Weekly Rundown: 3rd - 7th August 2009
Raw 03/08/2009
ECW 04/08/2009
Superstars 06/08/2009
Smackdown 07/08/2009
Jump to The Raw Review –>
Jump to The ECW Digest –>
Jump to The Superstars Recap –>
Jump to The Smackdown Summary –>
The Raw Review - 03/08/2009
Opening Segment
Guest Host Jeremy Piven
Lillian Garcia gives Piven a huge introduction and promotes his upcoming movie, tonight’s guest host shows up and pulls ‘Dr. Ken’ out of the trunk of his car.
Dr. Ken throws a load of money at the crowd then gives Piven yet another introduction once the two of them reach the ring.
Piven then introduces Dr. Ken (someone I’m not familiar with, but I’m sure you guys will be) and delivers the obligatory ‘I’ve always wanted to do this’ speech. He then said there is something else he’s always wanted to do, and heads half way up the ramp before setting off some pyro’s.
He talks a bit about the Legacy Vs. Triple H match but quickly gets interrupted by The Miz. He asks them if they are having a good time, then says he is also an acclaimed T.V. star.
Piven insults The Miz’s previous career highlights then tells him that he doesn’t have ‘The Goods’, yet another cheap plug for his upcoming flick.
The Miz tries to respond but Dr. Ken continually interrupts him. Finally he explains that he isn’t out here to see them, but to demand a re-match against John Cena.
He begins to threaten Piven, telling him to make the match, but Cena’s music cuts him off.
Cena comes out and says he wouldn’t mind a re-match as he beat him in 2 minutes last week, but the problem is the WWE Universe have already seen it (when has that ever stopped them from booking a match?) and The Miz isn’t actually that good.
Cena goes on to plug Piven’s movie once again, then challenges him to make a match between himself and The Miz interesting.
Piven then books them in a Lumberjack Match and says if he loses he is banned from ‘SummerFest’, yeah it’s really clear he’s here because he loves the WWE and not just to promote his movie.
After being corrected by Cena, Piven says that if The Miz loses he is banned from SummerSlam AND The Staples Centre.
After some more ear-bending from Cena, Piven says that if The Miz loses he will be banned SummerSlam, The Staples Centre AND from Raw…permanently.
Match 1
Singles Match
Evan Bourne
Vs.
Jack Swagger
Swagger is apparently holding a grudge after Bourne defeated him in the beat the clock challenge last week and potentially cost him a shot at the WWE Championship.
How things have changed. Just a few months ago this match would have felt more at home in the middle of an ECW broadcast, now it’s opening Raw.
I think both guys have earned their place on Raw, but this match did nothing to show that. It lasted all of 2 minutes.
Bourne almost grabbed another upset victory with a roll-up but Swagger grabbed the win comfortably with a Gutwrench Powerbomb a few moments later.
After the match Swagger hit Bourne with a couple of Splashes from the corner and looked to be set on doing more damage, until M.V.P ran into the ring for the save.
Jack Swagger wins by Pinfall.
Segment 2
Dr. Ken Gets a Pep Talk
Piven tells Dr. Ken to get into a more appropriate frame of mind, telling him he wants him to be the Asian Assassin.
Ken then starts making fun of The Big Show, who obviously shows up behind him while he continues to call him fat.
Piven then asks Show what he can do for him and he says he wants Shaquille O’Neal back on Raw tonight so he can get some revenge for the embarrassment he suffered last week.
Piven tells him to forget about Shaq and focus on making an impact in some other way. Show suggests the two of them face each other tonight and Piven changes his mind by giving him a United States Championship Match against Kofi Kingston instead.
Match 2
Divas Tag Team Match
Mickey James & Gail Kim
Vs.
Beth Phoenix & Jillian Hall
Before this match a teaser trailer for ‘The Goods’ played, it looks like one of those movies that could either be pretty damn good or just bomb completely.
Phoenix and Hall controlled this match pretty much from the opening bell, isolating Mickey and beating her down while Gail Kim could do nothing more than look on.
Kim finally got into the match and began to turn the momentum in her favour, but after a blind tag Beth Phoenix hit her with the Glam Slam and picked up a well deserved victory.
Beth Phoenix & Jillian Hall win by Pinfall.
Match 3
2 on 1 Handicap Match
Triple H
Vs.
Priceless
This kind of messes with my theory of a HBK return during this match, as I assume if that was going to happen it would happen right at the end of the show, but we’ll see.
I didn’t see how Triple H would realistically have a chance in this match, based on how Priceless have been able to take him apart in 2 on 1 attacks in the past, but as the match started Michael Cole explained that Rhodes and DiBiase would have to tag in and out of the ring.
Triple H took control early, dumping both guys out of the ring just before the commercials. However, as the show came back on air Priceless had gained the upper hand and began dominating with a series of quick tags and double team attacks.
This domination continued for quite a while until Rhodes missed what would have been a picture perfect Moonsault, giving The Game time to recover. As Rhodes crawled for a tag, Triple H knocked DiBiase off the apron then continued his attack on the outside.
After incapacitating DiBiase Triple H jumped back in the ring and hit Rhodes with a Spinebuster before setting him up for the Pedigree. DiBiase stopped him just before he hit it and instead delivered a Dream Street which got a 2 count when Rhodes eventually made the cover.
Rhodes then hit the Cross-Roads and picked up an unlikely victory for Team Priceless.
After the match Triple H got on the microphone and began groaning before admitting the beating hurt and saying things didn’t quite go as he planned.
He then asked the crowd if all this could be down to Rhodes and DiBiase just being too good and being too much for him.
Triple H said he used to be pretty good at all the gang warfare stuff so maybe he should start another gang, or even bring one back.
He said maybe he should bring back Evolution, but then decided it wouldn’t work because Orton’s a jerk, Batista is always injured and Flair is off signing autographs somewhere.
He then said maybe he should make just one phone call, and if Priceless aren’t down with that, he’s got 2 words for them…
Perhaps I wasn’t too far off with my prediction.
Priceless win by Pinfall.
Segment 3
Chavo Messes Up
Piven and Ken are watching yet another clip of The Goods when Chavo walks in and says he is a huge fan.
He then goes on to mistake Piven for Joe Rogan and John Favaro, before getting booked in a 1 on 1 match with Hornswoggle. No Gimmicks, apparently.
He then mistook Dr. Ken for the guy from Heros and walked out seemingly pleased with himself.
After Chavo left Piven told Ken he had a plan and the two walked away talking to each other.
Match 4
Singles Match
Carlito
Vs.
Primo
Brothers and life-long friends tend to have chemistry in the ring that comes from years and years of working with each other and knowing pretty much everything there is to know about the other.
Edge and Christian had it, The Hardys had it, Bret and Owen Hart had it. After watching this match I’m still not convinced Carlito and Primo have it.
They clearly work well together, but there wasn’t that extra level that seemed to be present in the great matches between the other teams I mentioned, perhaps something that will come as the feud continues.
Carlito picked up the win in this rather short bout with a BackStabber. Hopefully they will meet again and get the chance to prove me wrong.
Carlito wins by Pinfall.
Match 5
Singles Match
Chavo Guerrero
Vs.
Hornswoggle Mark Henry
I’m still not sure exactly what Chavo has done to deserve being 4 and 0 against Hornswoggle, but it looked like things might be changing in his favour tonight.
That was until Piven and Dr. Ken appeared on the Titan-Tron and informed him that Hornswoggle is ill tonight, so tonight he will instead face his cousin; Mark-Swoggle.
Mark Henry then walked out wearing Hornswoggle’s hat and the match began.
It didn’t last long, with Henry hitting the Worlds Strongest Slam to put Chavo out of his misery.
After the match Henry lifted up the ring apron and Hornswoggle slid out. Seconds later the little guy jumped into the ring and hit Chavo with a Tadpole Splash.
He then got Henry to click his heels together in the post-match celebration, much to the excitement of the crowd.
Mark Henry wins by Pinfall.
Segment 4
Piven Meets The Champ
Orton enters Piven’s office. Piven says he knows Orton can’t be happy that he doesn’t have a match tonight, but they would like him to be the guest ring announcer for the Cena/Miz match later tonight.
Orton doesn’t like the sound of that either and snaps at Piven and Ken, asking them why they think he won’t kick them in the head just like he did Vince McMahon.
Orton leaves and Dr. Ken says it’s been fun up until now but he doesn’t like how things are going any more.
Match 6
United States Championship Match
Kofi Kingston (c)
Vs.
The Big Show (w/Chris Jericho)
Jericho joined the commentary team just as King and Cole announced the results of a poll which asked the WWE Universe who they think would win in a match between The Big Show and Shaq.
83% voted for Shaq and Jericho said this demonstrated how hypocritical the audience are and how in the ring it doesn’t come down to a popularity contest.
As Show bossed Kingston around the ring King and Cole quizzed Jericho about his choice of tag team partner. Jericho’s response fanned the flames betwen himself and Edge even further, saying he had chosen a partner that was everything Edge is not.
Show looked like he might have won the match with a big Splash from the second rope but Kingston managed to get his foot on the bottom rope and the match continued.
Jericho continued to brag while Show continued to dominate, but out of nowhere Kingston hit the Trouble In Paradise followed by a huge top rope Legdrop. However, Show managed to kick out and hit the Spear seconds later.
Show then stood Kingston up in the corner and began hitting him in the ribs continually, to the point where the referee disqualified him and cost him the United States Championship.
An enraged Show then began beating the hell out of Kingston before Jericho hopped in the ring and trash talked the battered and bruised U.S Champion.
Kofi Kingston wins by Disqualification and retains the United States Championship.
Segment
That One Phonecall
Backstage Triple H is on the phone to ’someone’. He says he has a proposition for this mystery man, who tells him he isn’t interested in coming back.
Triple H says he’s said that a million times before and it never made a difference. He says he needs this mystery man’s help and asks ‘Are You Ready?’ at which point the line goes dead.
Main Event Match
Lumberjack Match
The Miz
Vs.
John Cena
Before this match got going Sgt. Slaughter was announced as next week’s guest host. I guess they couldn’t find anyone else to do it.
Piven and Dr. Ken then appear at the top of the ramp and Piven explains that while they are big fans of John Cena, they are way bigger fans of Orton, effectively turning heel in a split second. Piven says it’s for this reason he has hand picked all the Lumberjack’s himself.
As the two of them make their way to the ringside area Dr. Ken tells the crowd to shut the hell up and begins hurling insults at them.
Orton then appears and leads Priceless, Jack Swagger, Chris Masters, Chavo Guerrero and Carlito down to the ring to Lumberjack.
Cena gets thrown to the outside almost immediately and the Lumberjacks swarm to attack him, although he avoids it and heads back into the ring.
The Miz then gets dumped to the outside where Dr. Ken and Chavo make sure he is O.K.
Cena is next to get thrown outside, where Chris Masters locks on the MasterLock and wears him down significantly before rolling him back into the ring.
After some more battling in the ring Cena once again ends up on the outside after Orton pulled the top rope down as he looked to hit the 5-Knuckle Shuffle.
Once out there Legacy dismantled Cena with ruthless efficiency, hurling him into the guard rail and steel steps.
Back in the ring Dr. Ken hands The Miz his cane. Miz swings for Cena but misses and seconds later gets hit with the Attitude Adjustment which ends the match.
So The Miz is now banned from Raw huh? Anyone want to bet how long it takes before he shows up on ECW or Smackdown?
After the match Cena knocked Legacy from the ring apron. Piven then climbed to the top rope and attempted to hit Cena with a Cross-Body but got caught and used as a battering ram as some of the other Lumberjacks attempted to save the guest host.
Dr. Ken made the save with his cane, then tried to persuade Cena that it wasn’t him who did it.
Cena didn’t buy it and instead Gorilla Pressed him over the top rope, onto a couple of the Lumberjacks who were still at ringside.
Brave stuff from Piven and Dr. Ken.
None of the other Guest Hosts have attempted the heel role yet, I assume for fear it would damage their saleability with the WWE Universe, so kudos to these guys for giving it a go.
John Cena wins by Pinfall.
The ECW Digest - 04/08/2009
Opening Segment
The Abraham Washington Show
Firstly apologies for how late the ECW Digest, Superstars Recap and Smackdown Summary are this week. We’ve had some huge technical issues at WWEBlog.co.uk Towers involving a shorted out telephone line that inexplicably took our service provider 3 days and dozens of telephone calls to rectify.
Anyway, back to the show.
Washington kicked off the segment by insulting the location of tonight’s show, then said unlike David Letterman he’d be happy to have Sarah Palin on his show, claiming she can’t have anything better to do now she doesn’t have a job.
Zack Ryder interrupted proceedings and actually got cheered for doing so. He jumped on Washington’s couch and made himself at home, which technically he is as he hails from Long Island.
Ryder says everyone there knows he is the only good thing to come out of Long Island and surprisingly the crowd seem to half agree with him.
Washington says he was meant to have Benjamin on his show and Ryder says he’s 10x the guest Shelton would have been and Washington agrees. He says the only reason he booked him on the show was because G.M Tiffany made him.
Washington and Ryder then set about insulting The Gold Standard, branding him boring and generally tearing him to pieces until he finally makes an entrance.
Shelton says he can’t come out with what he wants to say because the show would get thrown off the air, but he’s found a solution; talking in Smurf.
He lays into both men, replacing any offensive words with ‘Smurf’, then challenges Ryder to prove that he is more entertaining.
Washington then says they will have ‘The Abraham Idol’ to decide who is more entertaining. He tells Ryder to choose a song to sing, which Shelton will also have to sing afterwards.
Ryder chooses ‘I wanna be with you’ by Hootie and the Blowfish, sings a couple of lines awfully, then forgets the words.
Washington calls him dumb for choosing a song he doesn’t know, then throws it over to Shelton who does a slightly better job before getting jumped from behind by Ryder.
Shelton battles back and eventually gets the best of the situation as the segment ends.
Match 1
Singles Match
Ezekiel Jackson
Vs.
Danny Danger
It’s jobber time again!
Not a whole lot of stuff out there about this Danny Danger character. He’s young (18), from Easton, Pennsylvania, he’s living his dream of being a pro-wrestler and has a fondness for, and similarity to, Chris Jericho.
You can find his MySpace page here, where you can also ask about buying some pretty cool T-Shirts that he has for sale for just $15 a pop. O.K so that might have been a Jeremy Piven-style cheap plug, but come on this kid deserves it, and like I said, they are pretty cool.
As for the match, it was what you’d expect really. Jackson destroyed Danny, who looked absolutely tiny compared to the brutish physique of ECW’s newest man-mountain.
Jackson picked up the win with his modified Urinagi before Kozlov showed up in his dressing gown and picked the bones with an Iron Curtain.
Zeke then hit an even bigger modified Urinagi (which looked like it hurt like hell) then left, looking satisfied.
I think Danger got the shortest of all short straws here tonight, he hit NO offence at all and got drilled with 3 finishers.
Perhaps not *quite* the dream he had hoped to be living, but everyone has to start somewhere and everyone here at WWEBlog.co.uk wishes him the best of luck.
Ezekiel Jackson wins by Pinfall.
Segment 2
Heroic Deeds
After talking with ECW G.M Tiffany, a member of the backstage crew is almost mown down by a big, box thingy.
Just before the impact a green superhero appears and stops the box thingy in it’s tracks, before disappearing as quickly as he appeared.
As other stage-hands and Tiffany fuss around the former damsel in distress, Paul Burchill walks past and says that this is getting ridiculous.
Match 2
Singles Match
Sheamus
Vs.
Goldust
After putting Sheamus over last week, which was actually a very good performance from both men, I was kind of surprised that they got thrown together again this week.
After watching the match I’m not disappointed that they did however, as it was yet another very solid performance from the newcomer Sheamus that was helped greatly by the veteran Goldust.
The end of the match came as Sheamus took Goldust’s legs from under him with force as he climbed the turnbuckle. Not the best finish for a match that really deserved something better, but after the bell things spiced up considerably.
As Sheamus grabbed a microphone and bragged about taking one more step towards complete domination of the ECW brand, Goldust attacked him from behind with a brutal clothesline.
A rivalry seems to be hotting up between these two and if the first two matches are anything to go by, it should be a pretty good one.
Sheamus wins by Pinfall.
Segment 3
Tommy Dreamer Interviewed
Before the big Extreme Rules ECW Championship main event, Josh Mathews asked Dreamer if he rated his chances.
Dreamer said while he respects Christian tonight is his type of match and the belt will be leaving with him.
Christian is then shown heading to the ring carrying a car door…Yeah I’m not sure why either.
Main Event Match
ECW Championship Match
Tommy Dreamer
Vs.
Christian (c)
In an even more bizarre twist, Dreamer wheels a Hot Dog Cart to ringside as he makes his entrance, parking it at the bottom of the ramp.
Christian then shows up with his car door which he carefully rests on the apron before entering the ring for the start of this match.
Dreamer grabbed the upper hand early with the help of his trusty Kendo Stick but it didn’t take long for Christian to get back into things, breaking a crutch over Dreamer’s back to turn the tables.
More momentum shifting took place as Dreamer sent Christian face first into the Hot Dog Cart, then drilled him with one of those little metal receptacle things they keep the wieners in.
After the commercials things continued to go back and forth, as did the crowds allegiance when a ‘Lets go Christian’/'Lets go Dreamer’ chant war broke out.
This match kind of, sorta, ever so slightly showed what the original ECW was, with Dreamer hitting moves interoperating weapons and really involving the crowd, although the tinfoil trash cans did a fantastic job of bringing everyone back to WWE-Reality.
As the match drew to a close Christian brought the car door into the ring and looked to squash Dreamer in the corner with it, but the wiley ECW Original struck with a tinfoil lid and began to set up for a Piledriver.
Christian battled out of it and seconds later landed the KillSwitch on the door, before using it to pin Dreamer and pick up the win in a pretty fun main event match.
Christian wins by Pinfall and retains the ECW Championship.
The Superstars Recap - 06/08/2009
Opening Match
Singles Match
Santino Marella
Vs.
Chris Masters
I like Santino. As a fellow European (yes I’m aware he’s technically Canadian) I’ve pretty much always supported him, just the same way I’ve nearly always favoured Regal because he’s from England.
I think he’s got pure wrestling talent and clearly has strong microphone skills, so it’s a shame to see him used more for comic relief than anything else.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually like his gimmick too, I just don’t like how the fact he is a comedy character instantly leads to him being portrayed as a joke in-ring.
Masters controlled most of this match, apart from a bit where Santino did a kind of ‘Hulking Up’ thing after being slapped and got a few moves in.
Seconds after this flurry, Masters struck with the MasterLock and picked up his second victory since returning.
Chris Masters wins by Submission.
Match 2
Tag Team Match
Paul Burchill & William Regal (w/Katie-Lea)
Vs.
Tyler Reks & Yoshi Tatsu
I’ve wanted to see Burchill and Regal tag together for a while now, and ever since they wound up on ECW together I had a feeling it might eventually happen.
As for their opponents, I think Tatsu has been the stand-out guy from the collection of new initiates. He’s entertaining, has great entrance music and there’s just something about him that makes you want to support him.
As I said above I normally support Regal no matter who his opponent is, but in this recent feud I’ve found myself wanting the new guy to grab a win or two.
Reks on the other hand, I’m still not sure about. I don’t know if it’s because we don’t really have ‘Surfer Dude’ types over here (outside of Cornwall), but I just don’t feel any sort of connection with Reks.
When he’s in the ring I tend to zone out and as of yet I haven’t really seen anything that would snap me back in to focus, hopefully that will change soon.
Regal eventually stole a pinfall over Reks in what was a pretty good showing from all involved.
Regal and Burchill showed great chemistry both in and out of the ring and I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them didn’t team together more in the near future.
Paul Burchill & William Regal win by Pinfall.
Main Event Match
Singles Match
Rey Mysterio
Vs.
Mike Knox
After literally around 15 minutes of filler (Cena visiting Wrigley Field, a Kozlov Promo, a recap of the Punk/Hardy feud) this is what the whole show has been leading up to.
This main event is exactly why The Superstars Recap is in jeopardy of being scrapped.
The main event of what is supposedly an all singing, all dancing big deal of a show, is a re-hash of something we’ve seen numerous times this year.
What’s more, I don’t think anyone cared then and I’d be surprised if anyone does now.
The one saving grace of this match was that Dolph Ziggler joined the commentary team and got to build his character and further his feud with the Intercontinental Champion.
Unsurprisingly Rey Mysterio won this match, although this time by disqualification.
After being beaten down, Mysterio struck with the 619 and looked to be going for one of his Springboard manoeuvres but Ziggler stopped him in his tracks, pulling him from the apron.
Ziggler then threw Mysterio back into the ring but the Intercontinental Champion managed to escape before a double team attack ensued.
Yawn.
Rey Mysterio wins by Disqualification.
The Smackdown Summary - 07/08/2009
Opening Segment
The Main Event
Smackdown opens with C.M Punk heading towards the ring and J.R rambling about Smackdown kicking off with the main event.
Now instantly this rang alarm bells in my head. It’s very rare a main event match will kick off a show unless there’s some sort of angle coming with it, especially a main event for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Punk kicked off the segment by saying he tried his best to get through to the crowd, but all it did was make them like Jeff even more.
He played a clip from last week showing the brutal attack he inflicted on Jeff after last week’s World Heavyweight Championship match against John Morrison.
Punk continued to insult the crowd, saying none of them have the strength to be Straight Edge like him, so they instead choose to be weak and follow Hardy.
He barked on about people abusing prescription medication, smoking, becoming criminals and using alcohol as a gateway drug.
It was all very well delivered, completely condescending and prefect for Punk’s new ‘Holier than thou’ routine.
Punk finished by saying the fans needed a reliable, respectable, honourable, straight edge World Heavyweight Champion.
As Jeff made his way to the ring something still didn’t feel right about this match opening the show.
Punk and hardy immediately clashed before the bell had even sounded, and for some inexplicable reason officials piled into the ring being led by Teddy Long.
They ripped apart the two rivals before the familiar music of Mr. McMahon rang out around the arena and The Boss appeared on the ramp.
He chastised Teddy for not being able to control his show, then said there will be a special ‘guest enforcer’ for the main event, which he will reveal at a later point.
Match 1
Singles Match
John Morrison
Vs.
Tyson Kidd (w/The Hart Dynasty)
After they had a main event quality match to open Superstars last week, the two again open the show, this time Smackdown.
Unlike last time D.H Smith and Natalya were able to have a lot more of an impact, distracting and striking Morrison early on, allowing Kidd to gain the upper hand.
Kidd slowed things down with a sleeper that seemed to last forever, until Morrison broke free and tried to speed things up with some quickfire offence.
Kidd again tried to slow things down with a submission, but again Morrison broke free and eventually hit a devastating Starship Pain (devastating because it seemed to land on Tyson’s head rather than body) to pick up a 2nd win over The Hart Dynasty’s Dynamo.
John Morrison wins by Pinfall.
Segment 2
Word Up
This week’s word is:
Pretenda- A fake, a fraud, a wannabe, a paper champion.
Cryme Tyme and Eve then began naming a few examples and unsurprisingly came around to Jericho & The Big Show.
Almost as unsurprisingly, Jesse turned up and congratulated Cryme Tyme on earning a shot at the tag titles.
Jesse then said he was heading to the ring to prove he was no ‘Pretenda’.
Match 2
Singles Match
Charlie Haas
Vs.
Slam Master J
Hmm so they’re really going all out with this ‘Jesse as a rapper’ thing; New titan-tron, entrance music, hairstyle etc.
As Cryme Tyme watched on from the back, Haas seemed to be in control of the match until SMJ knocked him from the top rope and picked up an unlikely victory with a Big Splash.
Slam Master J wins by Pinfall.
Match 3
Fatal 4 Way #1 Contenders Match
R-Truth
Vs.
Mike Knox
Vs.
Dolph Ziggler
Vs.
Finlay
Rey Mysterio joined the commentary team for this one.
My first thoughts on this match were that I didn’t expect anyone other than Ziggler to win.
Long story short that’s exactly what happened.
It wasn’t an amazing match by any stretch of the imagination and the best bit was the last couple of seconds when Finlay drilled Knox with his trusty Irish stick then instantly got hit with Zigglers finisher to lose the bout. Karma in full effect I guess.
After the match Ziggler got in Mysterio’s face and paid for it as the current Intercontinental Champion hit him with a Seated Senton from the announce table after a timely distraction from Finlay.
Dolph Ziggler wins and becomes the #1 contender for the Intercontinental Championship.
Segment 3
Maria and Melina
Backstage Maria is ecstatic that Dolph has just won the right to face Mysterio again and tells Melina she’s excited to go to Los Angeles and SummerSlam.
Melina says she is happy for her but raises concerns about Zigglers personality. Maria says she’s heard it all before and assures her that he is a completely different person outside the ring.
Match 4
Singles Match
Chris Jericho (w/The Big Show)
Vs.
JTG (w/Shad)
A nice bit of ground work leading to their tag team match at SummerSlam here.
It didn’t take long for Jericho to dump JTG out of the ring where his 7ft partner was waiting to inflict some damage behind the referee’s back.
After some back and forth JTG almost grabbed a pinfall with a top rope Legdrop on a standing Chris Jericho, only to be hit with a Codebreaker seconds later. Jericho covered but JTG was too close to the ropes.
Jericho wasted time arguing with the referee and when he eventually decided to drag his opponent to the centre of the ring, JTG rolled him up and grabbed an unlikely 3 count.
JTG wins by Pinfall.
Match 5
Singles Match
Ricky Ortiz
Vs.
The Great Khali (w/Runjin Singh)
Ortiz got squashed in under a minute. This match was purely a way to get Kane and Khali in the ring together, as The Big Red Machine appeared after the bell and blindsided the 7ft Punjabi Playboy.
After dumping him out of the ring, Kane turned his attention on Singh, chasing him from the ring before cornering him and dragging him through the crowd and out of a nearby exit.
Ooh goody, a kidnap angle!
The Great Khali wins by Pinfall.
Main Event Match
World Heavyweight Championship Match
Jeff Hardy (c)
Vs.
C.M Punk
Special Enforcer: Matt Hardy
So Matt was announced as the special enforcer, which you’d have to think doesn’t bode well for current champion Jeff.
Last I heard Matt was pretty badly injured, so this is a pretty good way to keep him on-screen.
It looked like he had some sort of brown crap smeared all over his face, I’m not quite sure what that was all about.
After making his entrance Jeff confronted his estranged brother but got little out of him.
I don’t really get the Special Enforcer thing. It was kind of cool when Austin did it for the 6-Pack Challenge back at Unforgiven 99, but that was down to the fact that the WWE Officials had gone on strike due to unfair working conditions.
Up until this point all Matt has done is stand on the outside while a perfectly capable official referee’s the match.
On closer inspection and now the lights have gone up, the patchy brown crap on Matt’s face appears to actually BE his face, it looks like he’s either used some really bad fake tan, or fallen asleep in the sun.
After pretty much an entire match of good, solid back and forth action, Punk and Jeff found themselves on the outside of the ring.
Jeff gained the upper hand and rolled Punk into the ring, then once again squared up with his brother. Meanwhile Punk recovered and attempted a baseball slide on Jeff, only to hit Matt instead.
Back in the ring Jeff hit the Twist of Fate then leaped from the top for the Swanton, but Punk got his knees up then went for the cover right after.
As the referee’s hand was set to come down for the 3, Matt dragged him out of the ring and slid in to confront Punk. As the two argued Jeff rolled Punk up and Matt counted the quick 3 to gift his brother the win.
Punk chased Matt up the ramp but got as little out of him as Jeff had before the match started.
As Jeff knelt in the ring, confused and beaten, Punk headed back down the ramp and began a vicious attack with a steel chair.
As a finale’ Punk wrapped the chair around Jeff’s neck and drove him face (and chair) first into the ringpost.
As EMT’s checked Jeff, Punk told them to ‘fix him so I can break him again’, then refused to let the stretcher past and instead insisted they go the long way around the ring.
After the match Teddy Long appears and begins to chew Punk out over his actions. Punk says the result of tonight’s match wasn’t fair and he demands another rematch.
Teddy agrees and says that if Jeff is fit to wrestle at SummerSlam the two will meet…in a T.L.C Match.
A great end to Smackdown and for the first time in about 6 years I’m actually looking forward to next week’s show.
Jeff Hardy retains the World Heavyweight Championship by Pinfall.
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