WWE Smackdown 1/21/2012

Tonight: Daniel Bryan's a heel, Brodus Clay continues to be awesome, and a whole lot of mediocre!

We start out with a short video recapping last week's main event, where Big Show ran over AJ. They are clearly implying that Daniel Bryan did it on purpose. I don't know if I like that – Bryan could be a good heel, but I hope it stays as a slow build. However, the crowd has clearly turned on him as he gets massive heat when he enters. And Michael Cole is sympathetic to him. Clearly he is a heel. He emphasizes the fact that AJ is his girlfriend repeatedly, and then starts claiming that Big Show did it on purpose which is... kind of funny. Bryan is trying to get the crowd to turn on Big Show, but it isn't happening. Okay, seriously, he says “my girlfriend AJ” every time he mentions her. It's getting kind of ridiculous. Is it just me, or is Bryan channeling Randy Savage and his relationship with Miss Elizabeth? I really like this promo overall.

When we go to the back, Alicia Fox blows on her own dice, and Aksana remains awkward. I really don't like her – she's incredibly boring. Cody Rhodes spins, and chooses to face Hornswoggle. I will admit that I laughed at Michael Cole's comment right before they went to commercial.

Cody Rhodes is one of my favorite wrestlers right now – he has great mic and ring skills, and he's being used really well. Rhodes attacks Hornswoggle before he even gets into the ring, and Justin Gabriel comes to rescue him. Gabriel's new haircut is crazy – how does it stay up while still moving? However, he seems like he needs to work on his mic skills. He's solid in the ring, though – a lot of good high flying moves, and there are a lot of dropkicks flying around. This match he doesn't do as many high flying moves, but demonstrates that he's solid even when he isn't flying. Gabriel could become a solid midcarder this year, and could be a main eventer in a year or two. However, he is facing Rhodes, who will be a main eventer before the end of the year. He hits Gabriel with the Cross Rhodes for the win.

After the match we get a brief segment with Mark Henry and Teddy Long, where Henry almost seems to be becoming a face briefly. Then he turns right back to a heel. I think? He's not a great talker, so he doesn't convey his intentions very well. It does reveal that his match with Daniel Bryan will be a Lumberjack match.

I love that they have to show a clip from a house show where Air Boom dropped the belts. I realize that Evan Bourne is suspended, but they had a match on Raw – they could have waited to exchange the titles until then. And the rematch clause can be ignored – it seems Dolph Ziggler has forgotten about his rematch with Zack Ryder. In case you couldn't tell, this really bothers me, mostly because I was watching during the golden age of Tag that included The Hardy Brothers, the Dudleys and Christian and Edge. I suppose Epico and Primo are good enough, and the Usos have a lot of potential. In fact, they have one of my favorite entrances in the WWE today. And Booker T is a child. The fact that this is a Tornado Tag match doesn't seem to matter that much. It should have been a regular tag match with a different condition. I don't know what, but it could have been better.

Ugh, another segment between Teddy Long and Aksana. It does lead to some fun innuendo, though. Up next is Brodus Clay! This is so exciting! I love everything about his new gimmick. Somebody call my momma! He seems like he's having so much fun, which is always what makes a gimmick like this work. He is then joined by Vickie Guerrero, who is going to face Brodus Clay in a dance off. She looks like she's having some sort of awkward seizure. Even Michael Cole is laughing at her! Even the ring announcer is cracking up once Brodus is done dancing. And then William Regal comes out? This is off the wall! This segment makes no sense, and I love it! William Regal is fantastic, coming out to defend Vickie's honor or something. Wow, I think Brodus missed the n in funky. Regal is better than I expected, but Clay hits him with the Awww, Funk It! Which is the best name for a finisher ever.

We come back for Wade Barrett and Sheamus's tables match. I enjoy Barrett, though a large part of that is the fact that it's fun to say “Barrett Barrage” in his accent. There are some good moves avoiding the tables, and this is overall a good match. Jinder Mahal interferes, allowing Barrett to grab the victory, though Sheamus gets revenge as he puts Mahal through a table.

Next we have Hunico vs. Ted Dibiase in a flag match. So, two wrestlers that I don't care about in a gimmick match that I've never heard of. It looked great when Hunico threw Dibiase over the ropes, but then Kamacho (or however you spell it) apparently doesn't know how to sell at all. Overall a very boring match. Can we please never see this type of match again?

I love the short segment between Santino and Drew Macintosh. Santino is great for the same reason Brodus is – he's hilarious! Unfortunately, their match has to be a blindfold match, though they are clearly using the one way fabric. Regardless, this is not an impressive match. It's not terrible, considering the gimmick, but I would have rather had the match be a standard match. I wonder what the plan for Drew is – maybe he'll get fired and start attacking the other wrestlers? That could be interesting.

Why are they announcing that Randy Orton will return next week? And why is he returning two days before the Royal Rumble? It makes no sense to me. In the Bryan vs. Henry Lumberjack match, I love Bryan saying “Don't you touch me” and Barrett saying “Or what?” Not a bad match – Henry gets to show of his strength, while Bryan gets to do some impressive moves. I especially liked the flip he did when Henry clotheslined him. Barrett is the first to jump into the ring to attack Bryan, but he is quickly joined by a number of other wrestlers. It ends with a huge brawl in the ring, allowing Bryan to crawl away, ending the match with another No Contest. That leaves us with the announcement that there will be a triple threat cage match between Bryan, Henry and Big Show at the Royal Rumble.

I don't know how to rate this. It had some good parts, and a whole lot of mediocre.

WWE Smackdown 8/5/2011

This week: the build up to Summerslam is in full gear, with them promoting the Christian vs Orton and Sheamus vs Mark Henry matches heavily. For those who know me, they may be wondering why I'm not reviewing Torchwood: Miracle Day. Simple answer: I'm enjoying it too much to review it, though I may review it after it's done.

We start out tonight with that little promo of Sheamus vs. Mark Henry, and continue into a match between Sheamus and the Great Khali. Not a big fan of Khali, really – he doesn't have any personality to speak of because he is unintelligible, so his character is essentially just “big guy.” I think Sheamus is reasonably interesting, though. He's a big guy with the gimmick of a Celtic warrior, and I'm always down for that. He's a bit of a berserker and he is supposed to be really good with weapons. And his skin is practically translucent, it's so pale. This match is mediocre, with all the good spots coming from Sheamus.

Next up is A.J. vs. Natalya, and my first impression is that A.J.'s music is awful. Not a great match, though A.J. is pretty damn hot. Natalya uses a pretty terrible Sharpshooter to win. And then comes the obligatory post-match beating as Natalya becomes a heel. I guess the new feud for the Divas is perky vs. nasty? I don't know? I guess the new default diva heel is just being angry at the popular girls.

Hey look, a promo featuring Randy Orton! And it's not a bad one, with him saying that Christian is “helping him work out his anger issues.” It's a good angle for him, because anger is pretty much the only emotion he can show. Well, maybe simple creepiness. After that as they set up the Justin Gabriel promo, I wanted to slap Booker T because his South African accent was AWFUL.

Next up we have what initially looks like it will be a squash match between Daniel Bryan and Tyson Kidd, because Kidd doesn't even get an entrance – he just starts in the ring. Not a bad match, I liked Kidd's submission with Daniel Bryan wrapped around the ringpost. As a sidenote, I find it funny that every time Michael Cole calls Daniel Bryan a nerd it just makes me more of a fan of Bryan. Then again, that's the reason Cole is a heel. The match gets a lot better after the commercial, with some good back and forth counter chains. Bryan ends up winning by submission.

The State of the Showski Address! Zack Ryder is gloriously lame. Ezekiel Jackson interrupts him and the quality of the promo goes down significantly as he complains about last week's handicap match against Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase. Speak of the devil, and they shall appear! The quality of the promo goes up once again once Rhodes starts talking. Jackson is just not a good speaker, so every time he speaks the promo gets worse. When Rhodes responds the quality goes up. Eventually Teddy Long comes out and it says that Zack Ryder and Jackson are wrestling. The match starts immediately and is quality – they both play to their strengths, with Jackson just showing off his strength as Ryder essentially just bounces around him for the most part. Jackson wins using his trademark submission, which I enjoy because it forces the victim to slap his head to tap out. What follows the match is a slightly creepy promo where a (new?) diva uses sex appeal on Teddy Long, and he continually looks way too old for her.

Mark Henry vs. Vladimir Koslov. From the very beginning this is clearly just showing off how strong Mark Henry is. It lasts a few minutes long, though Koslov gets a few good moves in. Mark Henry is pretty intimidating, but I'll be happy when this angle is over. I did like that Sheamus came down to protect Koslov from the post match beating (I need a word for that).

Sheamus has a good promo after this, explaining why he wants to stop Mark Henry. He has some good lines involving a gold horseshoe. This is followed by a six man tag team match which is David Otunga, Michael McGillicutty and JTG vs Trent Barreta and the Uso's. It looks like the Uso's are getting into a feud with Otunga and McGillicutty. This actually seems like it was set up to show off Barreta, who has a good top rope maneuver. Once again Otunga and McGillicutty win, and once again I have to say that I'm looking forward to when they lose the titles.

I'm glad that Johnny Curtis is done with his lame puns, though I have enjoyed most of them. Christian gets a reasonable promo, and R-Truth's new story seems to be unifying the heels as conspiracy theorists, though the best line is Christian's last one “Who the hell is Little Jimmy?”

And now for the main event: Randy Orton and John Morrison vs R-Truth and Christian. This has the potential to be a good match, as all four of them are quality wrestlers, and there is some kayfabe bad blood going on within this grouping, though at first they avoid the obvious pairings in the ring. A good match, as R-Truth and Morrison work well together, as do Orton and Christian. That and the fact that all of them are good performers. We get a little bit of a preview of Orton vs Christian, and it is fantastic. They work incredibly well together, with a good sequence of moves and counter moves. Christian pins Orton for the win, ending a good episode with a satisfying ending.

WWE Smackdown 7/29/2011

I'm trying something new for my TV reviews – I'm typing them during each commercial break, so you're getting what is, essentially, a stream of conciousness review. Each paragraph is single segment of the show, from commercial break to commercial break. Might be fun! We'll find out.

Not sure how I feel about the first segment. I'm not a big fan of Triple H as the COO – he seems like he's trying to be a face, but good bosses just aren't very interesting. I also don't like the fact that he brought R-Truth and John Morrison to Smackdown. It generally seems to work better when the Raw and Smackdown stories stay separate. There's also the fact that R-Truth's gimmick gets a little tiring when you only see it once a week; showing up again doesn't do him any favors. I will take any chance to see more Christian, though – I think he's incredibly entertaining, even in his current, whiny incarnation.

I really enjoy Zak Ryder – he is fantastically stupid in the most fun way. The first part of the Christian/Morrison match is alright, nothing special either way. Some sloppy spots, but nothing out of the ordinary when you're dealing with a high flier.

Whatever that flipping grab move was, it was fantastic. Besides that and the missed Starship Pain, not the most amazing match. John Morrison sold his neck injury very well, and I was amazed that they let Christian pull of the Killswitch without it being countered at all – I don't think I've ever seen that happen.

I feel like Wade Barrett is trying to become a new Million Dollar Man with all of his talk about greed and making a lot of money. While I like Wade, this isn't the most interesting way for him to go – he feels kind of lost without the Nexus or Corre to boss around. He does have a great accent, though. Daniel Bryan is fun, mostly because he has the best theme music in the WWE. Zak Ryder continues being hilarious – he makes Teddy Long way more interesting.

This bit about Justin Gabriel would probably be way more interesting if he was an interesting wrestler, so... who cares? And man, Josh Matthews clearly can't take Booker T seriously, and I can't blame him for laughing. And then comes a six-Diva tag match. Why are the only Diva matches either have way too many participants OR are Kelly Kelly and one of the Bellas. Honestly, I don't know who all of these Divas are, but the one in pink had some nice throws against the fake redhead. Also, these matches always seem to end the same way – Face tries to get a pin, heels interrupt and all the non-active Divas leave the ring to brawl, and then a pin happens. Usually a face wins, but this time the heel wins. Still, not a terrible match. Not great, not terrible, but ultimately forgettable.

Mark Henry looks kind of gross with all that water dripping off him, and I don't get what sort of effect it's supposed to give. I do like the idea that Zak Ryder is feeding this little scrawny guy to Mark Henry – it's legitimately amusing. Booker T's announcing style remains really bizarre; “Get the A-1 sauce”? Really? Whoever this kid is, Bobby or whatever his name is, he's good at selling pain. Which is good, because that was all he could do in this match. I have to admit that I was hoping he would amaze us by putting up some sort of fight, but nope, nothing. Shaemus's theme really is terrible – it's not distinctive until about 10 seconds in, which means it doesn't do its job properly. I liked his little “Irish” story, and I like how the confrontation ended – Mark Henry threw a temper tantrum!

Next we get a Tag Team Championship match between the Usos and the remaining members of the New Nexus. The Usos are a fantastic tag team – the Maori war chant that they enter with is great, and they work really well together. Unlike Otunga and McGillicutty (I have no clue if I spelled that right!) the Usos actually do the cool combination moves that make tag matches fun to watch. Unfortunately, the New Nexus keeps the championship through some admittedly clever heel stuff. We also get another little segment with Zak Ryder. The fact that Teddy Long said “broski” made it worth it.

Check out the ref's face when Cena uses the Attitude Adjustment on Rey Mysterio during the Raw Rebound – absolutely hilarious. R-Truth's promo is pretty good, with some nice imagery about PEELING RANDY ORTON'S SKIN OFF. I also love his catchphrase: You gonna get got! I don't even know what it means, but it's fun to say!

Next, a handicap match! Not a big fan of Ezekial Jackson, as he isn't an amazing technician – he's basically just huge. Cody Rhodes, on the other hand, is fantastic. He has a good gimmick inspired by Dr. Doom and he has the fantastic paper bag thing. Ted DiBiase is less interesting, basically being a watered down version of his father, the Million Dollar Man. Regardless, this is the only time that the handicap matches seem fair because Jackson is about as big as Rhodes and DiBiase combined. Rhodes wins with his remarkably cool finisher. After the match we get a promo from Jinder Mahal that is entirely in Indian and whatever the Great Kali speaks. I'm sorry to the people who actually speak Indian, but that did nothing for me.

And now we get to the main event, between two wrestlers I'm getting tired of. I find it ironic that Randy Orton's theme song would almost fit R-Truth better, though. Orton's gimmick is kind of boring, essentially being a sociopath, which is fine for a heel, but he's supposed to be a face. Despite my disdain for their gimmicks, this is a good match. Both of them are in fantastic shape and this match shows that off. There aren't any amazing spots, just two really solid performances. Right before the commercial break, Christians comes out. We'll see how that affects it.

Starts out with whatever the hell R-Truth's 360 move which looked really crazy. I have no idea what it was supposed to do, but it looks cool. R-Truth takes control of the match after that move, but eventually Orton Hulks out and starts dominating. Of course, while I call it Hulking out after what Hogan used to do, it's more interesting with Orton because he just starts dominating instead of ignoring all the hits. I feel like getting hit with an open water bottle wouldn't hurt all that much, but it sure looks good. Orton calmly taking a drink from the busted bottle is pretty good, though I'm always disappointed when a match ends with a DQ, and this one just strengthens my belief that Orton should be a heel. The post match beating is a heel tactic, not face!