Hey kids. Welcome to the InsidePulse LIVE Smackdown report. I’m your host, Steve Murray. You may remember me from such reports as last week’s LIVE Smackdown, and Thursday Night Raw! Tonight, you get a special bonus: I was there live at the tapings of this show on Monday. So, in addition to the TV report, you’ll also get commentary from my in-person experience. It’s almost like two reports for the price of one! And it’s FREE either way! What a bargain! Tonight’s beverage of choice is Lagavulin Distiller’s Edition single malt scotch (at the live show, it was whatever beer was in my hand at the time).
We get the usual “WWE The Power is Back” opening. Am I the only person who think Bruno Sammartino looks like an absolute *freak*? He has the largest traps I’ve ever seen on a human being. If he was around today, he’d be on the Ricky Williams drug test schedule.
And we get a video recap of the Kurt Angle/Undertaker fued (“ONE Olympic Medalist, ONE Phenom, One World Championship, ONE More Time” — yes, we saw this in the arena too pre-show). It includes a “fast-cut” version of their No Way Out match, with the Angle slam through the table, the pop-up overhead suplex (man, I LOVE when does those), and the reveral-reversal-choke-pin sequence. Tonight: the rematch.
Then, the credits roll, and…
Welcome to the Verizon Center (or maybe it’s still the MCI Center – hey, let’s ask Cole) in beautiful downtown Washington, DC. The crowd that night was very lively – I don’t believe it was sold out, but it was very close. BOOM – man, that pyro was loud (and *hot* — I could feel them in my seats in section 101; they must be nearly unbearable if you’re sitting right in front of them). Cole promises “the biggest main event in the history of Friday Night Smackdown” — wow, with all of that extensive history? VERY impressive, Mikey.
Booker T (w/Sharmell) vs. Tatanka. Booker gets a somewhat mixed reaction — the lower floor sections across from me were filled with “smark” fans, so the crowd reaction was mixed for pretty much the entire night. And just to prove my point: as soon as Tatanka’s music hits, they absolutely SHOWER him with boos. Wow – the crowd really, really didn’t want to see him. But, the WWE editing crew must have been working some overtime this week, because none of that comes through the TV broadcast at all. In fact, if you pay attention, you’ll notice that practically NO audience reaction comes through at all during Tatanka’s entrance.
(The family that was sitting next to me was confused by this — a Mom with her 9 year old son, 11 year old son, and 15 year old daughter. I quickly try to explain why smarks act the way they do, but I’m not sure how well it goes over. I ask the 9-year old who his favorite wrestler is, and he tells me that he likes Undertaker and John Cena. Oh boy – he was in for a shock later that night.)
Although I have to say, Tatanka looked quite a bit better in person than he does on TV (to me, at least). Sharmell takes a seat at the announcer’s table, and precedes to snap at Mikey Cole for the rest of the match. Said match itself is… meh. The crowd pops for Booker’s big moves, including a sweet superkick right under the chin, and a very nice sidekick that catches Tatanka coming off the top rope. The crowd continues to boo Tatanka when he gets even the most basic offense (and oh man, do they let him have it when he does his “pissed off ethnic stereotype” comeback routine). WWE does a slightly less efficient job of blocking out those boos, but they still come through. Booker has the match won, but before he goes for the pin, Boogeyman’s music starts up. Booker completely loses it, and everybody looks up the ramp (except, luckily, me — because I caught Boogey running through the crowd and crouching down behind the announcer’s table). Boogey slowly rises up right behind Sharmell, frothing at the mouth (literally) – which of course freaks her out. While Booker is screaming in the ring at Boogey and Sharmel, Tatanka catches him from behind, and gets the pin with a roll-up. Afterwards, Boogey chases Booker and Sharmell out of the ring, eats some more worms, rinse, repeat.
To COMMERCIAL…
We come back with a “tale of the tape” between Angle and UT. Neat, I guess – but ultimately fairly useless. I don’t think anyone watching is really shocked that UT is bigger than Angle.
Randy Orton vs. Super Crazy. Orton gets the biggest heel reaction of the evening – you can just feel the hatred when he pulls that “arms wide” pose in the corner. Having just recently re-watched ECW’s One Night Stand last weekend, I was happy to see SC Monday night — but unfortunately, the crowd didn’t give him much of a pop on his entrance. Orton dominates to start with some ground-and-pound, and an extended chinlock/naked choke, until SC catches him with a dropkick to the knee, and another to the head. SC then gets a surprising (to me) amount of offense in: a 2nd rope dropkick out of the rope, a springbroad senton to the floor, an attempted tornado DDT that gets turned into a wicked snap over the ropes. SC misses a moonsault, but catches Orton on the top rope, and hits a second-rope dropkick that gets a 2 1/2 count. The crowd there seemed to believe that might actually result in a 3-count — BIG pop for it . SC was getting *serious* face pops by the end of this match, simply based on what he was showing everyone in the ring. However, Orton catches SC with an absolute monster clothesline, and it’s academic at that point – RKO, 3 count, goodnight Irene.
To COMMERCIAL…
(9 year old next to me: “Mom, someone over there has a sign that says ‘John Cena Sucks’!” He seems legimately upset. Geez, how am I supposed to explain the concept of ‘workrate’ to this kid?)
We come back with a very nice video package for U.S. Champion Chris Benoit, who will be facing JBL at Wrestlemania. Okay, that’s fair — JBL gets to carry all the promos, and Benoit will carry JBL’s carcass for the entire match itself.
And now we get the greatest entrance in the history of professional wrestling: MNM (Mercury, Nitro & Melina). (Who are those guys posing at photographers, anyway?) Oh, no – Melina, honey, really listen up: FIRE YOUR HAIR STYLIST. You’re an incredibly hot woman, but the hair has been killing you for two weeks in a row now.
To COMMERCIAL…
MNM (w/Melina) vs. Matt Hardy & Road Warrior Animal. No, that’s not a typo. Hardy got, by far, the biggest face pop of the night up to that point (not a typo there either). Geez, Animal looks bad – looks like all of his upper-body muscle slid down into his gut. Hardy starts off hot but gets caught in the corner, and Nitro hits that funky breakdancing legdrop. Hardy makes the comeback, and Animal comes in with a few power moves, and knocks Mercury out of the ring. While setting up another move out of the ring, Melina distracts Animal by jumping on his back (well, hey – it would certainly work on me), and Nitro connects with a superkick. This leads to an extended heat sequence on Animal back in the ring (again – not a typo). Believe it or not, Melina’s screams are even MORE annoying live. Mercury launches Nitro off the top rope at Animal, but Animal catches him with a powerslam. Hardy finally gets the hot tag (and crowd pops huge AGAIN – I must be reading Eric’s columns too often, because I’m amazed at how popular Hardy is right now), and goes to town on MNM, including a double DDT, and a Side Effect on Nitro (and I gain some more respect for WWE’s editting abilities — what you can’t see is that all of this action, including the attempted doubleteams by MNM, is happening not THREE FEET from Animal, who has to just stand in the corner and hold his head “in pain”). Hardy hits the Twist of Fate on Mercury, but the pin is broken up. Animal clothelines Nitro out of the ring, and motions for the Doomsday Device, but Hardy stops him, and tells *Animal* to go the top rope, while Hardy lifts up Mercury on his shoulders. But, as Animal comes off the top rope, Nitro comes back in and clips Hardy’s knee, screwing everything up (and man, did it looked screwed up on TV – I don’t think anybody pulled off that spot correctly). MNM hit the Snapshot on Hardy, and that’s all she wrote. Post-match, MNM leaves, and Animal gets pissed at Hardy, screaming that he never should have climbed up on the top rope in the first place. The two of them come face-to-face, but Animal backs off… and then kicks Hardy straight in his (now injured) knee. Animal drags Hardy to the corner, and rams his knee into the ringpost. The crowd is PISSED.
Our Wrestlemania Big Time Moment is from 1997, with Undertake taking on Psycho Sid. Ahhh, geez — and I had just about purged all memory of Sid out of my head, too. *sigh* Well, back to the thorazine treatments…
To COMMERCIAL…
And our inductees to the Hall of Fame in 2006 are Bret Hart, Eddie Guerrero, and…. Mean Gene Okerland, who will be inducted by Hulk Hogan. And, as it turns out, Mean Gene is Michael Cole’s “idol”. Yeah, that sounds about right.
(At the live show, they played scenes from the WWE’s visits to Afghanistan, which seems to excite the family next to me for some reason — I assume it’s just when they show Cena (the Mom and the daughter *really* like him). I give a quizzical look at one point, and Mom explains that she was actuallly *in* Afghanistan — she served there until about a year ago, and she recognizes most of the places they’re showing in the video. Well, shit – now I owe her a beer.)
Finlay vs. Lashley. The crowd is solidly behind Lashley, and Finlay gets a decent heel reaction (but about 10% of what Orton got). A bit of back and forth, as Lashley continue to look impressive: our Nice Sequence comes from an atomic drop, overhead suplex, whip into the corner, and a charging lariat that Finlay sells like an absolute CHAMP. But, it quickly degenerates into a brawl and a double-DQ after Finlay gets frustrated and starts throwing chairs into the ring. The refs pile inand pull them apart, but we get several “break free, rush across the ring, and dive at your opponent” moments: the crowd pops HUGE for Lashley every time he does this.
To COMMERCIAL…
They run a quick video recap of the spat between Kristal and Jillian (go read last week’s report for details), and announce that they will have a match next week. I still love any promo that includes the phrase “cheap bimbo” – makes it feel like Flo the waitress from “Alice” is in the ring.
We get a backstage bit with Burchill and Regal, with William again trying to convince his former tag partner to ditch the pirate costume. (“If you go out there dressed like a buccaneer, they will bloody laugh at you!”) Burchill informs Regal that next week, he’s getting his first match — and he’s going to dress exactly the same way, and if he has anything to say about it, his first opponent will be: Mr. Regal himself. And with that, he pulls out a knife, and cuts Regal’s necktie off. And once again, Regal looks rather non-plussed. (But, in fairness, he does have a *great* “non-plussed” facial expression.)
Kurt Angle (w/”You suck” chants) vs. Undertaker (w/smoke and spooky lights). Angle enters at 9:21 — holy crap, I *know* this match didn’t go anywhere near 40 minutes live. Must be looking at some inventive editing here. We start a bit slow – mostly punch and kick (though Tazz wins some points with me by referring to UT’s “major league soupbones”). Good story-telling match, with UT concentrating on Angle’s left arm: which, honestly, doesn’t make much sense to me against a right-handed wrestler who doesn’t need his left arm for his finishing move — but hey, who am I to argue with a phenom. UT sets up for the Last Ride, but Angle attempts to counter — so UT simply crotches him on the top rope. And kicks him to the floor for good measure. And we go…
To COMMERCIAL…
When we come back, UT is setting up the announce table, until Angle forearms him in the back. UT catches him with a clothesline, sets Angle face down on the edge of the mat, and hits a truly nasty legdrop to the back of Angle’s head. So, now we’ve moved from the left arm to the neck — well, at least that makes sense, since the guy has had some surgery there. We go back-and-forth for a bit, culminating in Angle hitting a top-rope superplex, which only gets a 2 count. And, at 9:44, we head to “our final commercial break” (thanks, Mikey).
To COMMERCIAL…
And then we move to the End Game Sequence, which starts at 9:51: UT hits the snake eyes (the crowd was upset, because we thought he was going for the Tombstone), but misses the big boot, and Angle hits him with a quick german suplex. The Angle Slam is countered into a big boot for a 2 count. UT motions for the chokeslam, but it’s countered to the ankle lock, which UT kicks out of. UT sets up for the tombstone, but Angle counters with his own tombstone attempt, which is countered again. UT misses a punch, and Angle hits the Angle Slam for a 2 1/2 count. The straps come down, and we go straight to the ankle lock. (Cole: “Will Undertaker tap out for the first time ever?” Oh, puh-leeze.) UT rolls out of the ankle lock, and hits the chokeslam, but doesn’t capitalize. As UT walks by, Angle grabs him and gets yet another ankle lock. UT breaks it and locks Angle into the triangle choke. Angle rolls over for a 1 count, but UT rolls out, while maintaining the choke. Angle finally makes the ropes, and UT drops a leg lock — which Angle turns into yet another ankle lock (wow – quite a versatile move there). UT kicks out, and stands up: and at this point, I have to note that UT is not making even the slightest effort to sell the effects of the ankle lock, despite being in it FOUR TIMES. He’s not even giving the slightest hint of a limp — yeesh. (To be fair, I was so caught up in the match while watching it live that I didn’t notice. But on TV, it really comes across bad.) An Angle Slam attempt is countered by UT into a Dragon sleeper, which Angle punches his way out of. Angle goes for a moonsault (BIG pop from the crowd when they realized it) but misses. UT finally hits the Tombstone, and goes for the pin, but it’s broken up by Mark Henry and Davairi, to the biggest heel reaction of the night. The crowd is PISSED again.
Henry drags UT out of the ring, and slams him into the ring apron a couple of times. Henry then clears off the announcer’s table, and lays UT across it. He then clears off the Mexican announcer’s table, and climbs up on that. We get a primal scream, a couple of chest pounds, and… nothing? Henry almost makes like he’s going to walk away, but simply walks to the other end of the Mexican announcer’s table. More screams, more pounds… and he takes 3 steps and splashes UT through the table. BIG pop from the crowd, and Cole acts like he’s live at the crash of the Hindenberg. Davairi tears his jacket off and throws it at UT – and we end the show.
