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Smackdown: Butterfly goodness for the Divas
By
JON WALDMAN -- SLAM! Wrestling
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Normally on a Friday night in July, I'd be watching the CFL, but when it's
21-0 for Montreal over Winnipeg at 7pm central, I'm flipping over to Smackdown.
Just as a bit of trivia, the ropes tonight are the red, white and blue scheme that
we had in the '80s and early '90s. I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've
seen them since the post-9/11 broadcast (outside of the Tribute to the Troops
shows), but I could be wrong.
We kick off tonight's broadcast with Triple H in the VIP Lounge. Porter makes nicey nicey by congratulating him on his victory at Night of Champions and welcoming him to Smackdown. HHH then gives the respect back, well until he calls him a Power Ranger and makes a couple inside jokes.
The two go back and forth until HHH calls to roll some special footage. MVP says
that he is the only one who can call footage to roll, which he then does, revealing
the Edge loss on Monday to CM Punk (and for some reason the extended footage involving
JBL, John Cena et al).
Following, the two have a fun exchange at Edge's
expense until Vickie Guerrero rolls out. HHH goes deeper inside saying that it's
genius to marry the boss. Hey, at least he can laugh at himself, that's a thumbs
up in my book. The fun stuff continues until Vickie announces HHH vs. Edge for
the WWE Championship at the Great American Bash.
Back from the break, we get a look at the Divas title belt. It looks absolutely horrid with a butterfly on it.
Match 1 - Michelle McCool vs. Victoria vs. Cherry vs. Maryse
vs. Kelly Kelly (star on a pole match)
Before the match begins, Natalya
comes out sporing new music and red hair. Nice touch Nattie!
While I hate
XXX on a pole matches, the consistency does work, and actually does well to showcase
the talent that Smackdown has. It's a bit disappointing that, despite being moved
in the Supplemental Draft, Maria is not in the bout. As one would expect, Michelle
McCool wins the bout.
Winner: Michelle McCool
Backstage Alicia
Fox and Vickie are chatting, until Zack Ryder and Kurt Hawkins come in. The two
get a tongue-lashing from Guerrero then announce that they will face Jesse and
Festus.
Outside the locker room, Edge takes a long walk down the hall as
everyone stares at him.
After a break, we get a video about the "Moscow
Mauler", Vladimir Koslov.
Match 2 - Jesse/Festus vs. Ryder/Hawkins
The
big man comes out dressed as Uncle Sam. How festive of...Festus. I don't think
I need to tell you who wins this one.
Winners: Jesse/Festus
Post-match,
Edge, Hawkins and Ryder attack, with Festus unable to do a damn thing with the
bell having rung to stop the match. Festus is absolutely destroyed by the former
champ. Smart use of the character, finally!
Backstage, Edge and Guerrero
chat about the title loss and Vickie says it was stupid that Edge did what he
did without her permission on Monday. The two have a heated debate.
Match
3 - Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison
As one would expect, the match starts
out with a good mix of aerials and sudden impact moves and continues at a hot
pace through a strong match which, while won by Hardy with the Swanton, gave Morrison
enough time to look strong. Find this one on YouTube if you missed it.
Winner:
Jeff Hardy
Before the next match, we get a promo video for Maria. No
ring action is shown though. Hmmm...
Match 4 - Umaga vs. Funaki
Blah.
Winner: Umaga
Backstage we go and Edge, Ryder and Hawkins are having a fun
little chat before a red-headed attendant calls Mr. Copeland into Vickie's office.
Fox is still in there. The lovers have a quarrel, which ends with Edge on the
outside of the office.
Match 5 - Matt Hardy vs. Ken Kennedy vs. Shelton
Benjamin vs. Chavo Guerrero
This is quite the quartet for tonight's
bout, which unfortunately is one fall to a finish. The match, like the earlier
Hardy bout, is extremely fast paced and is a fantastic watch given the talent
in the ring. The transitions between two, three and four men in the ring at once
are smooth and far from contrived. Eventually, we go to the standard finishing
move exchange between Guerrero and Hardy, with Benjamin and Kennedy interfering.
Benjamin eventually eats a Twist of Fate by Hardy, crashing the Gold Standard
down on Chavito for the duke in a nice, innovative spot.
Winner: Matt
Hardy
I'll mention that the next "segment" is a Just
for Men replay spot, only because we see the same footage that was shown in the
VIP Lounge of Edge's loss on Monday. Waste of time to me.
Edge then comes
out sans music to make a statement about what happened on Raw. Edge claims that
the match with Punk should not have happened and he was a victim. He then goes
on to the match against Triple H, then turns to saying he has been disrespected
by everyone including Ryder, Hawkins and Vickie. He then rags on Guerrero more,
until she comes out, sans wheelchair. Wow, they're both really intense tonight.
Vickie starts shrieking worse than Stephanie in her prime (which is an effective
way to keep her heel). Edge meets her on the stage and tells her the wedding is
off, getting a HUGE face reaction as a result. We fade to black with Vickie crying
and hollering after chucking away her engagement (enragement?) ring.
Well,
we had two matches that are worth going out of your way to see, a big angle to
end the show and decent stuff in the rest of the two hours, save for the tag and
Umaga matches. Not a bad night of entertainment; can't say the same about the
CFL match, can I?
Jon Waldman has been with SLAM! since 2000.
