After the amazing shoot promo by CM Punk on this weeks RAW, several people have been praising the episode through numerous blogs, tweets and video reviews. However, I feel like taking a look at how WWEs other show; Smackdown fares in comparison. Most days I've always thought of Smackdown as the superior show, it puts more emphisis on in ring work and I feel that Michael 'P.S' Hayes is a decent head writer. So let's take a look at how the Smack was layed down in Pheonix.
We started the show with Randy Orton vs Mark Henry. This match didn't have that great a flow to it, Orton did his best to keep this from being a usual Henry bore-fest. The finish saw both men on the outside and Big Show's music hitting, which distracted Henry and allowed Orton to hit an RKO on the floor and get a countout win. This was just about decent a match, but the segment afterwards was suprisingly better. This saw Henry destroy the technical area and man handle the guy that runs it. This is something that I don't think has been done before and was fun to watch.
Also early on we saw backstage segments with Christian and Teddy Long, Christian did well in these, portraying himself as a whiney heel, desperate for a title shot, the recent turn has benefited Christian greatly.
Next we had Daniel Bryan vs Ted Dibiase, despite me missing the first 3 minutes due to other stuff, this was a pretty good match, as is the usual with Bryan. I've thought that the move to Smackdown was a good thing for Bryan as it emphisises his wrestling aspect. The match ended with Bryan giving Dibiase a front face lock which I thought was strange, I don't mind him using a non-finisher but did it have to be something so minor? Maybe Bryan should've won with a wrist hold?
After that...things got a bit wierd, WWE style. We saw an interview with Rajin Sighn, explainig that the reason Jinder Mahal has control over the Great Khali is because Mahal is married to their sister and will divorce if Khali doesn't follow him. This is a strange, pointless storyline that seems more out of a bollywood soap, surely a better excuse could have been thought up?
Then we got back to what Smackdown does best; wrestling, with Christian vs Sin Cara. The match wasn't as good as the Cara/Bourne match from RAW, there was a bit of a clash in styles due to Christian's age but overall it was a good match. Cara did his usual insane spots and Christian played the reluctant heel well.
After that was a short 'From the vault' match with R-Truth vs Dolph Ziggler, they could've done without this match as it was too short to make an impact.
Next in the present day, we got Ezekiel Jackson vs Cody Rhodes. Jackson is bad to watch, same old moves with little flair. Rhodes kept things enjoyable with the way he sold powermoves (like flying half way across the ring after a hip toss), Rhodes winning was the best thing that could happen here, other than Cody throwing acid in Jackson's face to disfigure him, now that's something Cody should add to his gimmick!
We then had another Johnny Curtis segment, I like these, they remind me of early 90s WWF vignettes such as Mr Perfect's. I thought that this weeks metaphor promo wasn't as good or funny as the previous ones, this week had Curtis 'painting himself into a corner'.
A match between Kane and Wade Barrett took place next and even thought it was good, there's something that bugs me. The fact that this is probably the only match that even slightly built up to the Money in the Bank match, only few of the partisipants were seen tonight and they were only announced briefly via a ppv screen shot. How am I supposed to care about this match if it's barely promoted?
The final segment of the night was a contract signing between Orton and Christian, both men did the usual trash talking with Orton being the machismo badass and Christian being a great heel, saying lines such as; "you know you can't beat me" even though Orton's beaten him 3 times. But the interesting part came when Sheamus returned after a 2 week absence after Orton punted him in the head (Jericho's punted; he's been off for 10 monthes?) and beat up both Orton and Christian, then tore up the contract. I think this is great as it leaves so many questions; is the match nullified? Was that just a taunt? Will Sheamus join the match?
All in all I though that Smackdown was good but not the best that it could be, which is a shame after the cracking RAW this week, but we'll see how things transpire next week.
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