Smackdown Spoilers

[textonly]

Well, neither is a heel. Chavo may act "heely" but 'officially' he isn't one.

 

How on Earth do you work that out? Since his turn on Rey at Bash '06 he has never worked face, his last storyline of any great note ("La Familia") he was very clearly a heel, and every match he's had on telly since, PPV, EcW, Raw, SmackDown or Superstars, singles tags or multi-mans, he has been working opposite babyfaces, right up until recently getting lamped by Kane in the elimination chamber qualifyer.

 

In fairness, on NXT as of late he's been very much playing the face against a heel Darren Young.

 

And I don't know if NXT still tapes before SD!, but if so you'd think they'll have to make a change. They can't have Chavo getting cheers on NXT and then expect a good heel reaction on SD! an hour later.

[spartan]

He may well get a heel turn and do well out of it, but frankly I have very little faith in WWE these days, as they've spazzed up a thousand "great opportunities" over the last decade. It just seems silly to pass up a chance to build another strong Face for the brand. Surely getting him as over as possible as a Face would make an eventualy Heel turn better anyway? As it is, he just looks like a chump.

 

I don't think that's true exactly. The match was very competitive and he lost to an amped-up version of the most devastating move in WWE. More importantly, what I was most happy about with regard to the episode was the way it started and ended. Randy Orton won the World Championship this week but the episode of Smackdown! was very much about Christian. That's a positive sign. And though it may have no real bearing on the long-term plans for Christian, I think his general work and how well the crowd reacted for him in his opening promo might help him make a case for staying around the upper echelons of SD! for a while longer.

 

Agreed. They clearly built up the magnitude of Christian's title win at the start of the show, and the focus at the end was not Orton celebrating the win but of Christian looking dejected and just walking off. Christian may not be over with senior management in WWE but he is clearly over with a huge segment of the fans (me included) and IMO WWE would be stupid to just have him as a caretaker champ and put Orton straight into another angle. This has legs, and I believe a Christian heel turn is coming. Maybe not full blown heel, but certainly pissed off tweener doing anything to get Orton back in the ring. If they do it right, fans could really love to hate Christian but want him to get the strap back at the same time.

 

After reading the spoilers for this week, and being a huge Christian mark, I was all set to say fuck WWE (see my earlier post in this thread!), but seeing the end of Smackdown I am really looking forward to next week to see if they take this anywhere.

[air_raid]

Chavo effectively turned face at the Royal Rumble

 

What did you see in the Rumble that you constitute as a face turn - simply performing the three Amigos? His instructions were likely "get in the ring for a bit then get thrown out by Mark Henry" - at the time a big fat babyface.

 

and has been face since the current season of NXT started, do some research eh?

 

AH, you got me. I don't watch NXT except if I can't be arsed to turn over. But then, the times I have watched it (the whole of series 1 and the odd bit here or there since) it has come across as a weird parallel universe where the heel/face divide means precisely bugger-all anyway.

 

Bottom line is, if you think it's unclear who is the heel in Chavo vs Sin Cara, you shouldn't be allowed anything sharp.

[METAL ON METAL]

Chavo effectively turned face at the Royal Rumble

 

What did you see in the Rumble that you constitute as a face turn - simply performing the three Amigos? His instructions were likely "get in the ring for a bit then get thrown out by Mark Henry" - at the time a big fat babyface.

 

and has been face since the current season of NXT started, do some research eh?

 

AH, you got me. I don't watch NXT except if I can't be arsed to turn over. But then, the times I have watched it (the whole of series 1 and the odd bit here or there since) it has come across as a weird parallel universe where the heel/face divide means precisely bugger-all anyway.

 

Bottom line is, if you think it's unclear who is the heel in Chavo vs Sin Cara, you shouldn't be allowed anything sharp.

 

It was a Smackdown just after the Rumble actually (my mistake). He refused to assist Vickie in helping Dolph, thus turning him face.

 

 

When did I say it was unclear who was the heel? Simple, there is no heel in the feud right now - I thought that much was simple. Will Chavo turn heel again during the feud, more than likely - but as of right now its face vs face.

[air_raid]

Probably would be better off in the random comments thread, but I'm watching NXT right now and I don't get it. Regal has commentated largely as a heel every time I've seen him, JTG has been getting cheered and done the same babyface posturing he always has, yet from bell to bell JTG controlled the match wrestling as a heel, had Novak interfere on his behalf and then suffered a fiery babyface comeback from Regal, who won the match cleanly.

 

I feel like I should be watching Randy Anderson seperate Alex Wright and Hardbody Harrison as they argue about who gets to be the heel on Saturday Night.

[PunkStep]

Watched most of Smackdown, really enjoyed it. Sin Cara/Kidd was decent and I like the Chavo mini-feud they are starting to build. As a few people have said here, I think this is a logical first feud for Sin Cara and I am looking forward to it.

 

Also thought the backstage Corre skit was very good- reminded me how good Wade, Gabriel & Slater are when it comes to dishing out beatdowns. Usually a backstage beatdown looks like a bunch of girls slapping each others backs with their forearms in a weak manner, but this looked bloody good. It's really caught my attention and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Zeke & Corre next.

 

The Christian/Orton match for me was brilliant. I really enjoyed it and they're certainly going to do something with Christian. Where they are going, who knows, but again it's keeping me interested. I'm not exactly a fan of Orton, and I find him dull as a face character. But that said, I've enjoyed all of his high-profile matches this year.

 

Well done WWE, for the first time I will be setting up a series link for Smackdown.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

Chavo effectively turned face at the Royal Rumble

 

What did you see in the Rumble that you constitute as a face turn - simply performing the three Amigos? His instructions were likely "get in the ring for a bit then get thrown out by Mark Henry" - at the time a big fat babyface.

 

and has been face since the current season of NXT started, do some research eh?

 

AH, you got me. I don't watch NXT except if I can't be arsed to turn over. But then, the times I have watched it (the whole of series 1 and the odd bit here or there since) it has come across as a weird parallel universe where the heel/face divide means precisely bugger-all anyway.

 

Bottom line is, if you think it's unclear who is the heel in Chavo vs Sin Cara, you shouldn't be allowed anything sharp.

 

 

It was a Smackdown just after the Rumble actually (my mistake). He refused to assist Vickie in helping Dolph, thus turning him face.

 

 

When did I say it was unclear who was the heel? Simple, there is no heel in the feud right now - I thought that much was simple. Will Chavo turn heel again during the feud, more than likely - but as of right now its face vs face.

 

Have you watched the match from smack down with sin cara where Chavo was commentating?

 

Having watch the end of the sin cara match from smack down, Chavo was blatantly being a heel on commentary. He was taking shots at him and saying how cara was overated and was stealing his moves.

 

If you want to believe Chavo is "technically" face you can, but I doubt anyone will back you up.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

Wow, having watched Smackdown, it was a damn good show, and my criticism of Christian dropping the title is invalid. Looks like WWE are finally believing in him and giving him a strong main event angle. Definitely can't say Christian is being buried when the closing shot wasn't of the new champion Orton, but the distraught former champion Christian. The commentary throughout the entire episode was superb in building Christian's story, even Booker was good.

 

The rest of the show was good, but it all read good anyhow. I was impressed with how something that sounded terrible actually seems to be quite brilliant in regards to the main event, terrificly wrestled also.

 

First time I've seen Sin Cara with the lighting, it's horrible and really distracts from the match. Cara's match was actually a good showcase, with no botches. Of course, SD has the advantage of editing, but we generally hear if they fuck up.

 

Nice to see a Diva attempt to fight Kharma, and it looked to me like Alicia hurt her shoulder off the clothesline, she landed at an awkward angle because her foot was already in the air, and she appeared to grab her shoulder right before getting hoisted up for the Implant Buster.

[Vito]

Tyson Kidd had the best match of his WWE career against Sin Cara. I think Kidd should work with smaller guys more often because he looked great on Smackdown.

[air_raid]

Tyson Kidd had the best match of his WWE career against Sin Cara. I think Kidd should work with smaller guys more often because he looked great on Smackdown.

 

Did you see his match with Trent Barretta on Superstars? If so, how did you think that compared?

[Vito]

Tyson Kidd had the best match of his WWE career against Sin Cara. I think Kidd should work with smaller guys more often because he looked great on Smackdown.

Did you see his match with Trent Barretta on Superstars? If so, how did you think that compared?

Kidd seems to work well when he's working with smaller guys who can move around quickly and bump a lot, Kidd suffers badly when the pace slows down and he's not in control of the match. I'd like to see him working with X-Division guys in TNA and playing the role of an arrogant prick bully who enjoys punishing opponents who are smaller than him.

[King Pitcos]

What's the capital of China?

Ecuador's greatest national export is crude oil.

[tom]

I'm not sure if it's because I've learnt to lower my expectations of SmackDown over the years but I really enjoyed this weeks show. Big Zeke v Big Show was a more than decent and fun little match that not only made Zeke look like a monster but also planted the seeds for his excommunication from The Corre. I would have possibly liked for them to have held off a little longer before pulling the trigger on the breakdown between him and the other members of the group but it was effective and should lead to an interesting push for him; I'd be somewhat interested in seeing him take on the big-man heels like Henry and Khali. I mention Khali because I'm pretty sure that we are going to see Jinder Mahal convince him to bring back out the monster inside and thus turn him heel again; maybe I'm insane but Khali v Orton sounds like a pretty interesting dynamic for a match, and they could easily build up the fact that it would surely be impossible to use the RKO but have Orton somehow find a way and win the match anyway

 

The Divas match was a non-event as expected but it was worth it for another appearance from Kharma, and it's beginning to become a clear pattern of her only targeting the heels and sparing the faces which could become very interesting given the pops she's been getting. The Sin Cara match was a lot of fun and Kidd looked fucking brilliant in it, but I'm not sure what I think about the special lighting for the match. It is a pretty cool visual and gives a different sort of vibe to his matches but I'm not sure how long they can use it before it gets boring or if it has any detrimental affect. Cara v Chavo is a match that would be fun to see and I'm interested to seeing where they go with the interactions between the two

 

Sheamus-Bryan was a cracking little match which more or less followed the winning formula they used for their string of house shows matches on the European tour; I personally feel that it made both guys look brilliant. Talking of brilliant, Cody Rhodes continues to be fucking pure gold although I do wonder who he can feud with next. My initial thought was that DiBiase could try and fix his head and get Legacy back together only for Rhodes to turn nuts on Ted, saying he never once phoned to see if he was ok after his facial injury etc.

 

And then we get onto the main event which I thought was excellent and easily could have been on a PPV given how much quality it possessed. I thought the commentary on this was brilliant too with it being made clear how important the title was to Christian and how much Orton wanted the title for himself. It's a shame they couldn't have held off until SummerSlam because it could have easily been on that event without changing much in terms of the layout of the match or the commentary. Plus, the crowd were red hot for it. If you'd transferred all of that into a big PPV with Christian having held the strap for a little while then it could have been something really special.

 

So there we have it, some good quality, fun in-ring action with good story progression and promo work; the end result was really enjoyable and I hope they keep up the good work.

[FutureMrsTarver]

The ending could only have been better if Christian had pulled one of his mid-2002 era strops in the middle of the ring. Then fireworks. Followed by Teddy Long coming out, doing a little dance and then firing him.

[gadge]

You get a few days behind, try to watch smackdown on Tuesday morning, only to find the first hour of your sky+ recording is tennis and therefore you don't have the second hour of smackdown recorded. Grrr. Thankfully there's one more daytime showing this afternoon...