WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 21st March 2008

So Friday brought the 2nd to last Smackdown before Mania and a much needed time for them to impress the audience at home as we get closer to Wrestlemania. Here are my thoughts on the good and bad points of this weeks show.

Good Points

The VIP Lounge

Hands down the best part of this weeks show. MVP really raised his game on the mic as he and Jericho took it in turn to poke fun at each other. This is great solid common sense booking by the creative team to build a feud within the ‘Money in the Bank’ match and having the host of ‘The Highlight Reel’ feud with the host of the ‘The VIP Lounge.’ WWE just need to be careful not to forget about the other guys in MITB because if they aren’t spotlighted then the fans are going to think they are just to make up the numbers which may be true but for an entertaining match the fans need to believe that they all have a chance of winning.

Creative direction with Edge

After week upon week of running from the Undertaker and throwing obstacles in his way it was good to see a change of pace with Edge as he didn’t run this week. This week he laid a beating to the Undertaker with the help of his cronies. It will be very interesting to see what thy do next week as they need to b careful not to make the Undertaker look to weak which they are dangerously close to doing but at the same time they can’t afford for Edge to look weak going against such a big star.

Bad Points

Not enough out of ring segments

Smackdown started with a match and then until we got to the VIP Lounge it was pretty much just match after match with little in the way of linking segments. Now yes Smackdown needs to be different to Raw and be the so called ‘Wrestling Show’ but on an entertainment network you need all the backstage and linking segments. The first hour was very much like how wrestling use to be in the 70s and the 80s. Especially with Wrestlemania coming up it didn’t help get us excited for the big one.

No storyline development

Batista and Big Show both looked strong with wins in handicap matches but to both being pushed in the same way on the same show made it look like the writers were short on ideas. This wasn’t the main problem though as the main problems was that the matches didn’t develop their respective storylines. These were matches they should have been working weeks ago not two weeks away from Mania. This was the same with Edge’s match with Funaki but at least he used the Undertaker Tombstone finisher and got involved in his match later on.

The return of Jesse and Festus

Again the tag team scene continues on its downward spiral as the team that makes Cody Rhodes and Bob Holly seem entertaining come back and straight in to a tag title match. And why were they straight in to a tag title match yes that’s right because the only other tag team was getting buried at the hands of Batista.

Overall

Besides a couple of great bits this was wrestling how it use to be slow, boring and stale. This was a show that didn’t fit in the modern entertainment era of wrestling.