After the draft, I am very excited to be watching SmackDown. As far as I can see it, as far as people of importance, SmackDown has kept Edge, The Undertaker and Jeff Hardy, who are all awesome. They’ve lost Triple H, The Big Show, Vladimir Kozlov and Matt Hardy. Finally they’ve gained Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, CM Punk and John Morrison. That gives SmackDown the makings of a potentially fantastic show, with exciting young guys as well as established main eventers in just the right mix to keep things interesting over the next however long it is until WWE run out of ideas when Bonnie Hammer has Vince McMahon by the grapefruits and demands another 3-hour RAW. The new opening titles reflect this roster change, and I’m really excited for this show.

Jeff Hardy comes out for the opening match, while clips are shown of last week’s Matt Hardy v. Jeff Hardy stretcher match. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT? His opponent is The Big Show. And while I like Show, and this match was really good David v. Goliath stuff, with Show an excellent dominant monster while Jeff sold his ass off and is incredibly popular so the crowd were into it. And while his selling of a beating is top-notch, he follows the Ricky Steamboat rule of always showing some life so the crowd always has hope that he can make the comeback, so every time Show cuts him off the crowd are further deflated. Sometimes this pro wrestling stuff is simpler than people make it out to be, folks. The crowd were still with them for Jeff’s comeback, because these are two great pro wrestlers doing pro wrestling, and then Matt Hardy (FROM FUCKING RAW, WHAT BRAND SPLIT?) showed up at ringside, only to be wiped out by a Jeff dive. Back in the ring, Show blocked the Whisper In The Wind and was able to take out a weakened Jeff with the knockout punch for the win. Post-match, with Jeff laying there knocked out, Matt delivered several legdrops to his unconscious brother. That’s a brilliant dick heel move, and JR talked about how glad he is that Matt got drafted to RAW. OK WHY THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MATTER, TONIGHT HAS ESTABLISHED HE CAN JUST ROCK UP TO SMACKDOWN ANYTIME HE FUCKING WANTS ANYWAY.

Ranjin Singh and The Great Khali (with AWESOME new red wrestling tights) are out for THE KHALI KISS CAM~! But before we start, Ranjin Singh talks about how beautiful Santina is and how Khali can’t wait to kiss her next week. That will be so great. They of course pick a woman from the crowd and Khali kisses her. The woman says the kiss was great, Khali talks in Khalese, then Ranjin translates by saying the girl was fine but only Santina holds the key to his giant heart.

So far we’ve had a big monster v. small underdog match and a bad comedy skit.

SmackDown is everything that pro wrestling is all about basically.

Maryse is out for the next match. Can’t believe that’s ever going to be something to complain about but MARYSE IS ON RAW NOW. CAN’T BELIEVE ANYONE COULD POSSIBLY GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE DRAFT NOW. Her opponent is Gail Kim. So essentially on the first week after the draft we’re already doing interpromotional matches. We should be fucking saving that shit for WrestleMania next year. Maryse needs to work with Mickie James and Beth Phoenix, like, FOREVER on RAW because she’s got the character-playing absolutely perfect and if she got better in the ring she could carry the women’s division. Maryse dominated with heel greatness and mocking, then Kim hit some kind of “grab the arm and stretch your leg” thing which the announcers said was a kick to the head out of nowhere for the win. So not only is the Divas Champion coming to SmackDown when she’s on RAW, she’s doing a clean job to a SmackDown girl, and now they’re on different shows. I wonder how Gail will solve that problem? Maybe by JUST TURNING UP ON RAW LIKE MARYSE DID HERE FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

YOU CAN GET WITH THIS. OR YOU CAN GET WITH THAT. YOU BETTER GET WITH THIS COS THIS IS WHERE IT’S AT. Yes, the next match involved The Undertaker. Just kidding, it involved R-Truth, taking on a debuting John Morrison. Wow, two SmackDown guys wrestling each other on SmackDown? OK I guess this show was taped before the supplemental draft, so given how the rest of the show panned out I assume keeping Morrison on ECW or perhaps even moving him to RAW was the original plan. That’s the only possible explanation given the rest of this show. JR and Grisham open the match by saying how great it will be to have Morrison on this show now. OK I’m sure he’s been on this show every week since forever anyway but I guess that’s fine. To be fair this match wasn’t great, Morrison knows how to take bumps and throw together flashy spots, the best thing for him would be a Rey Mysterio feud over the InterContinental title where he can do that stuff and use it at the right moments to put great matches together. Morrison gets the win clean with the Moonlight Drive, with the commentators clearly putting him over as a potential star of the future.

TRIPLE H’s FUCKING MUSIC HITS. FUCK OFF. I thought we’d got rid of this guy when he got drafted to Raw but apparently not. There are two stools in the ring so I guess we’re going to have some kind of talking segment. I HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD THEY COUNSEL ME THEY UNDERSTAND THEY TALK TO ME~! OK he may have the most awesome theme music in the WWE but again RANDY ORTON IS ON RAW. Unlike HHH, he’s not even a SmackDown guy that’s just been drafted, he’s been on RAW since 2006. Wait, the music stops. Now Orton is on the screen saying he’s not jeopardising Backlash by fighting HHH now. Of course, the main event of next week’s RAW is HHH v. Orton, so that kind of buries his point. Orton even covers that, saying “you won’t go 5 minutes without blowing yourself up and getting DQ’d!” HHH smirks sarcastically so Orton asks if it was funny when he beat up and kissed his wife. Orton the smarmy asshole heel is so awesome. Orton asks if he thinks about that kiss when he and Stephanie are kissing. HHH is still laughing and no-selling this, and says he’s fine because Monday’s match is no-DQ so Orton can’t hide behind stipulations, and HHH is going to finish things on RAW. I can’t believe Orton is so great and HHH is cutting his legs out from under him AGAIN. Orton needs the title at Backlash, and to kick HHH in the head so he goes all loopy and thinks it’s DX reunion time again.

Teddy Long and Matt Hardy are backstage, and Teddy announces that the Board of Directors (has it ever been explained just who these people are and why they can overrule the GMs) have made Jeff Hardy v. Matt Hardy an I Quit match at Backlash. Matt says he’s going to make Jeff say “I Quit” and disappoint his fans once again.

Shelton Benjamin is in the ring to face The Undertaker. So Taker has two TV matches in two days, after facing Matt on the Superstars debut show. I love Undertaker, but seriously the guy is 43 years old and should be a special attraction guy, but the problem is that he’s so great, as evidenced by the really good match he has here, that it must be extremely tempting to put him on as many shows as possible. Shelton works Taker’s neck over, with a simple story told, after of course Taker nearly killed himself on the camera man spot in his ***** classic against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania. And for all the pushes Shelton has had over the years, simply having competitive matches with great wrestlers like Taker makes him look better than anything else he’s done ever. Of course he gets cocky and tries to tombstone Taker, who reverses it for the win, in basically his only offence of the entire match. It’s like Lance Storm wrote elsewhere on the internet today, sometimes the best way to get over is actually to lose against big stars in great matches, and that’s what happened here. Now it’s down to Shelton to follow up on this, because he won’t be facing workers of Taker’s quality who are in as giving a mood as Taker was here ever day, because, and this is a big statement, right now The Undertaker is the best wrestler in the world.

Teddy Long and MVP (RAW guy) are backstage talking about some talk show host from some show in America I’ve never heard of.

RAW’s MVP wrestles Dolph Ziggler. I don’t even care about this draft crap anymore. But all it does – assuming they’re going to keep to the split brands after this show – is make this match worthless, because it’s a one and done deal that’s not going to lead to any long term angle between the two, and when the buildup is a Gabe Sapolsky Special (two guys thrown on the card having a match for no reason other than “they’re having a match”) it’s impossible to care about this. Ziggler got the win by holding the tights. OK so he’s cheated and beaten the US Champion. But MVP is now a RAW guy (going into that brand with a loss to DOLPH ZIGGLER of all people), and Dolph can’t get a rematch because he’s on SmackDown. Unless he just shows up on RAW for no reason as has been established can happen tonight. Ziggler gets on the mic afterwards and says that his name is Dolph Ziggler. I thought one generic steroided up idiot with bleach blond hair whose only talent is saying his own name would be more than enough fore the WWE but apparently not.

JR and Grisham run through the Backlash card. The match I’m looking forward to least is the WWE Title match and I’m sure it’s not supposed to be that way.

BATISTA is out for the main event. OK this whole show has to be a fucking rib. It’s not even Batista’s goodbye to SmackDown, he left the brand a fucking YEAR ago. And his opponent is TED DIBIASE. OH FUCK OFF. He’s NEVER been a SmackDown guy. If we’re throwing out non-SmackDown guys it’s really fucking pointless that we don’t get Jericho or Rey or Punk making their debuts/returns after being drafted here, not to mention leaving Edge, who is not only a SmackDown guy but is also challenging for the World Title at the next PPV, off the show completely. They work a really boring match with Batista looking like he came back from injury way too fucking early, really clunky in the ring and not moving well at all. Batista got a clean win with the Batista Bomb.

Good show, but the major events of the week took place on RAW. Apparently there was a draft?

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com