For me, one thing and one thing alone
gave Smackdown a bigger feel this week and that thing is of course
the WWE Championship. It's been a long time since we've seen that
title and the main story running through WWE appear on Smackdown,
mainly due to John Cena not working Tuesdays. But with the title now
on Randy Orton, who is feuding with fellow Smackdown regular Daniel
Bryan, it certainly gave you a much stronger reason to catch up with
WWE's blue show.
Steel Cage Match:
Daniel Bryan
vs.
Wade Barrett
Now I mentioned
WWE Champion Randy Orton in my opening gambit this for this weeks
Smackdown, and he appeared in the opening segment, after supposedly
being invited to speak by Smackdown General Manager, after she
patched up her differences with Triple H off screen. Randy Orton's
promo was actually pretty good, it was clear that this wasn't a
spontaneous promo, like one we'd see from CM Punk, but it was well
written and delivered well by Orton. With Orton asking for the
support of the fans, I thought this was good way for Orton to gain
extra heat, as clearly the WWE fans aren't going to get behind Orton
when he's up against the uber over Daniel Bryan. The face of the WWE
idea seems to be sticking with Orton mentioning it a few times, and
once Daniel Bryan interrupted it got brought up a few more times as
well, it's good to see that phrase attach to the WWE Championship
when usually it was simply given to Cena even when he wasn't walking
around with the belt. With Bryan now in the ring, he put over John
Cena, I'm not quite sure why, Cena is out for six months what is the
need to put him over here? Bryan also called Orton pretty, quite a
few times, before saying he wanted to kick him in the face with some
nice timing. With a championship rematch being set for Night of
Champions, Orton went for an RKO, only for Bryan to reverse and send
Orton out of the ring with a dropkick. It was nice to see Bryan get
the upperhand here, after taking such a beating on Raw.
Later on in the
show, Wade Barrett went to visit Vickie Guerrero in her office. With
Barrett suggesting that he would like a rematch with Bryan to make
sure he didn't make it to Night of Champions. With Vickie reeling off
a number of match types, including No Holds Barred and Extreme Rules,
which I believe are actually the same match, she eventually settled
on a Steel Cage Match, which Barrett seemed very happy with. As was
I, Smackdown has a good history with Steel Cage Matches in the past
with a number of classic bouts since it's inception including Jeff
Hardy vs. CM Punk in August 2009 and Eddie Guerrero vs. JBL in July
2004. I also expect the style of match would suit Barrett giving him
another oppurtunity to show of his brawling style, whilst Bryan
technically savvy would help to create a good story to build the bout
around.
However when it
came to the actual match, I was slightly disappointed. The bout was
afforded less than ten minutes of television time and the story
really wasn't strong enough to keep me interested in what was going
on, when the winner was clear. Whilst there were some nice moments,
like Barrett reversing Bryan's signature comeback with a Winds of
Change, and Bryan smashing Barrett into the cage whilst chanting
“Yes!” followed by some good kicks, which the crowd loved, there
just wasn't enough stringing them together to draw me into the bout.
I think this was mainly down to the length of the match, as it didn't
really allow the two to explore the concept of the Steel Cage match
fully or include enough potential finishes to build up the excitement
as I'm sure they would have liked. The wrestling was strong
throughout as expected, and I couldn't fault Bryan or Barrett's
wrestling here.
Despite being
disappointed by the match on the whole, the ending was very good, with
Bryan stopping Barrett escaping the cage at the last minute, managing
to hit a good looking Sunset Flip Powerbomb from the top rope, before
picking up the pinfall victory with the same version of the Knee
Trembler that won him the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. Everything
about the ending worked for me, but certainly would've have been more
satisfying if the match had had at least an extra five minutes to
build. After the bout with Bryan celebrating, he was ambushed by
Orton with an RKO to close the show with Orton holding his WWE
Championship aloft. It was a good way to remind who was the face of
the WWE, and having Orton end the show in control will only help to
build the fan support for Daniel Bryan heading into Night of
Champions and beyond.
Christian
vs.
World Heavyweight Champion
Alberto Del Rio
Now, this was a
rematch from SummerSlam's classic World Heavyweight Championship
match, now anyone that read my Smackdown review will know how much I
adored that match and it was always going to be difficult going in to
be able to equal that match on Smackdown. For me there wasn't really
enough build up to this match, and it got lost in the middle of the
show, and was certainly overshadowed by the build to Bryan and
Barrett's Steel Cage bout, similar to how it was overshadowed heading
into SummerSlam. The World Heavyweight Championship has certainly
lost some of it's shine over the last few years and has really
struggled to find a relevant role on the card, with WWE still trying
to find a way to present the belt, after both Raw and Smackdown
essentially merged, that makes it feel prestigious whilst it's clear
that the WWE Championship is the top title in the company.
Now, if you hadn't
seen the match at SummerSlam this was actually a pretty good
television contest, however if you had seen SummerSlam, you like me,
were probably comparing it to the match they had on pay per view.
Now, obviously a television match shouldn't be as strong as a match
you're going to put on pay-per-view, it makes business sense, but it
doesn't make sense to have a rematch the week after a fantastic match
on pay-per-view on free TV! They could easily have built another
match around bout heading into Night of Champions and given it even
more time, I think WWE might have dropped the ball with that one.
There were some nice spots like Christian getting pushed off the top
rope to the floor, and Christian's impecable selling of Del Rio's
attacks on his arm were once again a major part of the match, as well
as some beautiful chain wrestling that saw Christian come out with
the upperhand for a number of near falls.
The ending played
on Christian's arm injury once again, with Del Rio dodging a Spear to
send Christian into the ring post in one of wrestling biggest
clichés, before Del Rio used a nice transition into the Cross Arm
Breaker, using the top rope, before they played out the same finish
they used at SummerSlam with Christian looking to fight out only for
Del Rio to gain the upperhand and pick up the submission victory. The
victory for Del Rio confirmed that Christian was moving back down the
card once more, as the loss was basically a way to write Christian
out of the World Heavyweight Championship picture. I reckon this is a
real shame, and really shows WWE's stubbornness to change things up,
as the Del Rio and Christian match at SummerSlam should have had a
rematch on pay-per-view.
After the bout Del
Rio cut a similar promo to the ones we saw at SummerSlam and one Raw,
talking about how all the Latinos should follow his, as he is their
leader. It was another solid promo from Del Rio, even if it was sort
of going over stuff he'd already said twice this week. Del Rio was,
of course, interrupted by Ricardo Rodriguez, who brought Rob Van Dam
with him, and after Christian had gotten a little revenge on Del Rio
with a missile dropkick, Van Dam finished off the job with a Rolling
Thunder. It would definitely seem that WWE is going with Del Rio vs.
RVD for Night of Champions, and whilst I'd have liked to have seen
Christian get another shot, I'm sure RVD and Del Rio will put on a
good match as well, if given the same amount of time. I'm also
starting to like the Rodriguez and RVD partnership, Van Dam certainly
works better when he doesn't have to speak with his promos usually
either struggling to be serious or just looking plain goofy most of
the time, this allows him to just show off his in ring skills and
stay quiet.
Best of the Rest (In The World)
In the opening
contest of the night, Intercontinental Champion Curtis Axel,
accompanied by Paul Heyman, took on Cody Rhodes. Whilst it was only a
short bout, the thing that work for me here was that I actually
couldn't make my mind up who was going to win. Rhodes has been
receiving a push recently with two straight victories over World
Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank Winner Damien Sandow (who
was strangely absent from the show), whilst Axel is being positioned
in a feud with CM Punk, so it really could have gone either way.
Whilst the bout wasn't anything special, it flowed well and was easy
to watch, with dropkicks from both men being the highlight for me as
they were so well performed. The ending saw Rhodes look to be
attempting a Moonsault, only for Heyman to cause a slight
distraction, allowing Axel to hit the ropes and send Rhodes crashing
down. Axel went on to pick up the pinfall victory with a Hangman's
Facebuster. With the promo that followed it made sense for Axel to go
over Rhodes, although it was a shame to see the wheels seemingly
halted on Rhodes' ascent up the cards once more.
With Axel and
Heyman in the ring, Heyman got the microphone and cut another good
promo, talking about his emotional pain due to CM Punk no longer
being the Best in the World, as well as putting Curtis Axel over
strongly. Even Axel himself got in on the action, and once again
showed that Heyman has been helping him with his promos, as this one
was solid, as he showed a lot of intensity in putting over his own
personal problems with CM Punk, before finally challenging Punk to a
match on next's weeks Raw. Axel plays the overly cocky heel role
well, and it works great against Punk, because the audience knows
what Axel is saying isn't true. Axel has never been put in the same
light as Punk, and therefore it should annoy the audience when he
puts himself in the same category. The bout on Raw should be an
interesting one, I would imagine that Heyman will get involved at
some point and hopefully come the end of the night we'll have more of
an idea how Night of Champions will be shaping up CM Punk and Curtis
Axel.
Elsewhere, in a
two on three handicap match Big Show and Mark Henry teamed up to take
on 3MB. Henry and Show, of course, dominated most of the match
against Heath Slater, Drew McIntyre and Jinder Mahal, which would
have been even more impressive if we hadn't seen Kane do the exact
same thing on his own a few weeks ago. After a Chokeslam for
McIntyre and a World's Strongest Slam for Slater, Show & Henry
got the pinfall victory with Knock Out Punch from Big Show on
McIntyre. It wasn't a particularly pretty bout, but it at least
presented the new tag team well. With Shield members and Tag Team
Champions Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns appearing on the screen, both
cutting good promos about on Henry and Show being past their prime
and claiming to be the future of the WWE. It sets up their suspected
title match at Night of Champions well, and gives it a nice passing
off the torch kind of vibe for their battle.
Dolph Ziggler and
Big E Langston, accompanied by Diva's Champion AJ Lee, appeared to
have the blow off match for their feud on the show as well, with this
probably being the best televised match between the two. It flowed a
lot better than their previous bouts, with Langston controlling most
of the match with numerous Ziggler fight backs and near falls,
including a nice section that saw Ziggler reverse a powerbomb in a
sit out facebuster for two, and nice false finish that saw Lee punch
Ziggler in the face, allowing Langston to hit a vicious clothesline
for just a two. For the ending they simple recycled the ending to the
mixed tag team match at SummerSlam with Ziggler escaping a Big Ending
to hit a Zig Zag for the victory. For the time it was given the match
did well, but this rivalry never really ignited like it should have
with WWE losing interest pretty quickly, hopefully Ziggler can move
onto something else pretty soon.
Ryback appeared in
another backstage segment, however this one didn't quite work for me.
Some bloke was asking for an autograph for his kid, which Ryback
agreed to, but when the Dad revealed he didn't actually know who
Ryback was, because he didn't watch the show anymore, Ryback got
pissed off and ripped up the autograph. It didn't work for me,
because the Dad came across as the bad guy, who was troubling Ryback
without even knowing who he was, and Ryback was deservedly pissed off
at the situation.
Darren Young was
also in action on Smackdown, accompanied by Prime Time Players
partner Titus O'Neil to take on Antonio Cesaro of the Real Americans,
who was accompanied by the rest of the group. It was an enjoyable
match that was easy to follow, with a good comeback from Young,
before the ending sequence saw Jack Swagger try to distract Young,
only to get taken out by Titus O'Neil, allowing Young to take control
again hitting The Gutcheck for the pinfall victory. I have to say
after watching Cesaro face Sami Zayn in that fantastic Two out of
Three Falls match on NXT, that this result was a little annoying.
Whilst there is no doubt that Young is a terrific all rounder, I
would much rather have seen him pushed because of his wrestling
ability and not because of his personal life.
Finally...
What did I learn from this week's Smackdown?
1. Bryan and Barrett could have had a great Steel Cage match, if given longer than ten minutes.
2. Christian's run in the World Heavyweight Championship picture is over, hopefully he'll get ONE...MORE...MATCH in the future.
3. The Smackdown announce team is a lot easier to listen to, than when they have Jerry Lawler join them on Raw.
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