Reviewing the 5/27/11 episode of Friday Night Smackdown…
1. Now there were different circumstances around Teddy Long’s infamous forced popularity fueled title defense at the last post-PPV Smackdown, but still, if I’m Christian, I wouldn’t have been happy unless I seen Randy Orton forced to at least compete and defend his title against someone who won from the Smackdown brand from last Sunday ex. Kane, Ezekiel Jackson or Sin Cara(excluding Daniel Bryan’s dark match win over Drew McIntyre). Just like Teddy gave Orton a title shot against Christian after Orton’s PPV win against CM Punk on the following Smackdown, it seems biased to me that Orton wasn’t forced to wrestle days after his big PPV win this time around. Hopefully if Christian does snap, he takes out some frustration on Teddy Long. That would be believable in my eyes. Teddy even referred to Sheamus and Mark Henry by their nicknames and then addressed Christian not as “Captain Charisma”, but as the former World Heavyweight Champion. Sure, it can be taken differently, but if I was Christian, “Them’s Fightin’ Words”. Watch out, Teddy.
2. Man, does Ezekiel sloppily throw down slams that would be unofficially known from my indy wrestling days as “Fuck You Slams”.
3. It’s amazing and comical to watch the crowd erupt in dancing to Great Khali’s Indian/Punjabi theme music. It’s too bad they’ll probably be changing it to something more sinister now that he has officially turned heel and joined up with Jinder Mahal. They could use Mahal’s music as well since that debuted this week. After losing to Kane, Mahal confronted Khali who after a tease of defiance, turned on his “brother” Ranjin Singh. Khali then walked out with Mahal. With R-Truth a heel on Raw and Khali now a heel, what will the WWE Universe sing and dance to now?
4. I like the little look Alicia Fox gave towards the announce table after the Booker T axe kick she gave Kaitlyn to win the match. Nice homage to the man who made it famous in WWE. Even in a losing effort it’s nice to see AJ and Kaitlyn on Smackdown. The only way they’ll have a chance to get better is with opportunity. I do think they’ll learn more opposite Natalya than they will with her. One of them will have to turn heel for that to happen. Kaitlyn seems more of a likely candidate due to AJ’s overabundance of spunk.
5. As easy as it is to dislike Sheamus, his character has good points when it comes to Christian and Mark Henry. Neither ECW World Title reign was counted by him as a World title(and of course the TNA World title will not be counted on WWE TV), so in WWE’s eyes one can say they both have had pretty uneventful singles careers and Sheamus was the mouthpiece for it. Although Sheamus benefitted from being a fresh face and a McMahon craved big man when he burst onto the WWE scene, he’ll have a lot to prove to show he can the longevity of Henry and can be half as entertaining as Christian. Of course, no one can argue with the record books and he has achieved a lot of success thus far in the early stages of his WWE career, like him or not.
6. As far as Mark Henry goes, I haven’t tired or become bored with his character yet. Although I thought his budding tag team with Sheamus would have been interesting, if he can maintain an edge, keep the bully attitude and actually be treated like a contender by the booking on Smackdown, then it is likely he can be bought as a main event player for a while. WWE has to be very careful not to knock his character down again in the near future or perhaps this might be his last chance. His intimidating interview with Matt Striker regarding his relevancy in the WWE was very well done. Henry needs to keep that chip on his character’s shoulder.
7. I loved the extended tribute video to Macho Man Randy Savage. Was that Jay Lethal I seen in a cowboy hat slapping high fives with Macho on WCW Saturday Night? In all seriousness, it was very cool, but still very sad. Having grown up with the Macho Man, that brought back a lot of good memories. He will really be missed. What a shame we couldn’t see him return to a WWE ring to address the fans or at the Hall of Fame so the fans could thank him one last time.
8. Lines Of the Night:
a. Michael Cole to Booker T when Booker T said he spoke to Sin Cara through his translator
Michael Cole – “Did he need a translator for you too?”
b. On Daniel Bryan:
Michael Cole – “He’s a loser. Cut to the chase. The guy doesn’t have television. He works in an industry based on television and he doesn’t own a TV. Explain that to me.”
9. Match of the Night:
Sin Cara vs. Chavo Guerrero
It had some stiff competition from Daniel Bryan vs. Cody Rhodes, but I think Chavo really gave Sin a great opponent to work against. Cody has improved greatly in the ring and kept up with Daniel Bryan nicely in the runner up match. Makes it intriguing how they’ll follow things up with Cody tapping ultra quick then attacking Bryan after the match. Back to Sin vs. Chavo, however. Some great high flying moves and athleticism capped off with Sin using a variation of his Mistico finisher, the tilt-o-whirl armbar. Except it’s been altered into a tilto-o-whirl face slam. You can even see where Sin lands he is in position to hook the arm, but I can only guess because of Alberto Del Rio also having an armbar finisher there more than likely is some tension/pressure there not to use it. I still like this finisher over seeing Sin use the Flux Capacitor. It’s also something he can do on most opponents and make it look good.
10. Final Show Thoughts:
WWE set Sheamus up as the #1 contender via his win in the No DQ Triple Threat contest. Christian will have a legitimate beef with Randy Orton as he had Sheamus pinned after an Edge inspired Spear while Orton in retaliation to Mark Henry’s ringside shove entered the ring to give him a RKO. The ref did not count right away due to him escorting Randy out and you can hear the audio of Charles Robinson telling that to Christian numerous times after the match. Sheamus gets his title shot next week, however, so it’s possible Mark Henry may be the next PPV opponent for Orton with an eventual rematch with a heel Christian around the corner. The Big Show injury angle was replayed from RAW where he looks to be heading towards a feud with Del Rio on the Raw brand. Not sure what they do with Kane from here. Unless Kane enlists the help of Ezekiel Jackson against Khali and Mahal, he would definitely have his hands full if they set their newly formed sights on him. While fresh Divas were brought on to Smackdown, the show severely lacks any serious competition for Natalya. I don’t expect any high quality Divas matches any time soon even if the Bellas stop by for a visit again they too are still very green. The Booker T/Michael Cole segment fell flat. Perhaps they should have replayed Cole’s apology for the Smackdown viewing audience, especially to those that don’t watch Raw like myself. It might have made a bit more sense if Booker elaborated that he didn’t fully believe Cole’s apology was sincere. In fact, if one didn’t know better, Cole outside of not having the Cole Mine, was still very much his usual obnoxious self. He was just toned down a tad.
Show MVP:
Sheamus
Strong promo. Everything he said made perfect sense and he came away with the big win to end the show. He already has established himself as a major player on Smackdown which he hadn’t been on Raw in a long time.
That is all.
M.C. Brown
You can find me on Twitter as
ShocXwavE
