used him at No Way Out, and also had him appear on TV. As far as Dupree goes, not much of a background is available. The inner feeling in WWE is that their current program/gimmick for the two is worked very well because the way they’re presented as “Frenchmen” is done at the right time where France is not exactly looked at as our best ally. No need to get political in my opinion, but since those guys are obviously limited character-wise, I think it’s a very solid move by WWE and it could work out if they try to keep the gimmick calm and not blow it out of proportion. Stay tuned.
And now some random SmackDown! thoughts… Sable and Torrie are doing ok, but nothing more or less for now as far as I’m concerned… I can’t believe Team Angle are that good. I just can’t believe it… Did anyone forget about Tajiri after his injury? The man was out for so long! It’s great to see him back on SmackDown! and I think he needs more air time, he deserves it… It’s great to see the FBI in the main event slot. Unlike others, I enjoy their work, but I do agree that they need something added to their gimmick to make it even better… Piper’s pit was a great touch as well. I guess Sean O’Haire will be feuding Rikishi and if Kish puts him over, it’ll be a great beginning for Sean. It’s interesting to see where they go with his connection with Piper as well. I’ll talk about this more in the next SmackDown!-N and A… I missed the Guerreros. 🙁 … Nathan Jones looks like a wasted potential to me. He needs to learn a lot. And he needs to learn fast! Nice seeing Bill DeMott again though.
In a short update on William Regal, if you didn’t get a chance to check on “Byte This!” over at WWE.com, he confirmed that the injury he has is much serious. As it turns out, Regal has a heart problem which causes faster heart rate and heart beat as a result. Due to that, at one point after his illness, the right side of his heart swolled up to the point where he could no longer function regularly until doctors took care of him. They treated him with some electric shocks to stop his heart at first, and then start it again, hoping to regain normal rate. Reportedly, William Regal is doing just fine right now and is getting better. Of course, there’s no word on when he’ll be returning to the ring, but we’ll keep you updated. If you need more, head over to Byte This! at WWE.com.
Well, folks, every time I try to make one of these reports shorter it ends up being longer. So once again I’m going to have to miss out on the “My Two Cents” section and say that it’ll be back again some day! You know where to find me for feedback! Thanks for your time!
Thanks for reading. See ya.
Eddie
