10 (Belated) Thoughts On Friday Night Smackdown

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I’d probably finish this before RAW ends…

1. We got two excellent free TV matches on the latest Smackdown, well worth tracking down on your performed format for copyright infringement. Each match involved a Hardy, so that was some nice symmetry.

2. As Ivan pointed out, Matt Hardy’s really having a great run lately. Discounting the Finlay match (which I haven’t had a chance to watch yet), he and Evan Bourne put on an excellent match at Cyber Sunday, and Friday, he and Shelton had one of my favorite free TV matches of the year. Great chain wrestling, psychology, and some rad spots (Matt Side Effected him off a Stinger Splash attempt!) made for one hell of a match.

3. Jeff’s recent bout of craziness could be a really interesting direction for him. The face paint is a nice way to freshen up his look; it makes him look like the scrawny love child of Sting and King Diamond at times, but at least it’s less dumb than his day glow look in TNA, and reflected his new, more serious attitude.

4. Jeff also made a welcome run in on the cliched contract signing between Kozlov and the Hs. If nothing else, it provided a slightly different way of validating the cliche of “If there’s a cannon/table on stage/in the ring, it has to go off/have a dude put through it.”

5. That contract signing segment did make me wish they’d find a way to combine all of the cliched ceremonial wrestling segments in to one mega cliche segment. Let’s see HHH and Kozlov sign a contract after Hs is presented with a tropy and a birthday cake. At a wedding.

6. Carlito vs. The Kendrick was a fun match, too. Ezekiel killing Primo at ringside suggests a feud over the tag titles, which I could go for, especially because I called it. Well, suggested it. Sort of the same thing!

7. Things go poorly for MVP again. Great Khali kisses some ugly women again. That is their entire feud.

8. McCool used an Angle-esque ankle lock to finish off Maria instead of an Angle-esque heel hook. So, I’m fully expecting her to go bald, insane, and challenge Gina Carano to MMA fights in 3 years, tops.

9. Tazz called the main event “extreme to the max.” Wasn’t that Poochie’s catchphrase?

10. My notes for the main event: Jeff sure is taking a pounding– crap, he won! Yeah, they weren’t very detailed.

I didn’t like the main event as much as Matt/Shelton (the fact that both guys had standout matches on the same show is a nice microcosm of their singles careers), and I didn’t mark out for the big spots as much as I did for the possibly forgotten Umaga/Jeff cage match from January, but that was still a hell of a free TV match, and capped off a great episode for the blue team.