hallicks Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 After almost falling asleep during the opening 15 minutes, I made a cup of tea and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the show. Â Del Rio vs Cena to start, after a bit of a boring promo by Cena. I think a lot of people don't really care for Del Rio but I thought he and Cena had pretty good match. It was pretty long for a curtain raiser and had Cena winning with a Sicilian Slice. I doubt we'll ever see him win with it again but I much prefer it to the frighteningly dull AA. Â Kane and Daniel Bryan cut a promo backstage, with Kofi looking bemused in the background as they took it in turn to say nice things about each other before doing a unison "YES! YES! YES!" chant. Â Khali vs Otunga - not sure why I'm mentioning it. Khali won by farting in Otunga's general direction. Probably. Â Then we have the 6 man tag, Team Hell No-fi vs PTP & Barrett. We managed to pick the loser before the match, Darren Young tapping out after a chokeslam by Kane, flying headbutt and no lock by Bryan. Good ending but a bit of a nothing match. Main thing to note was Bryan and Kane getting along for the whole night, working really well as a team and no more "I am the tag team champions" business. They looked the business and I hope they keep this angle going for a while longer yet. Instead of acting like chumps, they could be a proper team and help get a heel team over (if the creatives weren't busy having the PTP's get shat on every week). Â Next Sandow saunters down and has a few digs at the crowd, which managed to generate some heat. Instead of trying to educate everyone, he said he was going to choose one person at random from the crowd, who, if they passed a test, would be able to serve as his apprentice. He looks around the crowd and gets a few cheap digs in before picking a bloke in a GTS shirt who seemed to have Spock ears, who then comes to the ring. He had to answer 3 questions to gain an apprenticeship, failing on the third - what is the orbital speed of Europa, a moon of Jupiter? Man fails and is sent back. Sandow was really good in this segment, got a lot of heat for a smackdown crowd and ad-libbed a few bits really well. More of this, please. Then he had a mtach with Tyson Kidd which was ok, Sandow winning with a Terminus. Â Next match was an overdue return of 3MB, Drew McIntyre sporting some really heroic leather trousers (but not involved in the match), vs the Uso's. Mahal pciks up the win with a full nelson slam. Some really excellent air guitar work from the boys before and after the match, they've definitely got the look now. Need to get involved in the tag title hunt methinks. Them and Hell No could do some good comedy. Â Final match is Ziggler vs Sheamus. Pretty solid match, I thought. I really rate Ziggler. Sheamus got a real tough looking cloverleaf locked in just before the end, big show ran down and started on him so bit of a non finish, then Cena came down to start on Ziggler (Cena was banned from interfering in the match by Booker T). Ends with Cena and Sheamus double teaming Big Show, a joint suplex before barrelling him out of the ring. Â I know SD is normally pretty soporific, but I thought it was a really solid show this week. The creative seemed to take a turn for the better, there was one or two really decent matches, and JBL was gold on commentary, as usual. After slating him for the entire show (as usual), he had Matthews corpsing at one point after asking him if he liked Kesha. Matthews managed to get a dig at JBL at one point, saying Sheamus's fall away slam was the most well executed version of the move he'd seen. Â And, you know, Heath Slater's tits. So there's something for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 Sandow's apprentice search was by far the highlight. Second best part of the show was the backstage bit with Kofi and Hell No, although that's not really worth checking out. Third was the last bit of the Millionsadollars dance when they came back from a break. Everything else on the show was either filler or repeats. Â I skipped through most of the Cena vs Del Rio match because I saw enough of them wrestling each other to last a lifetime by this time last year. The speeches leading up to it weren't much cop, either. The whole thing was just "something for John Cena to do on Smackdown." Â Main event, another match that has been done millions of times. I left that one playing but didn't pay much attention for most of it. The brogue kick/duck/jumping DDT bit was good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted December 1, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted December 1, 2012 The whole thing with Team Hell No suddenly being on the same page makes sense if their motivation is the beating they took on Raw from The Shield. The three members of The Shield will need more opponents than just Ryback after all. Â We'll see if it gets followed up on Raw I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 The whole thing with Team Hell No suddenly being on the same page makes sense if their motivation is the beating they took on Raw from The Shield. The three members of The Shield will need more opponents than just Ryback after all. We'll see if it gets followed up on Raw I guess.  Apparently they've been stating that motivation on house shows this week, but oddly, Smackdown didn't mention it at all. I suppose they wanted to wait for Raw for them to really address it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted December 1, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted December 1, 2012 Cena winning with a Sicilian Slice. Â Is that a Little Guido reference?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Statto Posted December 1, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted December 1, 2012 Just in case anyone missed it, apparently they fight on Friday nights. Â I thought I'd best mention it as JBL only said it about three dozen times during the show, so it may not have been clear to everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Butternut Squash Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 I like that they're doing something different with Sandow but pulling plants out of the crowd always looks fucking goofy. This bloke in particular was hamming it up, waving his arms after each question. Wish Sandow twatted the idiot. Â I like the direction they're going with Hell No, hope it sticks. The backstage segment was awesome. Bryan needed that submission victory. The Ziggler backstage interview was terrible mostly thanks to WWE's insistence that the wrestlers can't look into the hard cam. Dolph just looked weird. Â Rest of the show was the same old shit, especially the end with Cena and Sheamus looking invincible again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.PeterVenkman Posted December 2, 2012 Share Posted December 2, 2012 Jesus that Power & Glory vs Bushwhackers match on From the Vault was dreadful, don't think they did one thing right, to be fair Butch looked about 80 even then  As for Smackdown, the 6 man was decent enough, that's about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane O' Mac Version 2 Posted December 2, 2012 Share Posted December 2, 2012 Really enjoyed this episode of Smackdown, one of the first times in years I've watched the blue show spoiler-free, so it felt mostly fresh. Nothing groundbreaking about Cena's promo or the fact he had a match with Del Rio, but the way it happened held my interest, and it was really well wrestled. Del Rio, for all his character faults, is quickly becoming one of my favourites to watch wrestle (Sheamus is currently leading that list). Â I do like how they're pretty much saying "fuck the brand split". At least Raw has the excuse of being a "Supershow", but Raw guys are now popping up on Smackdown with no reason behind it. It does help the show quality though. They should really get some unification matches happening and scrap the brand split entirely, it's frustrating to see them so blatantly half-ass the concept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 They did Sheamus vs Del Rio again this week! And another Orton vs Barrett.Shield video was intriguing, essentially a modern rip-off of the nWo videos. Didn't look THAT different to a Tout video though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ShortOrderCook Posted December 8, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted December 8, 2012 Yeah, I know that's your thing to complain about repeat matches, but you are right here. It's getting totally tedious. Barrett vs Orton again is just unnecessary and such a waste. And I've been thinking lately how ruined Del Rio is. He looked like he could be big shit a couple of years ago. Losing his title match in the opener to Edge, then losing to Christian killed his momentum completely and he's now firmly slotted in the repeat match crew with Dolph, Barrett, Kofi and co. with no sign of escape. Â Big Show has been a Godsend for Sheamus. I think I like Roman Reigns, he's got a very cool aura about him, carries himself very well. Heath Slater and his glorious tits are great but 3MB are shit. Â And the Miz face turn for no reason can fuck off. There's no reason to be cheering Miz here at all. I hope this opens people's eyes a bit to the rubbish notion that he was always obviously a million times better than Morrison, when really he was just booked to his strengths following their split. Had Miz been face and Morrison heel, Miz probably would have flopped too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 Miz is a million times better than Morrison, and always was. Your fur coat fetish just blinded you to it. The reason Morrison went face (and considering they went on separate brands anyway, neither of them had to turn) was because he'd already flopped as a singles heel eighteen months earlier and shown no evidence of improvement, had no personality or speaking ability and had a flashy moveset. Morrison could've gone on Smackdown as a heel and been Tyson Kidd with a better look, but the babyface role is better suited to his limitations. He's Evan Bourne, only taller and with long hair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ShortOrderCook Posted December 8, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted December 8, 2012 I didn't say Morrison would have soared. I said Miz probably would have flopped too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 8, 2012 Share Posted December 8, 2012 Yeah, but Miz was kept heel at the time for a reason - he was bloody good at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted December 8, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted December 8, 2012 That Shield video from this week was very different. Very different is very good. They have definitely upset the balance of Raw and Smackdown, which is what WWE is desperate for. I hope they run with these three. They compliment each other so well I think. They are all different from each other and the gimmick itself is a refreshing change. More of this please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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