The following are spoilers from Tuesday’s Smackdown tapings in Hampton, VA, according to Jonathan McLarty and Pro Wrestling Insider:
Dark Match:
Jimmy Wang Yang def. Jamie Noble with the top rope moonsault. Good match, with lots of submission work by Noble. Sorry folks, but you won’t be seeing this on TV.
SmackDown:
Backstage, Theodore Long informs King Booker and Finlay that they will face Kane and the Undertaker in the main event.
Batista started off the show, talking about the ups and downs he had this year. He mentioned giving up his title earlier in the year, but how he was back where he wanted to be, and that is the World Heavyweight Champion. Generic holiday music hit and Santa walks out, throwing out shirts and candy. The Santa ends up clubbing Batista with a cane of some sort, tries to leave, and Theodore Long comes out to give him his Christmas present: a match with Batista.
Batista def. Sylvan Grenier (Santa) with the Batista Bomb.
Chris Benoit def Chavo Guerrero by DQ (Armageddon US Title Re-match). Vickie interfered with a weak belt shot to Benoit while he had Chavo in a submission hold. Chavo appeared to be upset at Vickie, shoving her down. Benoit returned to the ring and looked to be helping Vickie up, when it turned into the classic set-up for Chavo to sneak in and attack Benoit from behind.
Cruiserweight Champion Gregory Helms came out and did a promo. The basic “I’ve fought everybody” kind of talk. He mentions he should pack on the pounds during the holiday season and, perhaps, move up to fight for the other belts on Smackdown. This cues the Boogeyman. Helms escapes through my section of the crowd, kicking an event staff in the back of the head by accident, and runs off. Tony Chimmel announces “He’s the Boogeyman.. and he’s coming to get you!”. Boogeyman sets his sights on Chimmel and this leads to Chimmel being laid down on the announce table (after nearly tipping the whole thing over) and Boogeyman spit his worms on Chimmel’s face. JBL had to be upset, as his Coca Cola was spilled and worms covered the table. JBL had a letter from NEP sitting with him on the table, which I believe is a broadcasting group.
Joey Mercury (yes, he is alive) is shown walking backstage, and then makes his entrance. He was playing up being hurt, as he damn well should. He looked horrible. He cuts a promo about how upset he was about his injury, how he lost his movie star good-looks, all involving a replay of the footage from Armageddon. He blames the Hardys for his injury and calls them out. Matt Hardy responds and explains how the injury was not meant to happen and it could’ve happened just as easily to himself or Jeff. Joey challenges Matt to a fight, but Matt wouldn’t give in. This leads to…
Johnny Nitro (w/ Melina) def. Matt Hardy with a roll-up (probably had the tights or the ropes). Joey Mercury sat to the side and the camera would focus in on his face most of the match. A ladder came into play during the match, with Hardy dropkicking it into Nitro’s face, but Theodore Long and security came out to remove it from ringside.
JBL enters the ring and cuts a promo on the fans about how they influenced Theodore Long to make such a match as the Inferno Match. He blamed us all for MVP’s “serious” injuries.
Up next was the divas tag team match which saw:
Ashley and Layla def. Kristal and Jillian. Not bad, from what I saw. It seems like Ashley’s been working on her skills. During the match, Vladimir Kozlov sat down three seats to the right of me. Shook his hand when a few people around noticed him from the night before on Raw.
Michael Cole hopped the rail and interviewed Kozlov. Sounded like the same promo he did on Raw. Kozlov was excited and slapped all of our hands with his huge mitts when the interview was done being taped.
Main event time: Kane and the Undertaker def. King Booker and Finlay with the stereo chokeslams and Taker giving Finlay the tombstone for the 3 count. Good match, with Finlay and Booker constantly isolating Taker on the outside of the ring with chair shots and shillelagh shots, all undetected by the referee.
As for ECW, if you watched that sloppy hour of television, you know how that went. Hardcore Holly was boring on the mic, as he obviously got his points out of order “Come on out Punk! “¦ Oh, and there’s one more thing.. weapon.. blah blah” We were as bored as we sounded on TV.
Noticeable TNA chants, mainly directed toward RVD, in hopes he would jump to the company.
The standard flips to the outside of the ring you see in Sabu and RVD matches all occurred during the commercial break. That’s why Sabu was bleeding, as he went face first into the guardrail after a springboard leap to the outside.
I appreciate the wrestlers visiting Iraq for the troops, but don’t get Lashley to take up that little bit of an hour to plug the show when the commercials do that adequately, ok? And the cheapest of heel heat comes from insulting the troops. Boring.
Khali is a monster and the thud on the steel steps that was made by Dreamer’s body, just one row in front of me, was sickening.
Overall, the experience was great, as far as Smackdown was concerned. ECW needs Heyman.
If you attended the show and would also like to send in results, please do so by clicking my name below.
