The normal packages and pyro go off and we are in Laredo, TX for a brand spankin’ new edition of SmackDown! that kicks off with a JBL promo. Scratch that; a lackluster JBL promo. The set-up to the promo gave it away too much with Cole and Tazz hyping up how the town is 90% Latino and right on the border. Come on, you can do something better than making a whole freaking promo/segment out of mocking a hometown. Mocking a hometown takes like three-five lines in a promo, not the whole freaking thing. JBL basically came out with Mexican garb and a donkey and insulted the Mexican crowd and Rey Mysterio as well as his family. He then brings up the donkey in some innate reference to the Mexican crowd living off the American government. I don’t know; I kind of zoned out.
After the whole promo that took what felt like an eternity, Ken Kennedy came out and mistook the donkey for Tony Chimmel. Someone please have Mr. Kennedy give JBL promo lessons. Please. Rey Mysterio then comes out to a huge pop along with his partner, Hardcore Holly. What the hell? Why in the world is Hardcore Holly in this match? It makes about as much sense as Triple H jobbing to Paul London. Seriously! Anyway, before the match starts, we go to our first commercial break.
Commercial break senior.
Ken Kennedy & John Bradshaw Layfield Vs. Rey Mysterio & Hardcore Holly
Match was definitely bad, and if you argue for it enough, you can probably push it to an average rating, but that’s the most you will get. Random tag matches like these are supposed to further two storylines, not one. Look at Snitsky & Edge versus Matt Hardy & Big Show from a few weeks ago on Raw. That furthered the feud of Snitsky-Show as well as Edge-Hardy. This tag team match basically furthered only the feud of Rey-Rey and JBL. Kennedy and Holly had no purpose in this match, unless they are going to have a match on No Mercy. Even if they have a match on No Mercy, it still doesn’t hide the fact that random tag matches further two feuds, not one. This didn’t further anything in terms of Holly-Kennedy. This match definitely should have been scraped, but we got it anyway. Everyone’s offense looked pretty sloppy in this match, but for some reason, Holly came off looking great. I’m a pretty big Holly hater, but even I have to admit, the guy was on top of his game tonight. Rey, JBL, and Kennedy though were severely slacking in this bad tag team match. Maybe it’s the fact that I hate tag team matches. Maybe it’s the fact that a horrible JBL promo was the lead-in to this match. For whatever reason, I hated this match and couldn’t wait for its end to come. Finish came when Mysterio took out Kennedy on the outside and Holly received a very sloppy looking Clothesline From Hell so the heels could get the win.
Winners: Ken Kennedy & John Bradshaw Layfield
Star Wrestler: Hardcore Holly
There aren’t many good things you can say about this match and to the biggest shocker of the week, Holly remains one of the only good things you can say. He played to the crowd better than anyone in the match, his offense and selling were on the ball, and his overall role in the match was pivotal. Without Holly, this match would have been a lot worse. Trust me on this one guys. I like Kennedy, JBL, and Rey as much as the next guy. JBL normally delivers great promos, Kennedy is a great rookie with an amazing offense (which we barely saw), and Rey is one of my all time favorites. However, that doesn’t hide the fact that these guys sucked in this match and as much as I hate to do it, I have to give the “star wrestler” accolade to a guy I hate so much: Hardcore freaking Holly. What a way to open the show. Rey legitimately works horribly in a match and Holly rules. Who would have thought?
Afterwards, we go into recap/preview mode as they hype up Orton-Taker and the WWE Tag Team Title match-up. They then show a recap of the pretty funny segment last week with Eddie’s doctor and the main event of last week’s show.
After the recap, we see Eddie Guerrero filling up on Mexican food when Batista shows up. Eddie apologizes for last week and says it won’t happen again. He says they will be good friends and WWE Tag Team Champions! Batista then acts worried and asks if Eddie should be eating that stuff because of last week. He then says he’s worried for Eddie and takes it away from him much to Eddie’s chagrin. Eddie then pulls out a tortilla to eat, but Batista comes and snatches it away saying it was the one thing he was missing. Definitely a good segment and one of Batista’s best since late-2004/early-2005. I’m really digging this Eddie-Batista feud and think this could easily be Batista’s best match at No Mercy.
Commercial break junior.
As we come back, we see some stupid footage from earlier in the day of Melina on the cell phone and Christy on a motorcycle (for some reason unbeknownst to me) interrupts her. They get into a hissy fight and Melina shoves Christy breaking a nail in the process. Naturally, this constitutes as grounds for a match, so we get:
Melina Vs. Christy Hemme
To be honest, this was between bad and average, but definitely surprising to say the least. By surprising, I mean I thought it was going to be miles worse than it was. I think I would feel safe actually calling this match passable. Yeah, let’s go with that. Anyway, it was basically a cat fight. So what made it passable? At one point, Melina was trying to incorporate some nice psychology in the form of working the arm of Christy. It was pretty surprising to see Melina pull something like that out. Too bad Christy didn’t sell it as well as she should have. It’s incidents like this that show me that WWE needs to just ship Melina, Christy, Torrie, Candice, Stacy, and Ashley all down to OVW to learn how to wrestle. Bring them back up and then you can have the tits and ass as well as good matches. Anyway, finish came when Mercury distracted the ref and Nitro tripped up Hemme and she took a nasty bump straight down. Melina covered her and got the win.
Winner: Melina
Star Wrestler: Melina
She definitely should have used more psychology, but the fact that she used any when I don’t think I have seen any other diva do is enough to garner this accolade. I will agree that the match was pretty bad, but literally, when have you seen a Diva match that incorporates some type of psychology? I think that’s worthy of bumping the match up a grade to passable, don’t you?
After the match, Christy tried to attack Melina, but MNM came in and beat her down. LOD then came out to predictably chase off MNM. Predictability rules! Wait, no it doesn’t. Sorry, I get confused by awesomely bad shows.
We then get another spectacular recap. Note the sarcasm, please. This time they recapped the casket segment last week with the Ortons and Taker.
Commercial break the third.
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AIM – Douglas Nunnally
E-mail – douglasnunnally@thewrestlingvoice.com
