[SD] Taping Results from Washington, DC (Spoilers)

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Smackdown taping results according to Ideen Barimani:

We start with a Wrestlemania 22 promo, extremely long, no big pops for anything…

One of only two dark matches tonight, as first we get, Gregory Helms who was quite over taking on, I’m going to guess the name announced was Jimmy Wayne Yang, I’m uire somebody got that right.. Helms was in about 4 minutes with that reverse neckbreaker or something to that effect. Good for what it was. * 1/2

JBL and Michael Come out to great reactions.

Promo for the Undertaker and Great Khali – Last Dude Standing Match which didn’t get much of a response.

(Show begins here)

Match #1 – Batista vs. Sylvan Grenier
Batista, the home town baby boy, comes out to the second biggest reaction of the night, the first he also received, more on that later. Sylvan comes out and does his usual spiel and gets squased in under a minute with the Batista Bomb. Sylvan got a decent reaction coming out might I had. Batista signaled for the world title and you knew he would be back on at some point in the program. DUD

Match #2 Sylvester Terkay vs. Scotty 2 Hotty
No reaction for Scotty, decent one for Sylvester. Nothing match. Sylvester worked stiff. No one really cared. Won in 4 mins. *

Rey Mistero and Chavo promo… Eddie chants throughout this one.

Kendrick and London interview, not much to this either. Attacked by Kc James and Idol Stevens with traffic control by Michelle McCool

Match #3 Mr. Kennnnnnnnnnnnnaaaady vs. Tatanka
Kennedy was way over, match was atrocious, loud boring chants. A lot of rest-holds. 9 mins of rubbish, Tatanka goes for the samoan drop, Kennedy rakes his eyes, grabbed Tatanka’s trunks, and that’s that. 3/4*

Backstage with Vicki Guerrero begging Teddy Long to stop the match but no dice says Teddy Long, that match stays. Horrible performance by Vicki. Sadly this feud is going nowhere as Rey and Chavo were not present tonight on Smackdown, were they somewhere else tonight? Thos could potentially be the best technically wrestled match at Summerslam and the feud is getting it’s legs chopped from under it. Might be deserved, the exploitation of this family is reprehensible. woops.

Match #4 Undertaker vs. Great Khali
Good reaction for Khali, DC popped for just about everything at some point tonight. Undertaker almost did an RKO or sling shot type move off the ropes on Khali from the apron. Sounds confusing but it’s not, you’ll see it on the tele. Later in the match, Daivari hit Undertaker with a chair and chases him to the back. Khali follows suit and we have a brawl on the stage, Undertaker is thrown into a table on the outside and barely makes the ten count. We head back to the ring and Undertaker is tied in the ropes. Khali beats on him some more but makes the ten count again. He raises up, they trade punches, Khali slings Undertaker into the steps. He teases using the steps on Undertaker but throws them into the ring. Daivar once again goes after Undertaker with a chair but with little results. Khali was laying prone on the steps and Undertaker laid one atrocious chair shot on the steps and everyone knew it completely missed Khali. However, Undertaker laid a wicked shot right into Khali’s skull and he juiced hardway. Chokeslam, Khali tries to make the 10 count but collapses and there’s your match. Khali sold this for a few minutes afterwards. After Undertaker left, Kevin Dunn announces to the crowd, “Ladies and gentleman the Great Khali” and the crowd chants na na na na, hey hey hey goodbye. If it’s the case, it was as about as good as a send off as you were going to get. Seriously this was ** 1/2.

Promo for The Marine, no one cared

Match #5 Vito vs. Schott Thorr.
Vito was somewhat over, Vito won in six minutes with that submission of his where he puts the gentleman up his dress and he taps out. It was ok * 1/4

Nice video for the WWE’s visit to Afghanistan.

Match #6 Finlay vs. Bobby Lashley
Good pop for Lashley. This match was rest-hold city and extremely boring. Regal interested to at least add something to this match. Nice belly-to-belly at one point by Lashley, and delayed vertical suplex. Finlay brings in little bastard but Lashley spears both. Lashley does the powerslam, has the match won but Regal pulls the ref out of the ring and a beat down ensues on Lashley for the DQ. Post-match had Regal hold Lashley for a chairshot and Lashley ducked and Regal was nailed inadvertently. Highlight was the post match with Lashley launching a steel chair in the air and nailing Finlay dead-on in the face. DUD

Video of King Booker coming to the ring, he is so brilliant in this role, same goes for Sharmell

As they are setting up the ring for Booker’s royal throne, the little troll ran back to the dressing room area to a comedic reaction.

Main event was King Booker/Batista showdown.

King Booker was strutting to the ring and Sharmell had to of repeated “All Hail King Booker” at least 30 times, it was hilarious. The crowd ate it up. Booker gave Batista two choices for Summerslam, either 1) lose to him at Summerslam or (Batista comes out at this point) 2) come out, save face, save his integrity, bow town and kiss Booker’s royal feet. Batista actually teased he was going to kiss his feet and as he was kneeling, Booker took his boots off to reveal his royal stinky feet, and they were repulsive. Batista then proceeds to stomp Booker’s feet and clothesline him over the top off. He put on Booker’s royal robe and sat on the royal throne to the disgust of Booker and Sharmell. This whole segment was very well done and may have gotten the biggest pop of the evening. Batista showed more charisma and fire here and he never said a word. His interview skills have been his hindrance, but I doubt this will be a new gimmick where he never talks. The show may have ended here. Batista acknowledged the fans a few minutes more, applauded them and left. Nice gesture to his home town crowd and great respect from the crowd.

A few notes on the ECW taping and the in-between stuff

Van Halen – “Right Now” promo, not really about anything.

T-shirt guy got a good pop as those knuckleheads slung shirts at people.

Wrestlemania 23 promo that we’ve all seen before.

Promo for Jet Li in Fearless which made no sense.

Joey Styles and Tazz come out at this point.

The Heyman promo made people angry, people wanted to see Angle and even though we did, he never came out to the ring. Some fans were genuinely annoyed.

Throughout the breaks there were promos on the titantron for Dusty Rhodes’ DVD, Divas DVD, Worlds Greatest Manager DVD and I’m sure some others.

The Foley/Flair segment kind of died live. Melina and Kelly Kelly may have gotten more of a reaction.

The fans want to like CM Punk but he blew an easy spot there and the crowd gave him crap for it. A minor ROH chant for him, not sure if that made the air though. CM Punk has an incredible presence and a look about him. He can be something special, hopefully all parties involved and the powers that be will allow that.

Not much of a reaction for Shannon Moore, Renee Dupree, FBI, Test, or Mike Knox, which speaks volumes of how well handled ECW has been so far. They are adding guys for the sake of adding guys.

The RVD/Sabu match could have been good but died heavily with blown spot after blown spot, and the horrendous screw job ending with Big Show barely registers this as an average match. I’ll give it **1/4

Sabu should not talk but him and RVD were the most over guys out there, it would have been Angle but he never made it out there as they did the already tiresome arresting the company’s top stars gimmick…. Paul Heyman got the biggest heel reaction of any of the ECW people.

Dark match main event, where over 2/3 of the crowd left was Batista vs. King Booker. a nothing match. 6-7 minutes maybe? DQ finish with the use of the royal scepter. Hopefully they do better at Summerslam.

Batista stayed for another 5-10 minutes, coming back for encores to acknowledge the crowd and say hello. Again signaled for the world title.

All in all a great time even though the matches were overall appalling.

Biggest Heel Reaction

1) King Booker
2) Paul Heyman
3) Gret Khali
4) Big Show
5) could list Finlay, Regal, Helms, even Terkay in here. None of the other ECW guys and can’t even say Foley here, people didn’t know how to reach to him here.

Biggest Pops
1) Batista
2) Undertaker
3) Mr. Kennedy
4) RVD
5) CM Punk, Lashley, Sabu, and Flair get honorable mention

Thanks very much, cheers…

Credit: WrestlingObserver.com

Matthew Michaels is editor emeritus of Pulse Wrestling, and has been since the site launched.