SmackDown kicks off this week with CM Punk coming to the ring to cut a promo. He talks about how everyone accused him of faking an eye injury to get disqualified at The Bash, but says he’s a man of honour who wouldn’t do such a thing. It’s great disingenuous but totally believable heel lying that will come to look fantastic when he turns fully. Punk calls out Hardy to apologise to him for the accusation of faking the injury, but Teddy Long interrupts instead. He announces Jeff gets his rematch at Night Of Champions, but also, tonight Punk and Jeff must team up to face Edge and Jericho in the main event. Hardy interrupted afterwards to say he doesn’t believe Punk, he’ll not apologise, and he’ll beat him at Night Of Champions. The tension between these two is fantastic, and Punk, with the promo time he needed and didn’t get last year, is grasping the opportunity of joining the WWE’s elite with both hands.

The opening match saw Finlay take on Ricky Ortiz. Before the match, Ortiz tried to give Finlay a towel for some reason. They have a short match that saw Finlay sell a back injury for a while before wining with the Celtic Cross. If they can get Finlay over as the tough-as-nails brawler and not the guy who kills time before the Hornswoggle run in then he could become a very valuable addition to the SmackDown roster, as either a babyface or a heel, and work with the likes of Morrison, R-Truth and Ziggler in future to get them on the road to stardom.

Dolph Ziggler is shown warming up backstage for his match with R-Truth, when Maria comes up to him and they do the awkward post-first-date chat where they say they had a great time and want to see each other again. Either they’re placing Maria as the babyface sweet girl with the dickhead guy, a la Elizabeth and Randy Savage, and that was a special dynamic that only worked because it was those two people, or it’s going to be a set-up for Dolph to later dump Maria for one of the heels to add to his act.

Then we get Dolph Ziggler beating R-Truth with some kind of jumping neckbreaker thing in a short match that was really disappointing given that it was presented as throwaway meaningless action when these two should be having a long feud to elevate each other. The crowds really respond to Truth, and Ziggler needs all the help he can get after the Khali feud, which now looks like it has thankfully ran it’s course.

Kane then wrestled Rey Mysterio in a non-title match, and beat him clean with the chokeslam. I don’t know what it is about these two, but something about it just seems wrong for them to be in the ring together at all. I thought that during their feud on RAW, and I feel the same here. And it’s not the size difference, I think Rey v. Big man, or Kane v. Small man are both good dynamics which have been done excellently excellently with different people in the past. They had a decent match, and Rey actually didn’t look bad in losing, as it was competitive and Rey even hit the 619, but when he went for the springboard dive, Kane ducked and when Rey landed he turned into the chokeslam. After the match, Kane tried to continue his attack, but The Great Khali came out with a chair, so Kane (KANE!) ran away through the crowd, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen from him before.

It was then lame backstage segment time as Cryme Tyme and Eve make fun of Jesse doing the Geezy white rapper character again. I was hoping that was a one-time comedy deal but it looks like it’ll be what he does all the time from now on. And he’s actually being acknowledged on camera as a whiteboy try-hard wannabe, so it’s not like he’s going to turn it around and be the next John Cena here.

Up next Chris Jericho and Edge cut a promo that started with Jericho gloating about Rey losing to Kane, and then they talked about how great they are, and how they’ll prove it once again in the main event.

Next was The Hart Dynasty’s SmackDown debut, as they faced Cryme Tyme. Cryme Tyme got the win as one of them did some kind of sweep the leg and fall forwards thing on David Hart Smith, but it was definitely presented as an even match where the experienced team got the win but it could’ve gone either way, unlike the Finlay/Ortiz match earlier when the vibe you got from watching and from how Ross and Grisham played it up was that Finlay is clearly the better man. I’ve no problems with this feud continuing, although I’d have Eve appear at ringside to counter Natalya, but I guess that’ll wait until a match where Natalya gets physically involved.

Michelle McCool and Layla v. Melina and Maria was next, and Melina pinned Layla with the splits legdrop. This match annoyed the hell out of me, just because everybody screamed so damn much. On offense – scream. Selling – scream. Making a tag – scream. SHUT THE FUCK UP. They’re setting up Melina-McCool II as that’s basically the only match this whole division has.

Then we got the facepalm moment of the night as John Morrison and Teddy Long were singing lines from Michael Jackson songs in Teddy’s office. Maybe next week some midcard heel will say Jacko’s really in hell to get a title shot and some heat.

The main event of Jericho and Edge v. Hardy and Punk was another excellent SmackDown main. The story of the match was obviously whether or not Punk and Hardy were going to be able to coexist, and at the start there didn’t seem to be many problems, reluctance to tag aside, they dominated and Punk even went down on all fours so he could play Matt for the Poetry In Motion. Then when they came back from commercials Punk was in the corner clutching his eye injury, and walking away from the corner to sell it every time Jeff went near him. Eventually Jeff made the tag, and Punk ran wild, but when he went to tag Jeff back in, Jeff grabbed at his eye, screamed in pain and fell off the apron even though nothing had happened. That is a great spot, because the fans will just see it as Jeff giving Punk a taste of his own medicine and Punk can use it as ammunition against the fans when he goes full-blown heel. Punk hit the Go To Sleep on Jericho, but didn’t see Edge blind tag himself in, and therefore turned into a spear for the pinfall. Afterwards, Hardy is still selling the eye, until he gets to the top of the ramp and reveals it was all a ruse. Punk had this great pissed off indignation on his face as the show went off the air.

CM Punk has been fantastic ever since he cashed in Money In the Bank, and it’s so great to see him live up to all the potential he showed in his ROH days, and deliver these great promos, this great character work, and these superb facials, backed up with good matches, on an international stage for the largest company in the world. Long may it continue.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com