Pro Wrestling Ponderings

-Todd Grisham welcomes us to the show, tonight coming from Fresno, California. Tonight we have the Smackdown fallout from the Bash.

-The show begins with CM Punk coming the ring to explain his kicking of the referee at the Bash. Judging by the reaction of the live crowd, Punk’s turn fully to heel is imminent. After explaining how the errant kick he threw at the referee on Sunday night at the Bash was due to him being unable to see because of an eye injury, Punk admonishes Jeff’s actions after the match and asks him to come down to apologize.

-Teddy Long enters the ring and says that Jeff and Punk will have a rematch at Night of Champions later this month. He also states that Vinnie Mac liked his shaking up of things so much at the Bash that he’s decided to team Punk and Hardy up to face the new unified tag team champions, Edge and Chris Jericho tonight as the main event. Hardy and Punk then face off, with Hardy calling bullshit on the whole eye injury thing. Punk then tells Hardy that instead of hitting him, Jeff should “Just say no.” All in all, a pretty good segment and Punk’s sign off line was a nice touch. Hopefully we’ll have the fully-fledged, straight edge, heel Punk in our lives again soon.

-Finlay vs. Ricky Ortiz
Barely five minutes long, this match ended with Finlay hitting the Celtic Cross for the three. Short and pointless, but no harm done.

-We see Dolph Ziggler and Maria backstage, reminiscing about their date the previous night. Ziggler’s attempting at acting cool around Maria give me the impression he’s going to be gold at some in the future. I was laughing just by looking at him.

-J.R tell us that Rey Mysterio will be facing Kane tonight in a non-title match tonight. Could have done without knowing that.

- Dolph Ziggler vs. R-Truth
A short, pretty entertaining back and forth match ends with Ziggler hitting his finisher for the win. Looks like Dolph’s getting a bit of a push which could be pretty good. He seems to have quite a lot of potential for entertaining shenanigans.

-Next it’s Cryme Tyme’s “Word Up” segment. I enjoyed making a cup of tea and sandwich at this point during Smackdown last week but now I actually have to watch it. This was an unforeseen hardship. Tonight, Cryme Tyme hide behind some large pot plants and spy on Layla. More unnerving than that is the fact that, while they’re doing that, Shad appears to have his hand on his genitals for the duration. Then Jesse, formerly of Jesse and Festus fame, showing up and talking shit. This was total balls.

- Kane vs. Rey Mysterio
After his tremendous matches recently with Chris Jericho, I’m sure Rey Rey was just as disappointed as the viewing public when he found he was going to be competing against Kane tonight. Still, the match isn’t bad. Kane destroys Mysterio for the most part, eventually picking up the win with a chokeslam after a nice ending sequence. My initial thoughts were that WWE had made the I.C title look terrible by having their champ beat in a meaningless TV match but it appears as though they’re trying to build Kane again, and J.R did put over the fact that Rey competed in a great match just a few days prior at the Bash so it wasn’t that bad. Just as Kane’s about to unleash a post-match beating on Mysterio, The Great Khali lumbers down to the ring with a chair and breaks it up.  So it has come to pass. Khali and Kane are going to feud. And I have to watch it all unfold. Someone up there really likes me.

- Next up is Josh Matthews in the back with Jericho. Jericho once again delivers an awesome promo, even slipping the word ‘obsequious’ in there. Not only is this man the best heels in WWE, he has a tremendous vocabulary as well. Jericho is all kinds of awesome. He goes on to say that he’ll be invoking his Intercontinental Title rematch clause next week on Smackdown next week, so we’re in for some more Mysterio-Jericho greatness in a week.

- Cryme Tyme vs. The Hart Dynasty
Cryme Tyme twice in one night? Smackdown, you are truly spoiling me. Pretty solid match on the whole though, just standard tag team fare. Cryme Tyme pick up the win.

- Melina vs. Maria vs. Michelle McCool vs. Layla
Cryme Tyme’s win was quickly followed by some diva related action. This was a good match overall, with only Layla being slightly hard to watch in the ring. Not that she was sloppy or anything, she just didn’t look especially smooth. Michelle McCool and Melina did some great work though, with McCool working more of a ground game and throwing some holds into the mix and Melina being…well… just really bendy. Melina pins Layla after hitting the Primal Scream and gets the three count.

-Next up we see a segment with John Morrison and Teddy Long in Long’s office. This basically revolves around the two of them singing Michael Jackson songs and then Morrison interpreting the lyrics to fit the situation last week when he pinned CM Punk clean. It was entertaining for about 20 seconds but got old pretty quickly. The segment didn’t end with any resolution to Morrison’s issue either, over being rewarded for his victory over Punk. He just basically sang some songs, talked about beating Punk and left. Strange. I was loosking forward to seeing more of Morrison this week but alas, it was not to be.

- Edge and Chris Jericho vs. C.M. Punk and Jeff Hardy
It was now main event time for this week’s Smackdown. Punk and Hardy took control of the tag champs early on, with Punk being visibly hesitant to tag Hardy in. Shortly after this, Jericho takes control and Hardy goes for the tag. Punk acts as though his eye injury is bothering him and doesn’t tag in. After some more action Jeff hits the Twist of Fate on Edge and tags Punk before he notices. Following Punk battling with Jericho, he goes to tag Jeff but Jeff falls to the arena floor feigning an eye injury. Punk manages to hit the GTS on Jericho but not before Jericho blind tags Edge who runs in and hits the spear on Punk for the win. Hardy continues feigning injury until he gets to the top of the ramp, where he reveals it was all just a cunning ruse as the show goes of the air. Another good match involving these four men with some sound story telling throughout.

-Final thoughts
A good Smackdown certainly, but Morrison’s limited involvement damaged my enjoyment of the show a touch. The Cryme Tyme segment I could also have lived without but hey, you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth. Talking of rough, as I said before, the prospect of this Kane-Khali feud is going to haunt me. I have absolutely no interest in Kane and Khali’s terrible in the ring. This is a recipe for disaster is you ask me. Or, at the very least, some fucking horrible PPV matches

More interesting though is the man event scene. With news breaking last night that Edge injured himself during a house show match with Jeff Hardy (a suspected Achilles tendon injury) it will be interesting to see where this takes with regards to the tag team titles and the main event stories. Look for some sort of development on RAW addressing this on Monday, with a possible title change in the works.

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