WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 6th June 2008

After the Smackdown main event stole the show at One Night Stand it was about time that Smackdown started winning the war of the brands. As Raw is currently experiencing its worst ratings in some time can Smackdown pick up the slack and show thm how it’s done.

Good Points

Lots of non wrestling segments

Finally the Samckdown team have got the balance right between matches and non wrestling segments. The show felt like an entertainment show and not a wrestling show which is what Smackdown needs to be. If they can continue with this balance they are on to a winner.

Two long term storylines put in place

Batista is the new challenger for Edge as after Edge set him what he thought was an impossible task which was to beat The Familia in an eight man tag team match but with Edge and Vickie picking Batista’s partners. Batista and his team of Funaki, Nunzio and Colin Delaney got the win and provided an entertaining main event. On a weekly TV show your job isn’t to put on five star matches but to entertain which I think this match did. The other long term storyline is the planned wedding between Edge and Vickie which got announced at the top of the show, the wedding is going to happen on smackdown.

Women’s division on Smackdown finally gets some direction

After years of just being there for decoration and pointless matches they finally have their own Smackdown only women’s championship entitle the Divas Championship. There is now a good group of female wrestlers on Smackdown and it’s great to see them getting a championship. Natalya won the Golden Dream match to win a place in the first title match, we still wait to see who her opponent will be.

Bad Points

Kozlov

Having Kozlov win squash matches for over two months is not entertaining. They have to do something with him soon and actually integrate him in to a proper storyline.

The Jimmy Kimmel experience

Having a match on Samckdown with on of the cast called Cousin Sal against Raw wrestler Santino Marella made no sense. If they were going to have a match with one of Jimmy’s crew they should have saved it for a filler on a PPV.

Overall

Superb, best Smackdown I have seen in some time. The show was well paced and had lots going on. Smackdown went from being the wrestling show to the entertainment show which it needed to do. Top marks.

WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 11th April 2008

After delivering in spades last week with a great show I was wondering if Smackdown could keep that momentum going until Backlash. I knew Smackdown had to an off day soon as shows on the whole have been a lot better lately but was hoping this wouldn’t be the one.

Good Points

Batista / HBK feud

Finally the writing team are moving the feud away from them arguing over Ric Flair and no we are moving on to their own reasons to dislike each other. We also finally almost got to a physical confrontation between after Batista ducked out of Sweet Chin Music and HBK slipped out of the Batista Bomb.

Natalya Neidhart

Natalya got her first formal introduction on Smackdown after last week appearing as a mystery Diva. Yes all you long time wrestling fans will know her as daughter of Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart a star of the 80s and 90s in the then WWF. Natalya or Nattie as some may know her as gave a great promo and teaming with Victoria has a great feud going with Michelle McCool.

Big Show

Big Show is doing the best he can with a terrible opponent in Khali. As long as they keep their proper wrestling matches o a minimum and concentrate on segments like the opening segment of Smackdown where the Big Show interrupted a Punjabi Peace Offering seremony as delivered a knock out punch to Khali which was a nice way to link in Big Show’s previous feud with Mayweather.

Bad Points

Push for Festus

You know Smackdown has problems when we have Festus in the main event. The WWE are really getting behind a big push for him at the moment. Now I’m all for slingshotting talent and seeing what happens but I don’t agree with this move for Festus who has yet to be involved any big tag feuds with his tag partner Jesse let alone singles feuds. I will give WWE credit though for making him look strong in the main event and I know the WWE likes to push big guys so this probably isn’t the last we have hard of Festus.

Use of Edge

If having Festus in the main event wasn’t bad enough this week the only involvement Edge had in the show was two pre-recorded segments of Edge and Vickie at a hotel getting massages and enjoying a hotel room. If you are only going to use Edge in pre-recorded segments you need to build it in to many segments as an on going them for the night.

Vladimir Kozlov

It’s the second week of Vladimir’s push on Smackdown an I am already bored, beating no name wrestlers in squash matches may have worked in the 80s but it has no place in the modern era. With no mic time o out of ring segments how are we suppose to get on board with this storyline.

Overall

A waste of two hours of television. From top to the bottom there was little of interest and the good points I talked about earlier were only good points in comparison to the terrible nature of the show. The creative team need to buck their ideas up if they are going to get the viewing ratings up.