Reeking of Awesomeness

With Raw surprising me on its previous show by actually being good, can Smackdown answer in kind?

Starting off, we have Edge, here to talk about how tired he is of having Alberto Del Rio getting the jump on him, and that he wants a fight. He doesn’t care where, he doesn’t care when, only that he wants a piece of Del Rio. That right there is the intensity that this story needs: Edge consciously treats Del Rio as a threat, and as an enemy, not as a mild inconvenience or just as another opponent. Del Rio needs dealing with, and his existence is enough to make Edge angry and looking for blood. That is how you push a guy as the #1 contender: that every moment he exists is another moment of constant irritation. Don’t just brush him off, make him a threat. It takes two to tango, and Edge’s interaction with Alberto really helps push the rivalry along. Alberto enters with his little buddy Brodus Clay. I think Del Rio needs more menacing entrance music: the mariachi band doesn’t really set the right mood for dramatic confrontation. Del Rio does not have his trademark smile out right now, showing us that he too knows the time for fun and games has passed. The dialogue is standard fare of going into Wrestlemania and taking Edge’s World Heavyweight Championship, but it’s how it’s said that matters. Both men are constantly maintaining eye contact, their word choice is aimed to make it clear that the two are angry without actually saying “I’m angry,” and they both are keeping in line with their characters: Edge is a manic, easily irritable veteran who doesn’t like anyone cutting into his turf, while Del Rio is still pressing that it’s his destiny to win, and swaggering about like he believes every word.

Needless to say, they begin to fight. But alas, with Brodus Clay now acting as personal body guard to Del Rio, Edge is on the verge of being reduced to mush. Thankfully, Captain Charisma Christian is on the way to help! If I were going to write Christian into the Title Match, it would be on the lines that Christian is the one who keeps saving Edge and getting Del Rio out of the ring. No such luck this time, though, for Christian too is batted aside. Before things can get too out of control, Teddy Long announces a tag match for later in the evening between Del Rio and Clay, and the reunited team of Edge and Christian. This really did make my day: Edge and Christian were a fantastic tag team (back when the WWE still cared about tag teams) that could not only wrestle, but provide entertainment. They had it all down to a tee. The only downside of this reunion is that it reminds me how non-existent that tag team division is right now. Don’t suppose you  guys would like to just stay a team again?

First real match of the night is to be Kane and Wade Barrett. Barrett’s speech going into the match is a little odd. He starts off strong by telling Kane he’s made a few monumental errors in judgement, which is a great line, does some exposition of what happened last week, and ends with telling Kane he’s... a chemical experiment mistake. I don’t think the name calling really fits in to what Barrett was trying to say: it sounded like he was trying to elaborate on Kane’s errors and how that was going to lead to his destruction, but couldn’t think of anything else, so went for petty insults. It just sounded off and disjointed from what he was building on. What should be happening to Kane in the future should be happening because he messed with the Corre, not because he’s funny looking. Anyway, small quibble. They have a short match, which actually had some promise. Both men are roughly the same size and build, and I think this could have been a good match if not for the cavalry’s Corps (see what I did there?) arrival. We then proceed with the always entertaining and never dull stomping. Aah, yes, stomping! Man, I could just kick back and watch this guys stomp like angry farmers for months on end... which, incidentally, I already have. All we need now is for Gabriel to flip around and we have ourselves the same beatdown we’ve seen one hundred and five times before.

Luckily, Big Show is here to provide Kane with some much needed reinforcements (the tank to counter the cavalry, if I’m going to stick with this analogy). Show gets in the ring, the Corre scramble... and we awkwardly cut to commercials right in the middle of it. No buildup, no announcers leading into the commercial, just boom. We come back, and it would seem that they are now having a legitimate tag match, with Gabriel and Barret vs Kane and Show. So, what, we were so busy shoving in Raw recaps in this episode that we couldn’t even see the matches getting made? Moreover, why even waste time with the first match, when the real action was going to take place in the second one anyway? Anyways, the match is pretty standard, until the rest of the members of We-Wish-We-Had-The-Same-Heat-As-Nexus appears and commences with... more stomping! Yes, the Corre can be mediocre twice in one evening! Big Show, sensing how irritated I am, does me a favour and brings a chair into the ring, giving Ezekiel and Barrett a solid hit and driving them off so they can’t bore me any longer (dangit, Barrett, ditch the group!). Then, in retaliation for last week, Show hits Kane too. The audience reaction to this last point is hilarious: you can hear their confusion over whether or not they should cheer for that.

The No-Longer-Dashing Cody Rhodes is to have a match with JTG, and seems to have forgotten to change into his ring gear, coming out wearing his suit and shirt. I’m not really certain what they were going for here: I know that they want Cody to be confused, half insane, and unstable, but did he not know he had a match? He would have had time to put on his trunks and non-existent kneepads. Also, the commentators don’t really point out how odd it is that Cody comes out dressed in this fashion (what a loaded phrase that is...), so the crazy effect is kind of lost. The match is over in a minute, as Cody fights with great fury and rage so that he can get out of the spotlight as quickly as possible. The body language was still good, as was the effect of demonstrating that Cody is going over the edge, and that sort of makes up for the suit.

Hey, remember when Raw could actually put their own storylines and characters on their own show, because God knows they have enough time for it if they would stop with the constant ads and five second matches? Neither do I! And so, we have Cole interviewing John Cena on Smackdown to discuss what happened on the last Raw. Because having an interview with a character on the actual show which the interview is being staged on is just dumb.

I can’t complain too much, though: it seems that my complaints and worries about the Cena vs Miz story are finally being addressed and solved. Cena comes out and says that, yeah, he’s been distracted by the Rock. And that since the Great One’s return, Cena has been constantly under assault by the Miz, and hasn’t really had a chance to return fire. John puts on his serious face, and makes me believe that he could totally kill anyone he came into contact with, making me forget his rap about Fruity Pebbles only a few weeks early. Seriously, that’s talent. And when Cena has his serious face on, I listen, because if Superman is taking a threat to heart, than so do I. He puts in his line which is to be used in montages hyping the match: “Miz wants to call himself the new face of the WWE? Then my goal is now to break the face of the WWE!” Thank you for reading my blog, John. The story which I despaired about three weeks ago has now been amended and fixed: Cena has his serious face on, the Miz is back in the spotlight, the two are now looking at each other, and the WWE Championship is now what matters.

I still wish you could have done this on Raw, but whatever.

The Divas are contractually obliged to have at least two seconds of screen time per episode, so let’s have Layla fight Kaitlyn. Layla hits the Layla-Stunner (trademark!) and wins. Wee.

Finally, we have a real match: Rey Mysterio and Drew McIntyre. Drew is impressing me more and more with every passing episode. I loved how he started the match: the bell rings, and he kicks Mysterio in the head. Not only is it a perfectly heel thing to do, it helps emphasize Drew’s ever growing aggression and Devil-may-care attitude. He also gets in a couple of really good moves: my personal favourite was the back breaker off of the ring apron. Like I’ve said before, McIntyre might not be the best wrestler move-for-move, but he has enough innovative ways to inflict pain that his matches are entertaining. Rey does a good job too, eventually pulling it out of the hat for the win. Rey has no time to celebrate however, because Cody comes out from the back, and, slurring and looking like a man who hasn’t slept in days, says Rey still hasn’t given him an answer for their proposed Wrestlemania match. See, here is where the messed up suit works: it looks like Cody’s completely fallen, forgotten to change due to obsessive behaviour, and just looks like a train wreck. Did I mention how this is one of my favourite surprises going into Wrestlemania? Just as Mysterio’s match with Punk last year had one of the best stories going into Wrestlemania, so too does this affair with Cody. Mysterio says that he will see Cody Rhodes at Wrestlemania. I won’t say no.

It’s time to play the Game! Triple H comes out to respond to the Undertaker’s declarations of this last Monday night. That’s fine, but what I really want and really need are for these two to be in the same ring and talk at one another. I love a good monologue as much as the next guy (especially as it’s the primary way of talking in the wrestling universe), but this is supposed to be a battle of the Gods, and I need to see them at each other’s throats, looking one another in the eye, rising tension, high emotion, trying to one-up one another and let them know what they’re in for. This lack is shown in Triple H’s promo here: he talks about how he’s able to shut off emotion, that he can do things without regret, and thanks the Undertaker for making the match No Holds Barred. Good. Brilliant. I like it, as it reminds us that Triple H is indeed still the Cerebral Assassin, and will mess you up. But know what would have been better? If he had said this to the Undertaker’s face. Shown us that he’s not afraid, shown us that he’s the Game, shown us that he wants a piece of Undertaker. More showing, less telling, please. I know that they want to do a slow build, but I really think given a match of this magnitude, having the two butt heads and get in one another’s face more, and really emphasizing the personal animosity they have, would help the storyline immensely.

Finally, our main event, with Alberto Del Rio and Brodus Clay versus Edge and Christian. I found myself slightly let down with this one. It’s probably because I had expected so much, a homage back to the times of greatness, but we don’t really get a sense that this is the best work of E&C. I blame this mostly on the fact that the match seemed short, and there wasn’t a lot of time to work. I find that tag matches need more time than most one-on-one matches to be really compelling, because you have four guys who need to get work in instead of just two. Anyways, it’s not a terrible match by any means: there are some good tags, Del Rio keeps trying to stay out of harm’s way, and it seems that Brodus Clay might have something to him to make him compelling to watch in the future. That is to say, he’s not completely boring in the ring, and can keep things moving along. Still not sold, but I’m not against him as much as I was initially. Edge hits the flying elbow on Clay to get the win. If not for the hype and high expectations, this probably would have been a good match. But I was so geared up for a Con-Chair-To or a Five Second Pose...

All in all, a decent Smackdown. The highlights of the evening were Drew’s match with Rey and the Main event. There’s some good building going into Wrestlemania, and the plots are picking up in interest. There were some disappointments (the five second Diva match and the perpetual bore of the Corre), but it didn’t hurt the rest of the show overmuch. Many of my fears and concerns from earlier in the month are being relieved. Think good thoughts for April 3.