Friday Night SmackDown! has come and gone once more, and, seeing as Edge has just retired, leaving the World Heavyweight Championship vacant, it was shaping up to be quite a doozy. Does it live up to that promise?
- "Ai neber like you, Teddie!": Alberto Del Rio opens up the show with what at first seems like is going to be a fairly respectable speech concerning Edge's retirement, but in predictable fashion, it eventually comes down to him wanting the belt to be handed over to him. Teddie Long comes out to tell him that "it ain't goin' down like that", and that he will face the winner of the main event of SmackDown! at Extreme Rules for the belt, instead. The main event will be a 20-man battle royal. The opening did what it had to and established the main event, and it was pretty humorous seeing Del Rio seethe over his misfortune.
- The Corre Slowly Implodes: The Corre, following their recent character assassination, continue to in-fight. With the 20-man battle royal looming, the "tension" rises. Zeke has a fairly forgettable match with Kofi Kingston, the only amusing spot being him tossing Kofi into his Corre teammates who sit ringside at the announce table. Zeke then attempts to work the mic, showing me that he is similar to Ahmed Johnson in more than just ring presence. I'm tiring a bit of the Corre continuing to exist when they are so obviously going to disband, but their appearance on this episode was less annoying than on RAW.
- Lay-Cool do... something: Yep. I couldn't tell you what, because as I stated on the RAW recap, the women's division in WWE has so little talent or genuine character (none of which is in Lay-Cool), that they don't seem to care about it, so why should I?
- Cody of the Opera: I've always kind of liked Cody Rhodes, but I can't argue that he was always a little boring. Now, his character is positively over the top, and it's actually pretty entertaining. Cody works the mic and talks about maiming Rey Mysterio. It's all good cheesey heel stuff, and sets up the next match featuring Rey and Drew McIntyre.
- McIntyre and Mysterio go to War: I can't say I'm a huge Drew McIntyre fan, mainly because I haven't really ever seen the guy work, but DAMN this was a good match. It's probably the power of Mysterio to make most guys look really good, but this was just a really well-paced, really well put-together battle these two had. Heck, I say one of the marks of a good match is when I can't predict WHO is gonna take it in the end, and this match definitely had that element. Good spots, including a really high-impact clothesline by McIntyre from his knees in corner, and a fantastic see-saw battle. Mysterio takes it with the 619 into a body-splash.
- Battle Royal: On to the main event, and to be honest, with Christian in this match-up, I feel it was a fore-gone conclusion he'd win. Kudos to the announcers for down-playing his presence in the match and adding some tension, but I feel the battle royal was just a "clever" way to make Christian opposite Del Rio at Extreme Rules. Battle royals, however, are a favorite of mine, though their quality usually is dependent on the big spots involved, and the impromptu story-lines that emerge. This one had some pretty good ones, with Big Show being eliminated early, Kane going head to head with Brodus Clay, Justin Gabriel turning on Wade Barrett, and Michael Cole taking a 619 for Jack Swagger. Again, it was all window dressing to disguise the predictable finish of Christian winning, but it was entertaining window dressing nonetheless.
And thus ended another WWE show for the week, and to my surprise, it was damn entertaining. It did have a bit too much "fluff" for my liking, never really taking off until the back half, but great in spite of that fault. I'm happy to say it was a pretty solid week for sports entertainment.
Even better if you're catching Chikara's King of Trios this weekend.
SmackDown! gets 4 stars out of 5 for this week.
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