This week’s Smackdown was quite entertaining as well as quite interesting. I would have to give this show thumbs up for a change. That’s not to say that I was happy with everything that we got but all in all Smackdown was a pretty good show. In fact I think some of the segments that I liked might surprise you because honestly I surprised myself. Okay let me get right to Smackdown’s opening segment.
I have a feeling that the short build up to the Big Show and Khali match at Backlash is going to be better than their match at that pay per view. I’m amazed that I feel this way but so far I like watching Big Show and Khali interact. And I enjoyed the opening segment with Khali offering Show a Punjabi Peace Offering. I thought this was different and both men played this out perfectly. And this was one of the segments that I found interesting. I’m guessing that Big Show is supposed to be a tweener, yet when this segment ended I found Khali to come off as the face and Big Show the heel since Khali was sincere and tried to make peace with Show. Big Show responded by throwing one punch at Khali and knocking him out. Now I have wanted to see a face turn for Khali for a while, so if that happened during this feud I love it. But going back to the opening I thought it came off well just like their two other encounters that they have had. It’s in the ring where I’m afraid the whole thing will come off looking rather pathetic. But I’ll talk about that more when I do my Backlash predictions.
I loved the first match with the Miz and John Morrison vs. Shannon Moore and Jimmy Wang Yang. Yes we have seen these guys go at it quite a lot, but once this match started it was like, oh what the hell these four guys work so very well together. This was my match of the night and I just would love to see Vince continue to focus not only on Moore, Yang, Miz and Morrison but the rest of the tag teams not only on Smackdown but on Raw as well. Okay now the next match I was absolutely fine with but I noticed with some of the feedback that I have received the humor in this match wasn’t what many of you wanted to see. Finlay accompanied by Hornswoggle vs. Matt Stryker. Now Stryker isn’t one of my favorites yet I think there was something there between Stryker and Finlay. However while this match had the makings of a good one there was a lot of slapstick humor going on. The humor seemed to be just what the small kids liked and I have to be honest I liked it too, I was laughing and I figured what a fun way to bring Finlay and his “son” Hornswoggle back to Smackdown. With that said, I don’t want Finlay now being part of a comedy act.
As we all know Finlay is a hell of a wrestler and when he plays a heel he’s one of the best. I want to see some hot matches with Finlay and if the match ends with some fun then fine, but I don’t want a repeat week after week of what we got on Friday night. But for their first night back as I said I was fine with the total segment. Okay I have read so much about Nattie Neidhart, or should I say Natalya Neidhart. I have read how good she is in the ring, so I’m hyped to see just what she has to offer. I will say I wasn’t too impressed with her short promo, it wasn’t exactly smooth, but it was her first night on the mic and I would like to think that the more she’s used the more professional her mic skills will become. As far as her in ring work goes? Well that’s something that I really can’t wait to see. Now she came out with Victoria to cheer her on against Michelle McCool. I don’t think the match was even two minutes long, but it came off okay and it gave Natalya her first chance to help Victoria beat Michelle. I am thinking with Neidhart aligned with Victoria that not only are we going to see more of Natalya but we will also get more of Victoria, which in my opinion is a very good thing. Okay here’s one of those surprises I was talking about. Monday night on Raw I thought Shawn Michaels and Batista were not only outstanding in their segment, but they also stole the show. However on Smackdown we got the same premise with both men face to face going back and forth about Shawn retiring Ric Flair and then thankfully the conversation moved on with Batista saying that HBK retiring Flair just opened his eyes to what the real problem was, and that was HBK being the same as he always was, that he’s not a changed man. Okay so I like this, because it’s no longer about Flair it’s gone to the next level. Yet this whole thing didn’t have that kind of electricity like it did on Monday night. In fact last week on Michaels and Batista shined on Raw, but on Smackdown again their interaction wasn’t as strong as it was 4 days earlier. My thought is that while they have solid non wrestling segments on Monday night, I think on Smackdown they need to start having some physical contact. They need to change things up if they are going to continue to keep Batista and Michaels on both shows.
The next squash was Vladimir Kozlov vs. Matt Logan; of course I have nothing to say about this match so I will move to the Matt Hardy vs. Chuck Palumbo match, which was another good match. First I just LOVED MVP at the announce table. This guy was just full of insults towards toward Coach. The best line was that when JBL and Cole announced they were ranked he sixth best announce team of all time. But once Coach started they became the worst announce team ever. Oh yes. MVP was on fire Friday night. The guy is just so good on the mic and along with his commentary and Matt Hardy and Palumbo going at it this was another top segment of the night. I’m still not a Palumbo fan, but he worked very well with Matt Hardy. And before I go into the main event I just want to say that the segments with t lovebirds, Edge and Vickie were not as funny to me as I was hoping they would be. When I read the spoilers they sounded humorous and the fans that were there live that sent in the spoilers couldn’t say enough about how hilarious they were. Well I wasn’t really laughing except at the end when Edge had whipped cream and he turned the lights off and when the lights came back on the whipped cream was on his face like he was going to shave, and then I laughed. But for the most part I didn’t really care for these segments and I found it so WEIRD that Theodore Long was standing there during their massages and their “love making.” When is Mr. Long going to tell them to F off? Well seriously I would have much rather have seen Edge in a meaningful match.
And speaking of meaningful matches, the main event with Taker vs. Festus was just that. I said that the Moore/Yang vs. Miz/Morrison was my match of the night, but I am gong to change that and make that my number 2 match of the show, and make the main event my number 1 match. I’ll tell you I never thought Festus would perform like he did. I’m used to seeing him tag with Jesse against guys like Deuce and Domino not a guy like Undertaker. I expected so little from this match, but I got one hell of a match. And Festus really brought the best out in Taker. Undertaker worked his ass off and I thought we got a 5 star match. Also I am very pleased by the way that they used Jesse in his interview with Eve. He was totally serious and did a hell of a job making this main event the most important and probably the most nerve-wrecking match in Festus’s career. This was a very strong interview.
So I have to give Smackdown the edge over Raw this week, and it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that. Tomorrow Raw is in London, England, which means we are going to get a taped show. And all we know right now is that William Regal will take on Randy Orton to teach the champion respect. Hopefully this will be a much better Raw than last week’s show, and when they are in England the crowds are usually HOT. So this should be a good show tomorrow night.
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
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