Ok, I managed to tear myself away from Halo 3 long enough to watch this week's SmackDown! through the magic of TiVo...
-Show opens with Vince McMahon appointing Vickie Guerrero as SmackDown! GM in Teddy Long's absence. Oh, lovely. Afterwards, Vince chats with Finlay about their mutual midget affiliations. -Victoria v. Torrie Wilson. Victoria wins a sloppy match with a pin using the ropes. The post-match events are slightly more interesting, as a mystery blond (who looked like a Torrie doppleganger from long distance) attacks Torrie after the bell, giving her a backbreaker and throwing her against the railing on the outside. No identity is given. -Tonight we celebrate one year of MVP! Wow, it's only been a year? He's improved 1000% in a one-year span. Anyway, MVP (in a snazzy white suit) comes down to host the VIP Lounge. He talks about Teddy Long for a moment, but then moves on to celebrating his one-year anniversary with his entourage. Matt Hardy doesn't want to be left out of this party, so he comes down bearing gifts. His first gift is a video package of MVP's greatest moments...though they all seem to make MVP look bad. His second gift is a bottle of Cristal, though his toasting seems more insulting than anything. But his third gift is the greatest gift of all...the gift of COMPETITION! Matt pulled some strings and MVP gets to face Kane tonight. Isn't Matt the best bud a tag team partner can have? Needless to say, this was a great segment. -Chuck Palumbo v. Kenny Dykstra. Palumbo wins with the Full Throttle. Next! -Jesse & Festus debut next week, exciting roughly no one. -MVP v. Kane. MVP works the legs early on, but Kane overpowers him. Both guys knock each other out as the show goes to break. MVP soon gets the upper-hand, but can't seem to put Kane away. Kane manages to set up for the chokeslam, but MVP gets the Greco-Roman Kick in the Nuts to draw the DQ. Great match (a testament to MVP's improvement, because this match was unwatchable a year ago) with a crappy finish. -JBL interviews Rey Mysterio and this goes about as smoothly as one would expect. JBL talks about his title reign and Rey counters with the fact that he retired him. This all leads to Finlay knocking Rey silly with the shillelagh. Good stuff. -Backstage, Vickie Guerrero tells Hornswoggle that he's a target as long as he's Cruiserweight champion, so she strips him of the belt for his own safety. What a load of garbage! That line of logic makes zero sense, whatsoever. -Jamie Noble v. Shannon Moore. The title looks to be within Noble's grasp, I'd imagine. Noble wins a good match with the unnamed finisher, the gut buster. -The Great Khali and translator talk about Punjabi Prison II: Electric Boogaloo. They then note that Khali gets Rey Mysterio one-on-one next Friday. -Undertaker v. Mark Henry. After the way they dazzled everyone at Unforgiven, I'm praying this is short. UT works on Mizark's arm and hits Old School. Henry gets in some token offense, before UT gets bored and hands him his ass. Chokeslam sends Mark Henry back to Jobberville (we can only hope) in less than 5 minutes. Thankfully it was short.
Maybe some of the higher-ups sensed that their main demographic would nonexistent this week, because...
1. Those that have lives are out...having lives. -and- 2. Those that DON'T have lives are playing Halo 3.
So I sense this one was phoned in and it showed. But still, worth watching for MVP and Matt, who continue to make SmackDown! worthwhile. And hey, there were some pretty good, albeit short, matches. So it's worth a look this week.
Vickie Guerrero = hard to watch/listen/*all other senses* Cruiserweight division = not enough airtime Poontang prision > Punjabi prison Undertaker = the whole damn show
JBL is so much LARGER THAN Rey Mysterio it's comical. How did their matches manage to turn out so well? Rey doesn't have good matches with anyone else that large. Was JBL that good? Maybe he can sub for Khali next week.
I was disappointed that the first words of Khali's (excellent) promo after Batista said he'd have to to pry the belt from his cold dead hands weren't "Funny you should say that, i once killed a man".
Also, Vickie looks like a midget.
(edited by 2P4E on 30.9.07 1519) How do you learn to fall off a twenty foot ladder?
The Undertaker vs. Mark Henry 3 minute special made me mad that I paid for the longer, crappier version at Unforgiven. With Henry out of the way, I can't imagine why they wouldn't add Undertaker to the Punjabi Prison match. Wouldn't it be a smart idea to actually have the only guy in the company who's ever been in a Punjabi Prison match in there?
I found the perfect job in wrestling for me: VIP Lounge suck up to MVP. The Hardy/MVP interplay continues to carry this otherwise dreadful show.
Awesome news from the WON. The plan all along for the Teddy Long/Kristal romance was that it would lead to Vickie Guerrero as the top heel on Smackdown. She is supposed to feud with Rey Mysterio as the children's/Hispanic version of Austin/McMahon. There are also ideas of her hooking up with a male wrestler with the idea it would give her more heat for not staying faithful to Eddie.
I found the perfect job in wrestling for me: VIP Lounge suck up to MVP.
I was watching an episode of HBO's Legenday Nights that I had long ago recorded the other day and it was the one talking about the fight between Aaron "The Hawk" Pryor and Alexis Arguello. And somewhere in there was footage of Pryor and his entrouage where Pryor would repeatedly yell "WHAT TIME IS IT?" and his crew would repeatedly yell back "HAWK TIME!".
My point is that between the Pryor footage and the VIP Lounge, the only reason I think I would ever want to be famous is so I can hire a crew of lackies and hangers-on.
Dumb. Just dumb. The Network needs content that is original. This is one of five shows if you count the tournaments which I don't. You cannot be a network with only four steady hours of original programing each week.