For my pleasure, WWE is actually sticking with that "The Power Is Back" montage as their new opener as opposed to thing with a weird techno sound and stereo look to it. I like the new one a lot; it's got a good blend of new/old school. They then show the recap of the brawl between the shows last Monday. God, I hope this means that the brand extension is coming to an end at Wrestlemania. How great would that be? To add to that, how needed is it at this point too? Anyway, they show the crappy SD opening package and we head right into it.
Teddy Long and Palmer Cannon are in the ring. Why is Cannon still there? By this time, the guy has done everything he could possibly do. He's stale, over-done, and overly trite at this point. It's nothing against the guy playing Cannon, just the little gimmick/storyline they got going. Long puts over the brawl and the fact the match Bischoff cancelled will be the main event tonight. Long then invites Raw to No Mercy and Orton's music hit as the beloved family of SmackDown! comes out. Orton yaps on about how no one made an impact but him on Monday because he interrupted Piper's Pit. I see the significance of RKOing a legend to the degree of Piper, but when the guy can barely pose a comeback, is it really considered an impact? Here's a question for you: If Orton RKOs a legend in a forest far away from human eyes and ears, it is still overdone? Anyway, they dismiss Long/Cannon and we get ourselves a run-on segment! They talk about Taker, of course, and how they are going to sacrifice Piper later on. The fat, older one then gets on the mike for some reason that even I have trouble comprehending. I don't even spend time trying to decipher what he's trying to convey because Piper comes out with a pipe and clears the ring. It was good to see Piper with the pipe going nuts, but not much else good came out of this lackluster opening segment. Oh God, I hope that's not a sign of things to come.
Commercial break. Sorry, I ran out of "funny" lines to do with them, so you're just going to have stick to my already boring commentary.
Booker T Vs. Orlando Jordan
This was a surprisingly good match. There was nothing really outstanding about it or something that sticks out in my mind, but I just thought they did a good job of setting themselves up for Sunday as well as insanely hyping up the crowd. This match definitely should have opened the night. It would been much more effective to rile up the crowd in the opening. Also, it seemed really obvious in this match that Jordan has grown up so much in the worker sense since Great American Bash 2005. Working with Benoit has really given him a good rub and he's got all aspects of a heel down pat in my opinion. I would like to see Jordan get in a non-one-sided feud at this point. I'm still waiting for the Chief of Staff to turn on the so-called God. Anyway, like I said, the match wasn't out of the ordinary; it was just so effective in what it was trying to do and Jordan's little heel tricks here and there added to it vastly. If other heels like Christian would start adding stuff like that to their comeback offense or throw-away offense, it would make them miles better. Finish came when Sharmell trips up Jordan who tries to Suplex Booker T. Booker T falls on Jordan and gets the pin. This little storyline they got going between Sharmell and Booker T is getting really good as well. For once this year, Sharmell is actually bearable!
Winner: Booker T
Star Wrestler: Orlando Jordan
It was a good match and I think part of it was that I finally noticed just how much Jordan has grown. It was just kind of like, "Hey, Jordan's actually working pretty decent with a talent who doesn't have the reputation of carrying broomsticks to five-star matches! Sweet!" No offense to any Booker T fans, but I think Book's feud with Mark Henry proved he can't carry his own bags. Both wrestlers were good in this match and were great at putting over the feud and the turn of Booker, but Jordan's little tricks and his mannerisms have finally matured and it was a good thing to see.
Commercial break. Again, no so-called witty lines this time. Sorry.
Sylvan Vs. Hardcore Holly
This match was average, but not hard to watch unlike other Sylvan or Holly matches so that's a plus. In a weird not, I've been pleasantly surprised with Holly in the last few months. He's finally starting to work! I swear I gave up all hope when he didn't turn it up a notch even for a quick stint in the main event in January 2004, but now, things are looking up. Ken Kennedy was at ringside basically putting over himself and their "feud." There could have been so much more WWE could have done to promote this feud other than just having Kennedy and Holly in a random tag match last week. Of course, Kennedy and Holly got into during the match which led to Kennedy clocking Holly with the mike in the ring. Sylvan took control and hit a nice finisher which was a suplex into a DDT. I know I'm a commentator and I should know the names of the moves, but I'm an idiot. What can I say?
Winner: Sylvan
Star Wrestler: Hardcore Holly
Sylvan still has a ways to go in his single career, but he wasn't horrible or bad by any means. Like I said though, Holly has started to pick up his workrate a bit in my opinion. It's not just him working the crowd either because he's always had a good rapport with them. He's starting to get a bit more intense besides his chops and it's working.
After his loss, Kennedy gets on the mike and screams, "Here is your loser: Hardcore Holly." This moment just solidified all the hype Kennedy receives in my book. Yes, my book does have some meaning albeit a very small amount.
Josh Matthews is then with Piper and Piper goes off on Bob Orton. This promo was amazing and pure Piper. None of this Piper's Pit crap that's he done this year. All that did was kiss ass to whoever was the guest. This was pure Piper right here. He goes off on Orton being slow and what-not. To finish, he asks who has the real handicap going into their match tonight.
Commercial break. Crap, I need to think of something witty by the end!
They do a video recap of the No Mercy press conference. The Batista-Guerrero exchanges here were just pure gold. If Flair/Benoit can put over a broomstick, I think Guerrero could literally trick an audience into believing a broomstick is God. I am dead serious. Guerrero is perhaps one of the greatest all around wrestlers ever and definitely the best in WWE today.
Legion Of Doom Vs. British Lords
This match could have been so amazing, but it was interrupted so quickly. Finish came when MNM interrupted and ended the match via DQ in favor of LOD. Before the abrupt finish, Burchill and Regal were just phenomenal. Burchill started isolating the arm of Animal, which was a great choice too. Heidenreich has come miles in terms of his workrate, but if you want to have someone make someone else look great, Animal is your best choice. I love the tag team of Regal and Burchill too. Regal is great at bossing Burchill around (in a subtle manner, mind you) and definitely is amazing at picking up the scraps Regal leaves for him. What I really liked is that in most tag teams, they pick a random body part to expose that really doesn't play into anyone's finisher or trademark move. These guys pick one that plays into the other's move (especially the one they are trying to get over). Even when they know they don't have time to do the move itself, they still set it up and the commentators get to put over the intelligence of them. Solid stuff. Had this match gone longer than around two minutes, I guarantee you it would have been the best WWE tag team match of the year. Hands down. Damn you crappy booking team! I don't mind MNM interrupting, but I wish they had waited until after at least ten minutes. I would have been drooling over the British Lords' amazing workrate at that point so it would have been a good time for me to clean up.
Winners: Legion Of Doom
Star Wrestler: Paul Burchill
Both members of the team were amazing, but Burchill is just impressing me left and right. He goes right for that arm as soon as he gets an opening too; it's so impressive. I really hope WWE takes these guys somewhere. I doubt the MNM-LOD feud will be over before November, but I still think WWE needs to not mess up this tag team and build them up slowly. Basically WWE, just keep doing what you're doing with them and don't try and push them as singles wrestlers too hard.
After the DQ, MNM clear the ring and give Christy Hemme a Snapshot. Short and quick. Good way to do an angle involving Christy.
Steve Romero (why does he have a job?) is then backstage with Eddie. Eddie goes on and on about how he's a changed man and people don't need to look at last week's SmackDown! rather him and Batista on Raw. They showed footage which I didn't really think proved anything except that Eddie likes to huge Batista. For an Eddie segment, even if only a short one, this should have been better. Way better. What a let down for the Eddie marks of the world; or to name names: me.
In the ring, Eddie is with Batista and they basically go back and forth about Eddie nailing Batista last week. Eddie lays a serious guilt trip on Batista too. God, Eddie could make some serious cash in Hollywood. The segment ran a bit long, but I don't think it got stale at any one point unlike a lot of the Raw Homecoming segments. Batista said he learned to have eyes in the back of his head from Evolution and he will be watching Eddie. If Eddie turns his back on him, he'll hurt him. Eddie swears he is a changed man and he will prove it Sunday.
Commercial break. All right, the lack of witty remarks in context to the breaks is starting to piss me off. I need some Simon System to be more aggressive. Yeah, I know that's for physical aspects, but who said it wouldn't help mental aggression?
Handicap Match
Roddy Piper Vs. Bob & Randy Orton
God, I didn't think this storyline would poop out anymore bad TV matches. I was so, so wrong. Piper and the elder Orton are both people who shouldn't work a match for the rest of their natural lives for the sake of wrestling fans. Piper is easily one of the top 25 workers of all time and Orton would probably make top 100, but that still doesn't hide the fact that neither should be working now. Key example would be Randy trying to whip Piper into the corner. Piper didn't run after being whipped; he waddled. I rest my case, your honor. Finish came when Taker's music kept playing and freaking out the Ortons. Piper won with a quick roll-up. Now what the hell is that? I know that Piper only won because of a distraction, but it is still a god awful way to lead into No Mercy. If the Ortons can't even pin a has-been legend, how do they expect to shove a living legend into a casket? Seriously, WWE; think before you book!
Winner: Roddy Piper
Star Wrestler: Randy Orton
Jesus Christ, if it wasn't for Orton in this one, I might have blown my brains out. Never thought I would be saying those words.
After this, the druids come out with a casket built for two. They roll it to the ring to the ominous music. Taker came on the screen and cut a promo telling them to look inside; rather, dare them. This was a good Taker promo for what it was. It was a mix of the Deadman promos from the 96-98 period and the ABA promos from the 00-03 era. Nice blend of it, which is really supposed to be Taker's gimmick even though he rarely plays the ABA side of things anymore which makes me a very sad Big Evil mark. The casket is opened and two life-like Ortons are inside which was just seriously creepy. The lights went out and when they came back on, Taker was there. Who didn't see that coming? It seems every promotion is doing that nowadays. TNA with Sabu. WWE with Taker. I heard rumors that a similar angle was done at the NWA Convention even. Originality rules! Taker tries to go for the Ortons, but they duck out and run away. Good segment, but I would have liked to see one of the three guys get taken out whether it was Taker, Bob-o, or Randy.
The SmackDown! Commercial Spectacular! Crap, that didn't work.
Bobby Lashley Vs. Eddie Craven
Fun match. I'm enjoying Lashley a lot which makes me feel a bit like a mark, but who cares? Marks have it made! They don't have to worry about sloppy punches or poorly draw out feuds. All they have to do is be impressed and easily amused. God, how I miss those days. Anyway, Simon Dean came out during the match and said Lashley broke his arm last week with that military press. He said he was still going to win because of his conditioning and is going to do squats during the match to prove it. Dean rules so much territory as the gimmick he plays. Say it's ridiculous all you want, but wrestling has to have its odd-ball gimmicks. For every Steve Austin gimmick, we got to have at least five gimmicks like Eugene, Dean, Sylvan, Hassan, and more. Anyway, the past two Lashley matches were better, but only because the focus this time was on Lashley and someone on the outside. It was more geared toward Lashley in control, rather Lashley on the comeback as well. Craven took it like a man though. At one point, Lashley started to squat with Craven on his shoulders to go toe-to-toe with Dean. Definitely a good spot and it was great to watch Dean try and match Lashley by going at double speed. Another great spot was Dean trying to interfere and Lashley just stepping on his broken hand. Of course, Lashley then got the win with the Dominator variation.
Winner: Bobby Lashley
Star Wrestler: Bobby Lashley
What did you expect? For real though, Lashley impresses me and I hope his match with Dean goes a significant amount of time as I think the guy can work and I want to have my thoughts turned into fact so I can stroke my ego a bit.
Tazz and Cole then run down the No Mercy card which actually looks good to me.
Commercial break. Jeez, the god of wittiness and puns has just completely shunned me today. Toga wearing jackass.
Eddie Guerrero, Christian, & John Bradshaw Layfield Vs. Batista, Chris Benoit, & Rey Mysterio
This was a fun match. I think it was odd that they ran the exact same match in August on the 22nd at a Live Show I went to and on the 25th for the actual SD show and it was horrible in comparison. Well, actually, it was almost the same match. This one had Christian instead of Orlando Jordan. Is that a hint of a bad worker's influence? As much of the Jordan haters of the world are marking out to say yes, the answer is no. Bad booking just messed up those last two and I think the feuds of the three in this one made it a lot better this go around. Oh, before I forget:
Commercial break: the last chance to pray to whoever you pray to that SD doesn't mess up the main event.
How was that? Witty and funny, right? No? Well, screw you. Try writing your own lines!
Anyway, my prayers were answered. The only bad thing about this match was the exchanges between Rey Mysterio and JBL which I really got pissed about. I was really looking forward to their match at No Mercy since I didn't see their first match. Well, after seeing them together in this match, I'm not looking forward to this at all. It's not so much as a styles clash as the fact that there is no room for compromises or compensation in terms of the size factor. This mostly has to do with JBL, but a lot of what Rey did was just dumb to and for someone who has worked good matches with JBL sized opponents, it shouldn't be a problem. Besides this though, the match was great with the highlight being the Benoit-Guerrero exchange which was, as always, amazing. That should be the true way to up the workrate of someone and put him over: stick him in a triple with Benoit and Eddie. Imagine what that would do for Batista! Batista and Eddie also locked up in this one and it was pretty good too with Eddie's comedy taking it to a good level. Eddie's comedy though didn't turn it into a comedic match, a style of match that has no place in the main event. It was subtle and sparse which is something a lot of comedic wrestlers (cough-MECW-wrestlers-cough) have a bad habit of comprehending. Finish came when Eddie saved Batista from two moves. First, he held the ropes down so JBL fell to the outside coming off the ropes trying to deliver his finishing move. Then, he pointed out to Batista that Christian was on the top rope. Batista caught Christian then and hit the Spinebuster for the win. This was a great way to put over Eddie as a sneaky heel as he sacrificed his own team's loss just to get the upper hand in Batista thinking Eddie would be his "friend." Great booking plot.
Winners: Batista, Chris Benoit, & Rey Mysterio
Star Wrestler: Eddie Guerrero
Eddie Guerrero is pure gold. His antics were gold. His heel characteristics that he hid from Batista were gold. His exchanges with Benoit were gold. His selling from Batista was gold. Overall, like I said, Eddie Guerrero is just pure gold. No explanation needed.
Afterwards, Batista looks cautious of Eddie who tries to celebrate with him. JBL and Christian then break to the ring and beat up the two main events. They send Batista out and double team Eddie, but Batista runs back in and makes the save and Eddie and Batista look to be on the same page going into No Mercy. This is great. I thought they were going to muck up the storyline by having Eddie stop pretending on this edition of SD, but by the looks of it, that will happen at No Mercy. After that match, we will get version two of that feud. Even if they deliver a lackluster match, the feud is still great to me.
All in all, I enjoyed SmackDown! this week. It wasn't earth shattering, but I just thought it was enjoyable. It had a lot of problems like the tag match's length, the opening segment, and the whole handicap match, but other than that, the show was solid and a great way to lead into No Mercy (bar that damn Piper win). I will go as far as to say I enjoyed SmackDown! more than Raw Homecoming which I thought was just way too drawn out for three hours. SmackDown! was good, despite all comparisons though, and I'm looking forward to No Mercy.
That's going to wrap it up from this reviewer this time. Don't forget to miss the very special live edition of "Squared Circle Reviews" tonight on No Mercy. I can personally guarantee you that of all the live coverage on the net. "Squared Circle Reviews" will bring you the best, most in-depth, fastest, and most entertaining coverage. Don't miss what people herald as the best coverage on the net. For more information on the live edition of "Squared Circle Reviews," click here. 'Till then, this is "Squared Circle Reviews" signing off and hoping you enjoy what you watch.
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