Let me start out by thanking each and every one of you for sending your good wishes to my brother and my family. My brother had quintuple by pass surgery almost two weeks ago and his recovery has gone so well that I’m totally amazed. He’s been home for almost a week and he looks terrific. And I want you to know that I printed out every email that wished him the best, and brought it to him last weekend. He read each one and honestly was choked up by everything he read. And this is a guy who usually shows no emotion. So thank you again for caring enough to email me. It’s great to be back, and I want to talk about Smackdown and a few other items. In the last two weeks Smackdown has been the show for me. The tide has turned again where Raw is looking rather bland and Smackdown has come alive. So let me get right to the show.
Smackdown is definitely starting to be WWE’S wrestling show, while Raw has become the McMahon’s show. I think maybe that’s why in the last two weeks Smackdown has been so strong. I thought the opening with Christian’s Peep show was good. It brought out all the competitors for Taboo Tuesday’s match against Edge and Chris Masters. But a few things hit me right off. Each time Christian opened his mouth, each guy would come out starting with Matt Hardy, then Rey Mysterio, Bob Holly and then JBL. What I didn’t like was this. On Monday’s Raw Edge put Christian down, talking about carrying his ass for 6 years and that Christian would have the least votes in this contest. I’m a little put out that a man with such great mic skills as Christian’s was basically kept silent. Christian should have been able to run his mouth off about Edge. On the other hand do you know who I thought had the best promo out there during all of this? BOB HOLLY. Now this guy has always come off bad when he talks, but wow last night he stated his case and did it very well. So other than the lack of mic time for the show’s host I liked the opening very match. AND, I especially loved the match that followed thanks to Theodore Long. The Five Man free for all was fantastic. This match made me wish that Raw would give us matches like this more often. There wasn’t one guy that didn’t add to what was going on. You could not have asked for a better match to get things going than this one. You had each guy doing their finishing move, this match was all excitement. And again while I hated to see Christian get pinned by Rey. Rey’s victory was a great way to end things.
I totally like the Sharmell bitch character and I continued to like her last night. All of a sudden Book’s wife has started controlling everything, or at least that’s how she feels. Her attitude with Theodore Long in his “office” was good and while I’ve figured for a while that Booker would turn heel this still played out well. Booker was so not with his wife and was going to make sure he would fix things the right way with Chris Benoit. This was one good segment and as I said played out very well by Booker, Sharmell and even Long. Another very short but entertaining segment followed with Rowdy Roddy Piper getting the best of Cowboy Bob Orton. There was some good interaction with Randy’s dad and Piper. Randy made his way out there help his dad, and while Randy threatened to take care of Piper. Piper naturally held his own with Randy and walked off saying “The next generations of Orton’s would be walking on all fours. See this was short, but to the point and it worked. Simon Dean had a little confrontation with Short Sleeve Sampson, that name alone had me laughing. Dean did all the small jokes he could think of but it was Sampson and two of his buddies that played their own joke on Dean. They tied the back of his scooter and hung on to the rope. So when Dean left they pulled back and he fell into trash. Sure this wasn’t original but with Dean’s one liners and the three midgets it was just fun. And unlike the skit on Raw with Vince operating on JR, this at least didn’t drag out if you get what I mean. Now as far as the Midget Division goes, I have to say this. I like the way this is being portrayed. Let me explain what I mean. Palmer Cannon came out to sit with Tazz and Michael Cole. Palmer is so into this division, talking about how this division will bring the ratings up, and then while the match between Short Sleeve and PittBull Patterson is going on, Cannon is so into the match acting like we are seeing WWE’s top guys out there. I love it; most of us see this as quick filler, but having Cannon make this division like the greatest thing ever is just a riot. Plus you add Tazz and even Michael Cole’s humor during the match and it all really worked for me. And also it looks like Simon Dean will be feuding with them, so as far as I’m concerned while Dean is nursing his broken hand, what a great way to keep him on TV. Now had I not read the spoilers I probably would have thought that Booker was on the level. But I knew what was going to happen in his segment with Benoit. I knew that there wasn’t going to be a match and that Booker would turn on Chris. But even after reading about it, I still liked the way it came off. Sharmell’s apology went from being an insincere I’m sorry to Benoit, to listing everything GOOD she’s done for her husband and then leaving. Of course this was all a set up and it was Booker that clocked Benoit with the U.S. belt and now Booker and Sharmell are in this together, and I cannot wait to watch this feud with Benoit and Booker. And hallelujah LOD are no longer the tag champs. I am very happy to see MNM get those titles back but in all fairness to LOD I thought they performed well last night. This was another one of my favorite matches. It was MNM vs. LOD vs. William Regal/Burchill vs. The Mexicools Super Crazy and Psicosis. Like the opening match this was fast paced and filled with a lot of excitement. I was just as much into watching this as I was during the first match. And again there was interference by the Toland’s only now they are James and Chad Dick, yes that’s right Dick. But again they interfered taking out LOD and giving MNM the win. Just one excellent match.
Long was quite busy last night. Nunzio and Vito came in and now want to go for the tag team titles. Long set up Lashley vs. Smackdown’s latest tag team of Nunzio and Vito for next week. Watch how Lashley will take both of them out before you can even blink. But it was the Boogeyman that creeped me out again Hell he sang I Left My Heart In San Francisco so beautifully that he even had a heart around his neck. That all had me laughing. But when you get the close-ups with the face and missing teeth I’m glad I’m not a young child, because I’m more than sure my sleeping would never be the same again. I’m just waiting to see what this guy can do in the ring, I hope we all find out soon, very soon. Finally is Eddie really a true face now or will his heel persona return when all of us least expect it? I like him either way and I’m just wondering when the Eddie vs. Batista rematch happens which will probably be at the Survivor Series will the heel Eddie will return? Well for now Eddie Guerrero and Batista are close so close that Dave bought Eddie a low rider and Eddie’s old Lie Cheat and Steal theme is back. And having him come out to that put a smile on my face. The main event was good not great but very good. Randy and Cowboy Bob again had Mr. Kennedy… Kennedy with them and he looked okay in there. And this was another match where everyone that participated did a nice job. I’m glad Piper got the win I think that’s only fitting. For Piper being such a major name he’s keeping his on air appearances short and because of this he’s coming off extremely well.
I totally loved the show from top to bottom. I’ve been a little sour on Raw in the last few weeks, but I am looking forward to Taboo Tuesday. Now there are reports on the sites that Kane might have broken his back. This happened when he tried to superplex Big Show last week. Re-watching the match you can definitely see that Kane couldn’t hold Show and you could also see that Kane was understandably hurting A LOT. I’m hoping it’s not what the reports are saying, and that he won’t be out long at all. And Edge has a partial tear of his pec, and it’s not sure if he’ll be at the ppv. If I had to guess I’m going to say yeah he’ll work the match, but it’s just a guess. Supposedly no surgery is expected. And finally I’m so proud of the Chicago White Sox, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would ever see a Chicago team make the World Series let alone win one. So this was very big for me. Okay I plan to be back on Tuesday with my Raw column and my Taboo Tuesday predictions.
