It's a good night for baseball and wrestling. Here's SmackDown! for this week. Coming through the magic of TiVo...
-Show starts with a recap of Punjabi Prison II. -Chuck Palumbo (w/ Michelle McCool) d. Chris Masters. Palumbo wins a dull match with a roll-up. He tries to ride off after the match, but Masters attacks him from behind and lays him out with the Masterlock, meaning this feud MUST continue! -Jesse & Festus v. Conrad Carnes & Jay Adams. Again, Festus goes nuts when the bell rings, as this gimmick starts to grow on me. Match ends when Festus launches Jesse into one of the jobbers from the top rope for the pin. -We go backstage to Deuce & Domino, who make fun of the new guys. Jamie Noble comes in to tell the Greasers that he heard Jimmy Wang Yang making disparaging remarks about Cherry. You know, this would make a lot more sense if Yang beat Noble in last week's match. But Noble beat Yang pretty clean and decisively, which makes me wonder what the point of this is. -Brett Major (w/ Brian Major) v. Drew McIntyre (w/ Dave Taylor). McIntyre's gimmick is that he's a Scottish wrestler who's looking for dual citizenship so the fans can chant "USA" at him. That's pretty clever, actually. Initial spoiler reports speculated that this was a repackaged Paul Burchill, but this guy looks WAY too young to be Burchill. The actual match is not as cool as the gimmick, unfortunately. McIntyre wins with a roll-up when Taylor distracts the ref. -Matt Hardy finds MVP backstage and proposes they put aside any differences for the greater purpose of survival against Undertaker & Kane. MVP agrees and offers a handshake, but tells Matt to follow his lead. -Matt Hardy & MVP v. Undertaker & Kane in a non-title match. The fact that this is non-title probably indicates the champs are going down HARD. UT and Kane take turns pounding on MVP, as they casually swat Matt away like a gnat. Ending comes when Kane looks for a tombstone, but Matt manages to reverse into the Twist of Fate. MVP gets greedy and makes the blind tag to get the pin himself, but Kane kicks out by that point. UT & Kane then kill MVP dead and take Matt out. Undertaker tombstone puts MVP out of his misery for the pin. This was a good match and told an even better story. It showed that when they put their differences aside, Matt & MVP are capable of beating even UT & Kane, but their differences ultimately led to their downfall. Great stuff. -SmackDown! gets a new interview woman named Anastasia Rose, which is a nice name, at least. She talks to Rey Mysterio, who cuts a standard wrestling promo against Finlay. -Jamie Noble gets snarky with Vickie Guerrero, who puts him in a match with the Great Khali. This, of course, leads to... -Jamie Noble v. The Great Khali. Noble charges in like General Custer and fares just as well. JUDO CHOP~! Iron Claw quickly ends Noble's night. -Jimmy Wang Yang v. Deuce (w/ Domino & Cherry). Deuce controls for the whole match, but Yang gets a fluke moonsault press for the pin. The Greasers beat down Yang afterwards. -Batista comes out to do commentary for the main event. The Cyber Sunday match is Batista defending against Undertaker with fans getting to vote on the ref. The choices are JBL, Steve Austin, or Mick Foley. I'd vote Austin myself, just to see if he punks out both guys at the end. And judging by the crowd's reaction, it looks like we're getting Austin. -Rey Mysterio v. Finlay. Good match ends terribly when both guys shove the ref for the double DQ. It'd be bad enough if it ended here, but then Undertaker decides to come out and wipe out Mysterio and Finlay for no good reason. That's...peachy. UT and Batista stare down to end the show.
Some decent stuff this week, but nothing you should go horribly out of your way for. I don't need to mention that Matt Hardy & MVP continue to rule over all. The Drew McIntyre gimmick has great potential, but if he puts on stinkers like he did tonight, it might not be worth it.