The first SmackDown of 2009 starts with Vickie Guerrero making the announcement that Edge v. Jeff Hardy will be the WWE Title match at the Royal Rumble. It should be the main event for WrestleMania but for all the WWE’s talk of how they listen to “the great fans of the WWE Universe” - the fact is they don’t. At least not when it comes to doing something that might take HHH out of the WrestleMania main event.

Vickie then promises to reveal the SmackDown brand entrants into the Royal Rumble match, which brings out HHH to make fat jokes. And some more fat jokes. And put himself over. And some more fat jokes.

A video package is shown hyping the return of YOUMANGA. I can’t wait for that, and have wanted him to feud with Undertaker for a long time now. Maybe a run-in during the Royal Rumble match would be the best place for it.

Apparently The Great Khali and Finlay are a tag team now. Hey if Finlay is going to be doing most of the in-ring work maybe Khali’s matches will be slightly watchable from now on. They win a glorified squash against Hawkins and Ryder, and to be honest if this is all WWE are going to do with the former Edgeheads they may as well release them.

Michelle McCool cut a promo where she blamed Maria for screwing up her title match with Maryse last week, and gives bitchy comments towards interview girl.

Up next is another tag team match as The Brian Kendrick and Ezekiel Jackson beat Jesse and Festus. I liked this but the crowd heat was not there, I think in that sense Jesse and Festus have been hurt by being made to look like fools by Miz and Morrison over the last several weeks. Not that that’s a mistake mind you, if you’re going to be putting over one of those teams they definitely got it right. They kept Zeke out of the ring for the majority of the match, only blind tagging in to hit a few power moves then getting out, and won the match by blind-tagging himself in and taking down Jesse with the standing Rock Bottom.

Hurricane Helms’ big return is derailed even more as he gets beaten by Kozlov. This is why you should have TV jobbers and shit. However I did think that countering the shining wizard with the headbutt was a cool spot that you really have to see because having it written down here doesn’t do it justice.

Jim Ross is out to announce some of the SmackDown Royal Rumble participants. This leads to Shelton Benjamin cutting a promo about how he’s “the odds-on-favourite.” For what, the first elimination? Anyway, the lights go out, Undertaker’s voice booms out that JR forgot somebody, and when the lights are back on, he’s in the ring and chokeslams Shelton. Cool segment.

Michelle McCool comes to the ring, and says since Maria is not there she wants to apologise to interview girl, who I find out is named Eve. Don’t expect me to remember that by next week. It’s straight out of January 1998 Chris Jericho as she does this insincere apology which the dumb babyface falls for, then turns on Eve, throwing her into the barricade on the floor and beating the shit out of her.

Vickie is backstage, and after HHH makes some more fat jokes, Vickie books him in THREE MATCHES next week. I’d forgot that was next week and actually thought from the spoilers that it was last night. I wish it was, I now have a week to wait for that crap.

MVP’s losing streak continues against the debuting Kizarny. In his prematch promo, MVP acknowledged that he’s a loser. It’s such a shame to see how far the guy has fallen out of favour in the last year or so, as he’s clearly talented and over (the live crowd definitely wanted him to win this match and didn’t care at all for Kizarny), and it seems like they’re throwing money away. Kizarny didn’t look great before hitting a Mankind-style DDT to win. After the match, Mr Kennedy comes out to plug his DVD and mock MVP for being a loser.

The main event of the show saw The Hardyz - by FAR the most over babyfaces on the entire show to the point where you think they may have transplanted a different crowd in for this main event - beating Edge and Big Show in a good long tag match. The story was that they got the heat on Matt, building for Jeff making the hot tag, and while Jeff is the bigger star he is so good at getting babyface sympathy that it still seems weird that they don’t get the heat on him. The story here was that Big Show walked out on Edge towards the end - well he’s been a heel a good few months now he’s probably due for the millionth turn of his career - which allowed the Hardyz to hit their trademark spots ending with Matt hitting the Twist Of Fate and Jeff hitting the Swanton for the win. Good formula tag that proved that The Hardyz are still the best tag team in the world when they team up, and if they weren’t such big stars in singles now - especially Jeff - I’d be wanting them to feud with Miz and Morrison for the next year.

Overall there were some interesting things on this show, but the WWE are just entering their peak time of year as we head on the road to WrestleMania, and they haven’t kicked things into gear yet as far as making every show can’t miss. Hopefully that will start at the next set of tapings.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com