WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 14th March 2008

We are starting to get the business end now with two weeks to go until the biggest show of the year. This is the time for tight well planned out TV shows and shows which entertain the casual fans in order to get as many people talking about it and buying the PPV a possible. So did Smackdown do its job this week in getting us ready for Mania.

Poor Start

Many people will say that the main events and the endings of weekly wrestling shows that are the most important thing but I disagree to me the opening segment of a show is the most important. Unless you are channel surfing the only way you are going to watch the main event is if the opening of the show hooks you. It may be very formulaic but I enjoy seeing a non wrestling segment opening a show to set the scene for the rest of the show. If a show starts with a match which has nothing to do with the rest of the card and if that match is not interesting you are going to be watching with nothing to look forward to and not enjoying what you are currently watching so you are going to switch over. So opening up with a divas segment which had nothing to do with the rest of the card or wasn’t built the previous week on Smackdown was not the right idea.

Building Big Show

They are doing well at building the Big Show as an unbeatable monster this time having him win a handicap match in under five minutes. The problem is now that they are building the Big Show as that unbeatable do we really believe Mayweather can beat him?

Morrison in ‘Money in the Bank’

In a match that made no sense pitting the tag champs against each other Morrison beat The Miz to win a spot in ‘Money in the Bank.’ The match was good for wrestling quality but made no sense, saying this though I am glad to see Morrison in the ‘Money in the Bank’ you know he isn’t going to win it but he could definitely add something to the match. This match just showed you how bad the tag team scene is at the moment in the WWE. The Tag Belts, the US belt and the Intercontinental belt do not change hands often enough for my liking and the reason there are long title reigns for the these belts is that talent is so thin on the ground.

Great Finlay promo

Promo’s in my opinion are just as important as matches for telling storylines and a great promo can really take a feud to another level. Finlay’s promo about Hornswoggle and the JBL situation was superb and should be a lesson for the younger guys in the business on how to cut a promo.

Batista vs. MVP

After being my least favourite match in recent history on Smackdown I wasn’t looking forward to seeing this again. Thankfully the match was a lot better this time and the ending was great with Umaga coming in to set up a win for MVP which gave him a push before ‘Money in the Bank’ and helped develop the feud between Umaga and Batista.

Great main event

If I wasn’t a wrestling fan I may have missed this main event as I would have turned off after the first five minutes. Going back to what I was saying earlier it don’t matter how great a main event is if nobody is watching it’s meaningless. The main event pitted HBK and Flair vs. Edge his two cronies and Chavo Guerrero in a steel cage. The action was great and the ending was superb with the lights going off and Undertaker appearing in the ring causing Edge to once again flee the scene but this time in the process winning the match. The only problem I have is with the HBK / Flair set up for their match. As HBK is inducting Ric Flair in to the Hall of Fame the night before you know they are going to continue to be buddy, buddy up until the match so there is no real excitement of it they are going to fall out or not.

Overall

The show was a good episode of Smackdown. The creative team just need to be careful to make sure that Raw guys don’t get too much time and attention in a Smackdown main event which they managed to do this time but it is a very thin line. This week I enjoyed Smackdonw a lot more than Raw and was happy not to see Jesse or Festus.