AFC1986
02-17-2007, 12:03 PM
Welcome to our Friday night coverage of Smackdown that is about to begin here in the UK ahead of it airing later today in the States.
This page will update every 15-20mins over the next couple of hours with the latest from this week’s show. Be sure to refresh this page for the very latest updates.
Opening video package is the final segment of the Royal Rumble and the events that have happened since then. That ending, and the TV since then has been so fantastic that I don’t even care that we see the same video every show, slightly edited with the events of the last show, and probably repeated again later on tonight, as everything involving Taker, Dave, Cena and HBK in that time has all been fantastically done.
JBL and Michael Cole introduce the show, and confirm that later on we’ll be seeing Mr. Kennedy and MVP v. John Cena and Shawn Michaels, as well as Rated RKO v. Batista and The Undertaker.
The Boogeyman v. Finlay. JBL says what everyone is thinking “we have Rated RKO, Shawn Michaels and John Cena here, so why start with that freak The Boogeyman.” This is right from the Lashley/Test school of giving away PPV matches on free TV - two weeks in a row in this case. When Finlay is beating the piss out of Boogeyman here, this match is perfectly fine and watchable. Anything that involves Boogeyman actually moving around and doing anything and things are not so great. Then -and i don’t care what anybody says about this - it gets awesome. Little Bastard tries to interfere, only to be taken down by A MIDGET BOOGEYMAN! They get into a fight, and in the distraction, Boogeyman nails Finlay for the win. For selfish reasons, I say please make the PPV match a mixed tag. Boogeyman sucks so at least I might get something I’ll laugh about while watching the PPV at 1:00AM Monday Morning. Comedy is far less likely to make me fall asleep than a regular dull Boogeyman match.
We come back from the first ad break of the night and there is a recap of the McMahon/Trump segment from RAW. I thought this was done pretty well. Trump did come across as a guy who didn’t really feel comfortable cutting promos in a wrestling context, but nowhere nearly as bad as some celebrity involvements, and he still got some good verbal shots in at Vince that will certainly add intrigue to WrestleMania. The hair stipulation is pure genius as well, so much so that now it’s been announced, all I can think of is why I didn’t think of that myself.
Deuce (with Domino and Cherry) v. Brian Kendrick (with Paul London).
As we touched on during our audio update earlier today, the pattern with London and Kendrick is that they lose all the time on TV and then win in the title match on PPV. Well, that’s been the pattern so far and it continued here. It’s exactly as you’d expect this match to be, Deuce beating Kendrick down, and Kendrick takes bumps and flies around in an attempt to get something decent out of him. Deuce wins with a running kick to the face after Domino threw Kendrick off the top rope. The match wasn’t good or anything, but Kendrick tried hard to not make it horrible.
Queen Sharmell and King Booker do movie reviews! They review the DVD of See No Evil, and deduce that Kane cannot inspire fear and will be vanquished by King Booker at No Way Out. And they actually have a quote caption “You’re KIDDING me, right? - says King Booker of The SmackDown Kingdom” and then intersperses himself by video doing comedy stuff mocking Kane’s movie. Then the lights go red in the studio, and Kane’s laugh comes over the speakers, before he peeks his head through the curtain making The King and Queen run away. This was way funnier than i described it to be.
Then we get a video recap of the RAW main event 8-man tag team match. This was a superb match. It was one of those ocassions where you had all the big stars in one match, infront of a hot crowd, with dissension teased between just about every single person in the match, and it came together perfectly.
Cena and HBK are shown backstage. Cena wants to know if HBK has his back, Shawn says he does, but says it in such a way that you don’t really believe him. Perfectly done, a really excellent promo and proof that sometimes the simple way of doing something is also the best way.
A graphic appeared on screen advertising the WWE house show tour in the UK in October, with TV tapings taking place in Birmingham.
Shawn Michaels & John Cena v. Mr. Kennedy & MVP. Michaels and Cena get crowd reactions that clearly define them as far bigger stars than their opponents, Cena in particular. The problem of having Michaels and Cena as a team - and the problem I forsee coming at WrestleMania, is that their strengths are both in selling (pinball bumping in Shawn’s case) to get the crowd behind them to build for a comeback, and so you get one guy, in this case Cena, able to do the one thing he’s weak at (punches) but without the stuff he’s good at (selling to build to that comeback). At Mania, one of the two is going to have to go out of their natural match type and the results might not be pretty, I really fear a total styles clash. The match was fine because Shawn is doing what he does well, and so are MVP and Kennedy, but Cena is the WWE Champion and shouldn’t be sidelined in this way, which is why regardless of how good the TV has been, I really think an HBK/Cena singles match was the wrong choice to main event Mania. JBL was fantastic here, totally playing the pro-SmackDown announcer talking about what egomaniacs the RAW team are. The finish came when Michaels gave Kennedy a Sweet Chin Music that missed by a mile to save Cena from a chairshot, allowing Cena to F-U MVP to win.
Kristal is backstage trying to pull Teddy Long. Jillian comes in doing her Brooke Hogan deal. She hints at RAPPING on the PPV. You need to watch this just for Kristal. She is unbelievable.
The From The Vault match this week sees King Booker & Finlay v. Kane & The Undertaker from December 22nd 2006. This was a decent but basic long tag match. Not by any means one of the best SmackDown matches ever, but a good one with some stars nonetheless, and with Kane and Booker facing this Sunday at No Way Out, and also not wrestling on tonight’s show, it was a good choice.
The Dusty Rhodes video package that was shown on RAW is repeated to confirm his induction into the Hall of Fame. I love Dusty, and over the next week will be watching a lot of him as I’ll be covering the Flair/Dusty section of the Flair DVD (click here for the first part of a Ric Flair “What I’m Watching” special that has been uploaded today). He’s one of the most charismatic and greatest promo guys in history, and for that alone he’s certainly a big enough star to ‘main event’ a Hall Of Fame ceremony.
Bobby Lashley is in there with Teddy Long, wearing a suit and looking like it’s the first time he’s worn a suit in his entire life. Mr. Kennedy comes in to complain about something and talk about how he’s beaten everyone on SmackDown, and challenges Lashley to an ECW Title match at No Way Out.
Cena voices over a video package warning fans not to try to wrestle at home. That came across really well, and Cena was the perfect person for it, such a good representation of the WWE.
The RAW Rebound is up next, concentrating on Trump-Vince.
Gregory Helms v. Scotty Too Hotty. I HATE Scotty. I thought he’d been banished to Sunday Night Heat like two weeks ago so I wouldn’t have to watch the worthless piece of crap on good shows like SmackDown any more, but apparently that’s out the window, and he’s on the PPV Sunday too, AND CHRIS BENOIT ISN’T! What the bloody hell is wrong with that picture? Daivari (who has put on so much HGH, I mean weight, that i didn’t even recognise him) becomes my new hero by preventing Scotty from doing The Worm, leading to more run-ins from Jamie Noble, Shannon Moore (those two seem to be back from the dead), Jimmy Wang Yang and, in the words of JBL, SmackDown’s now #2 announcer, Funaki all get involved too.
Then a video package is shown plugging the RAW side of the UK October tour.
Maryse is in the bath to ask us to keep watching SmackDown. Then the camera switches and it’s some fat guy in the bath instead. I did not need to see that.
Cole and JBL run through the No Way Out card, with confirmation of Kennedy’s challenge to ECW World Champion Lashley having been accepted. Then my dream match comes true as Finlay v. Boogeyman has been changed to Finlay & Little Bastard v. Boogeyman & Little Boogey. No announcement made on any Cruiserweight Title match.
Edge and Randy Orton are backstage. They’re again teasing dissension, and Orton hilariously forgets the name of the WWE’s flagship TV show for a second. You could see the panic in his eyes as he talked about Batista and Taker’s problems “on …….RAW.” Their plan is to get Batista and Taker to turn on each other so they can win. That’s simple enough.
Then, the April tour of the UK is plugged, with TV tapings in London.
Just as the main event starts I realise that the segment with Ashley unveiling her Playboy cover has been edited out of the show. I guess it’s due to the product placement guidelines over here, as stuff like book and DVD plugs have been edited in the past. Playboy has previously been an exception to this for some reason, as Torrie, Sable, Chyna, Christy and even Kimberly Page in WCW definitely had their Playboy magazine plugs shown on UK TV. Got to say though, I’ve never understood why unveiling the cover was supposed to be a big deal - you don’t buy Playboy for the clothes someone is wearing on the cover.
Rated RKO v. Batista & The Undertaker. Having Batista enter before Taker all the time really hammers home two points. Firstly that Taker is a bigger star than the current World Champion, and secondly that the WWE are so unhappy with Dave that they’re not even trying to pretend otherwise. This is your standard classic WWE tag team main event TV match. The babyfaces, in particular Taker, kick ass leading up to the ad break, and back from the break are still in control, until Batista gets cheapshotted and beaten down. They don’t get the heat on him for too long, since relying on Batista to sell for a long time wasn’t a good thing for the match. Taker has looked so motivated this past month or two, and I loved his interactions with Edge in particular. Edge gets a visual pin, spearing Taker after a ref bump. He then set Taker up to the conchairto but Taker sat up to block it. Lets add Edge v. The Undertaker in the “singles matches I want to see someday” file. After Taker was taken down with a chairshot, Batista cleaned house only to be speared by Edge, by which time Taker had recovered to chokeslam and tombstone Edge for the win. After the match, HBK ran in and gave Taker the Sweet Chin Music while Cena gave Batista the F-U to close the show.
Really fun main event to close a good show.
source: wrestlemag.com
This page will update every 15-20mins over the next couple of hours with the latest from this week’s show. Be sure to refresh this page for the very latest updates.
Opening video package is the final segment of the Royal Rumble and the events that have happened since then. That ending, and the TV since then has been so fantastic that I don’t even care that we see the same video every show, slightly edited with the events of the last show, and probably repeated again later on tonight, as everything involving Taker, Dave, Cena and HBK in that time has all been fantastically done.
JBL and Michael Cole introduce the show, and confirm that later on we’ll be seeing Mr. Kennedy and MVP v. John Cena and Shawn Michaels, as well as Rated RKO v. Batista and The Undertaker.
The Boogeyman v. Finlay. JBL says what everyone is thinking “we have Rated RKO, Shawn Michaels and John Cena here, so why start with that freak The Boogeyman.” This is right from the Lashley/Test school of giving away PPV matches on free TV - two weeks in a row in this case. When Finlay is beating the piss out of Boogeyman here, this match is perfectly fine and watchable. Anything that involves Boogeyman actually moving around and doing anything and things are not so great. Then -and i don’t care what anybody says about this - it gets awesome. Little Bastard tries to interfere, only to be taken down by A MIDGET BOOGEYMAN! They get into a fight, and in the distraction, Boogeyman nails Finlay for the win. For selfish reasons, I say please make the PPV match a mixed tag. Boogeyman sucks so at least I might get something I’ll laugh about while watching the PPV at 1:00AM Monday Morning. Comedy is far less likely to make me fall asleep than a regular dull Boogeyman match.
We come back from the first ad break of the night and there is a recap of the McMahon/Trump segment from RAW. I thought this was done pretty well. Trump did come across as a guy who didn’t really feel comfortable cutting promos in a wrestling context, but nowhere nearly as bad as some celebrity involvements, and he still got some good verbal shots in at Vince that will certainly add intrigue to WrestleMania. The hair stipulation is pure genius as well, so much so that now it’s been announced, all I can think of is why I didn’t think of that myself.
Deuce (with Domino and Cherry) v. Brian Kendrick (with Paul London).
As we touched on during our audio update earlier today, the pattern with London and Kendrick is that they lose all the time on TV and then win in the title match on PPV. Well, that’s been the pattern so far and it continued here. It’s exactly as you’d expect this match to be, Deuce beating Kendrick down, and Kendrick takes bumps and flies around in an attempt to get something decent out of him. Deuce wins with a running kick to the face after Domino threw Kendrick off the top rope. The match wasn’t good or anything, but Kendrick tried hard to not make it horrible.
Queen Sharmell and King Booker do movie reviews! They review the DVD of See No Evil, and deduce that Kane cannot inspire fear and will be vanquished by King Booker at No Way Out. And they actually have a quote caption “You’re KIDDING me, right? - says King Booker of The SmackDown Kingdom” and then intersperses himself by video doing comedy stuff mocking Kane’s movie. Then the lights go red in the studio, and Kane’s laugh comes over the speakers, before he peeks his head through the curtain making The King and Queen run away. This was way funnier than i described it to be.
Then we get a video recap of the RAW main event 8-man tag team match. This was a superb match. It was one of those ocassions where you had all the big stars in one match, infront of a hot crowd, with dissension teased between just about every single person in the match, and it came together perfectly.
Cena and HBK are shown backstage. Cena wants to know if HBK has his back, Shawn says he does, but says it in such a way that you don’t really believe him. Perfectly done, a really excellent promo and proof that sometimes the simple way of doing something is also the best way.
A graphic appeared on screen advertising the WWE house show tour in the UK in October, with TV tapings taking place in Birmingham.
Shawn Michaels & John Cena v. Mr. Kennedy & MVP. Michaels and Cena get crowd reactions that clearly define them as far bigger stars than their opponents, Cena in particular. The problem of having Michaels and Cena as a team - and the problem I forsee coming at WrestleMania, is that their strengths are both in selling (pinball bumping in Shawn’s case) to get the crowd behind them to build for a comeback, and so you get one guy, in this case Cena, able to do the one thing he’s weak at (punches) but without the stuff he’s good at (selling to build to that comeback). At Mania, one of the two is going to have to go out of their natural match type and the results might not be pretty, I really fear a total styles clash. The match was fine because Shawn is doing what he does well, and so are MVP and Kennedy, but Cena is the WWE Champion and shouldn’t be sidelined in this way, which is why regardless of how good the TV has been, I really think an HBK/Cena singles match was the wrong choice to main event Mania. JBL was fantastic here, totally playing the pro-SmackDown announcer talking about what egomaniacs the RAW team are. The finish came when Michaels gave Kennedy a Sweet Chin Music that missed by a mile to save Cena from a chairshot, allowing Cena to F-U MVP to win.
Kristal is backstage trying to pull Teddy Long. Jillian comes in doing her Brooke Hogan deal. She hints at RAPPING on the PPV. You need to watch this just for Kristal. She is unbelievable.
The From The Vault match this week sees King Booker & Finlay v. Kane & The Undertaker from December 22nd 2006. This was a decent but basic long tag match. Not by any means one of the best SmackDown matches ever, but a good one with some stars nonetheless, and with Kane and Booker facing this Sunday at No Way Out, and also not wrestling on tonight’s show, it was a good choice.
The Dusty Rhodes video package that was shown on RAW is repeated to confirm his induction into the Hall of Fame. I love Dusty, and over the next week will be watching a lot of him as I’ll be covering the Flair/Dusty section of the Flair DVD (click here for the first part of a Ric Flair “What I’m Watching” special that has been uploaded today). He’s one of the most charismatic and greatest promo guys in history, and for that alone he’s certainly a big enough star to ‘main event’ a Hall Of Fame ceremony.
Bobby Lashley is in there with Teddy Long, wearing a suit and looking like it’s the first time he’s worn a suit in his entire life. Mr. Kennedy comes in to complain about something and talk about how he’s beaten everyone on SmackDown, and challenges Lashley to an ECW Title match at No Way Out.
Cena voices over a video package warning fans not to try to wrestle at home. That came across really well, and Cena was the perfect person for it, such a good representation of the WWE.
The RAW Rebound is up next, concentrating on Trump-Vince.
Gregory Helms v. Scotty Too Hotty. I HATE Scotty. I thought he’d been banished to Sunday Night Heat like two weeks ago so I wouldn’t have to watch the worthless piece of crap on good shows like SmackDown any more, but apparently that’s out the window, and he’s on the PPV Sunday too, AND CHRIS BENOIT ISN’T! What the bloody hell is wrong with that picture? Daivari (who has put on so much HGH, I mean weight, that i didn’t even recognise him) becomes my new hero by preventing Scotty from doing The Worm, leading to more run-ins from Jamie Noble, Shannon Moore (those two seem to be back from the dead), Jimmy Wang Yang and, in the words of JBL, SmackDown’s now #2 announcer, Funaki all get involved too.
Then a video package is shown plugging the RAW side of the UK October tour.
Maryse is in the bath to ask us to keep watching SmackDown. Then the camera switches and it’s some fat guy in the bath instead. I did not need to see that.
Cole and JBL run through the No Way Out card, with confirmation of Kennedy’s challenge to ECW World Champion Lashley having been accepted. Then my dream match comes true as Finlay v. Boogeyman has been changed to Finlay & Little Bastard v. Boogeyman & Little Boogey. No announcement made on any Cruiserweight Title match.
Edge and Randy Orton are backstage. They’re again teasing dissension, and Orton hilariously forgets the name of the WWE’s flagship TV show for a second. You could see the panic in his eyes as he talked about Batista and Taker’s problems “on …….RAW.” Their plan is to get Batista and Taker to turn on each other so they can win. That’s simple enough.
Then, the April tour of the UK is plugged, with TV tapings in London.
Just as the main event starts I realise that the segment with Ashley unveiling her Playboy cover has been edited out of the show. I guess it’s due to the product placement guidelines over here, as stuff like book and DVD plugs have been edited in the past. Playboy has previously been an exception to this for some reason, as Torrie, Sable, Chyna, Christy and even Kimberly Page in WCW definitely had their Playboy magazine plugs shown on UK TV. Got to say though, I’ve never understood why unveiling the cover was supposed to be a big deal - you don’t buy Playboy for the clothes someone is wearing on the cover.
Rated RKO v. Batista & The Undertaker. Having Batista enter before Taker all the time really hammers home two points. Firstly that Taker is a bigger star than the current World Champion, and secondly that the WWE are so unhappy with Dave that they’re not even trying to pretend otherwise. This is your standard classic WWE tag team main event TV match. The babyfaces, in particular Taker, kick ass leading up to the ad break, and back from the break are still in control, until Batista gets cheapshotted and beaten down. They don’t get the heat on him for too long, since relying on Batista to sell for a long time wasn’t a good thing for the match. Taker has looked so motivated this past month or two, and I loved his interactions with Edge in particular. Edge gets a visual pin, spearing Taker after a ref bump. He then set Taker up to the conchairto but Taker sat up to block it. Lets add Edge v. The Undertaker in the “singles matches I want to see someday” file. After Taker was taken down with a chairshot, Batista cleaned house only to be speared by Edge, by which time Taker had recovered to chokeslam and tombstone Edge for the win. After the match, HBK ran in and gave Taker the Sweet Chin Music while Cena gave Batista the F-U to close the show.
Really fun main event to close a good show.
source: wrestlemag.com