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.

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.

WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 7th March 2008

My expectations weren’t that high leading in to Smackdown this week after last week’s average showing but I was hoping they could put on a better showing than last week.

Jamie Noble getting a push

I am big fan of Noble and loved his backstage stuff and mic work when he first joined the WWE back many years ago when he had Nidia by his side and I also loved his in ring work whilst he was out of the WWE working for promotions like RoH. This week on Smackdown he got two backstage segments which were highly comical and then got the chance to fight Big Show in the development of on of the biggest mania matches. I hope the WWe continue to use Noble a lot better. I don’t think Noble vs. Palumbo is strong enough to be on Mania but I would definitely throw Noble in to the mix for ‘Money in the Bank.’

Batista made to look weak

After booking Batista way down the card for Mania in a strange turn of events this week they had him losing by a very weak count out finish to MVP who doesn’t have a match on Mania yet. I don’t understand the logic of having Batista lose like that when they should be building him as the top star to represent Smackdown. Again I start to wonder who he has annoyed backstage.

Why are they pushing Festus?

Festus continued his push this week getting the win for his team against the Smackdown Tag champs and the ECW champ. Out of all the guys to push in that match Festus wasn’t the one. I find the angle very cringe worthy and I don’t think it has any place in pro wrestling, the sooner it’s dropped the better.

Use of female talent

WWE needs to look at what TNA are doing right now with their Knockouts division. The women could play such a better and bigger part of the WWE and not used for throwaway segments and as part of the show which isn’t suitable for the WWE core audience who regardless of how they try to kid is the 5 – 12 age range.

Edge

Edge started the show strong with a great promo which when he mentioned about ending Undertaker’s Wrestlemania legacy there was a big pop is Edge going to eventually be the heel people love to cheer? I didn’t quite understand the point of him bringing Ric Flair on to the show to interview and then setting up a match between himself and Ric for next week’s Smackdown. Smackdown ended with much of the same as last week but this time it was an official 3 on 1 match with Edge and his two look-alikes battling the Undertaker. Again Edge let his two cronies take the beating to then spear Undertaker to get the win and then get out of there. The WWE needs to do something different with Edge and Undertaker as this is quickly getting boring.

WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 29th February 2008

After a well booked Smackdown last week I was looking forward to what the Smackdown creative team and performers had install for us this week. However this excitement didn’t last for long.

Too many big guys

Now last week I talked about Smackdown being heavy of wrestlers around the 300 pound mark or higher but this week it was evident. Now if you have too many big guys the answers is not to put them all in to two matches. First we had Kane & Batista vs. Khali & MVP and then we had Balls Mahoney vs. Big daddy V. Luckily the latter didn’t last long. There is a place on a wrestling show for big guys but they need to be used well and not all booked together.

Slow developing feuds

Now the idea of having a weekly TV show is to develop storylines ready for the next PPV. I know it’s harder at the moment as there are more episodes between No Way Out and Wrestlemania than normal PPV’s but to keep a viewers interest you can’t have a feud treading water. The feud which is suffering at the moment was Chuck Palumbo and Jamies Noble as they had a match which Chuck won but nothing happened in the match to develop the feud so it was a waste of time.

Who has Batista annoyed?

After being in the main event scene for as long as I can remember Batista has now confirmed that he is going to be representing Smackdown in the inter-promotional match at Wrestlemania. With the two title fights, Big Show / Mayweather, Money in the Bank and Falir’s retirement match this match isn’t even on the main event radar. The only good thing for Batista is that this feud could mean him going to Raw shows and Umaga the Raw representative coming to Smackdown shows which will lead to more TV time for Batista.

Larger than life storylines

For me Smackdown has always been a product more designed for young people than Raw with more larger than life characters and storylines. This is why the WWE are trying out the tag team of Jesse and Festus in Smackdown but I for one am not a big fan. Eugene had a similar storyline and he made it work as he endeared himself to the fans but for me Festus is used as a character just to poke fun at which I don’t think is right or fits with the fans base.

The Edge / Undertaker feud

I think the Smackdown creative team are doing a good job with this on the whole. As a great heel Edge will keep on putting stumbling blocks in Undertaker’s way and Undertaker being the face will keep knocking them down. This week it was time for Zack Ryder to be used as a pawn and just as it looked like Undertaker would get his hands on Edge he fled leaving his minions to take a beating. The only thing I would watch if I were the creative team was giving the Undertaker too much mic time as with Edge being such a great talker I think the feud works best if Undertaker lets his actions speak louder than words. The other thing is to not build Edge’s minions as I thought Undertaker’s match with Zack Ryder should have been a match to show Undertaker’s dominance not to build Zack Ryder which it did.

Overall I thought it was a solid show but there wasn’t enough storyline development for my liking.