Linda's Thoughts – Finally A Good Smackdown

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s column we got Smackdown last night. And I am very happy to say that finally Smackdown put on a strong show. You know week after week the bad as outweighed the good. But things turned around very nicely last night. I think Smackdown did a better job hyping Wrestlemania last night than it has in previous weeks. So let me get right into a Smackdown which I’m happy to say had me interested from beginning to end.
Of course the opening with Edge, and Ric Fair appealed to me so much. While I thought Vickie wasn’t her usual natural self, Flair and Edge did an awesome job during The Cutting Edge. Flair was totally on his game and Edge was just fantastic. I’m repeating what I said last week, but in order to make Smackdown something worth watching you need a lot of ingredients, and Edge on the mic is one of the major ingredients needed. He was excellent coming off as a Flair fan for a few seconds and then changing his tone by putting Ric Flair down. Flair came back by not only insulting Edge but also the love of Edge’s life Vickie as well. And of course Edge was right there to defend her honor. This was just a cool segment, it didn’t go on too long and there was no Vince McMahon. Okay seriously this also set up next week’s handicap Cage match with Ric Flair vs. Edge and his Edge-heads. So this was a nice way to get things going.
Now the next match was CM Punk and Jesse and Festus vs. Chavo, The Miz and John Morrison. Okay now I have two thoughts about this match. The first is, this was a good match. There was never a time that it dragged, the pace was consistently fast. All in all I thought this came off well. But what I didn’t like was the way Punk was used. Now I know many of you tell me that Punk does nothing for you. Of course I think most of you know I’m a CM Punk fan, I feel he is very good in the ring and his mic work is good. But it’s starting to look to me like Punk is going down. During the match Punk was never really focused on, and it just made me think that the rumors about Punk not being embraced backstage might just be true. Supposedly he agrees with agents when they tell him how to work his matches, yet when he goes out there he does his own thing. And these rumors continue to say that his days on top are over, at least for now. Again how true this all is I don’t know. But it bothered me very much last night that he was just THERE and it all seemed to be about Jesse and Festus.
I can’t tell you how nice it felt to see Jamie Noble do his “shtick” again. I miss the guy that came on to Michelle McCool with his arrogant yet very funny material, and we got that guy back last night. So Noble is not a one-woman man and he let Michelle down gently as he told her that he would let her off the hook. Of course McCool was relieved as she showed it with a very bad acting job. But that was okay, it was Noble that I wanted to watch and he did a hell of a job coming off like the catch of the year.
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Batista vs. MVP for the U.S. title. Now I can’t remember when the last time was that MVP defended this title, in fact so little has been made out of it that last night this title was made too look like it was THE title to win. I absolutely loved how MVP was psyching himself up during Batista’s entrance. It was like MVP wanted to win this match and keep his title more than ever before. This was a damn good match and I think my match of the night. With MVP winning because Batista was counted out a rematch as been made for next weeks show. Now there is no way Batista will win this even though it’s a No Holds Barred match, but maybe this will be the match where Matt Hardy makes his return.
Now the next match was built within a matter of hours. It was Chuck Palumbo vs. Kane. This all started on ECW this week when Palumbo on his motorcycle was stalking Kane during Kane’s match. And that’s why I said this was started within hours. Anyway did I need this match? No but, it came off better than I ever expected it too. It was just non stop brawling and even though Palumbo just doesn’t connect with me I can’t say that this was a bad match, because it wasn’t. Wouldn’t it be nice if working with Kane could make watching Palumbo more interesting? Well let’s say I am not holding my breath. We had a bikini contest with Michelle, Victoria, Eve, Cherry, and Maryse. It’s like Smackdown’s answer to the Diva contest. The fans get to vote for the winner and that winner wins a motorcycle. And that’s all I can or want to say about that segment.
And just like on Raw we got Big Show destroying a little guy, and this little guy happened to be Jamie Noble. So let’s see Noble has been brutally beaten up by Palumbo a few times and just when I think we have gotten back Noble the comic Big Show beats him up so badly that he’s “bleeding” due to internal injuries. Oh yes just what I want to see. Big Show again shows us just how talented he is by taking out a guy that he could probably beat with one hand. Well at least they kept Floyd Mayweather off TV so that was a very good thing.
I happened to really like the main event with Edge, Zak Ryder, and Curt Hawkins vs. The Undertaker. Now I noticed last week and this week that Edge’s right arm is wrapped and I’m just wondering what the injury is and how bad it is since he really hasn’t done much wrestling on TV. Last night he did get in there but the Edge-Heads worked most of the match. But I did like the main event and I thought Taker looked sharp. This was another match that was action packed, and I loved how the Cleveland, Ohio crowd reacted to it. Of course Taker didn’t stand a chance against Edge and his buddies. I really thought Smackdown did a super job heating things up with Undertaker and Edge.
As you can see I was very happy with this show. Now I won’t be doing a Raw column on Tuesday. Tuesday night my son Jason and I are going to Smackdown and I need the whole day to beautify myself. Well part of the day, but really I’m not sure if I could get a column out before we leave. I will try to do a column about Raw on Wednesday, now if I don’t, I will keep my Smackdown thoughts on hold until you guys see the show, and then I will tell you about what it was like being there live next weekend. I want to end with a request that I meant to post a few weeks ago. I attended RAW on January 17th, 2005 and was really hoping to obtain a copy of the show. If anyone has it in any video format (VHS, DVD, CD, anything), I would be very grateful to hear from them! I can be reached at taabish@gmail.com.
lindarobin3@yahoo.com