The 10th Anniversary of SmackDown is a perfect excuse for the WWE to release a DVD set, as they did last year when RAW reached it’s 15th year.  And while the RAW set took a chronological look at big moments and matches from company history, this set has a top 100 moments countdown list, in the same vein as those done by Channel 4 over here in the UK for all manner of things in that they show highlights of the clip they’re showcasing, with various number of WWE talking heads adding their comments.

The DVD is hosted by Michael Cole and Matt Striker who do occasional links for certain segments, including an opening introduction that talks about how the word “smackdown” is now in the dictionary – which is quite amazing when you think about it, and consider how often you hear the word in real life, i.e. never in my experience.

Anyway, let’s crack on with the countdown.

#100 is taken from April 18th 2005, and is John Cena debuting the spinner WWE Title.  William Regal makes me laugh for the first of many times during this set, describing his reaction as “A spinner belt for the World Championship?!?! Cena’s gone bloody mental.”  The belt is something of a sore point for a lot of traditionalist wrestling fans just because it doesn’t look like a wrestling title belt is supposed to look, but it makes the WWE a ton of money, and is a belt easily identifiable with the top star of the era, like the smoking skull belt was for Steve Austin.  And anyway, people like Edge and Jeff Hardy have held this belt before, and really not looked too out of place, given they are also young and hip characters of the time.  I can’t picture Ric Flair or Bruno Sammartino or Lou Thesz holding a spinning bling bling belt, but firstly it doesn’t even spin anymore, and secondly those guys wouldn’t be holding this belt anyway.

#99 is from October 31st 2002.  Yes, a Halloween episode. Stephanie McMahon is dressed as a witch, and Eric Bischoff is dressed in a Vince McMahon mask.  He takes off the mask and kisses Steph.  This was during the time when Steph was the GM of SmackDown and Bischoff held that role on RAW, during a time where they were raiding talent from each other and people jumped from show to show with an actual explanation instead of just randomly showing up, or sticking around on a show they’ve been drafted away from with no explanation.  Anyway, Steph fought off the kiss at first, but then seemed to enjoy it.  I’m actually quite surprised the WWE included this moment on the set, because it was NEVER followed up on, and that stands out as one of the most glaring mistakes of the decade.  Bischoff and Steph as a heelish power couple running both shows had potential I think.

#98 is a moment I have literally no recollection of, but Michael Hayes and Matt Hardy really put it over as a huge deal.  From July 10th 2003, Brock Lesnar is going for an F-5 on Big Show from the ring steps through the announce table, but Show blocks it and chokeslams Brock through the table.  Ok then.  Don’t get why this was such a major moment or a big deal at all.  If Brock had managed to F-5 Show through a table that would’ve ruled, but we’ve seen chokeslams through tables loads of times by several different people. Whatever.

#97 is a great mark-out moment for me, as it’s a recollection of all the Thanksgiving food fights that were an annual tradition of the show in the days that SmackDown aired on Thursday nights.  They were always completely fucking awesome, in a way that TNA with it’s turkey suit on a pole or whatever bullshit they come up with just doesn’t work – and it’s enough just by itself to make me wish SmackDown moved back to Thursday nights again.  These were great to watch one more time.

#96 sees the first full match of the DVD set, as The Undertaker faces Randy Orton on September 16th 2005.  This is the match where the key spot was Bob Orton bringing a coffin out to ringside, and Taker got spooked when he opened the lid and, by virtue of some quick camera switches from live to pre-recorded shots and back again, saw himself lying in the coffin.  That was weird, but the overly supernatural stuff, like Randy Orton hallucinating his dad being covered in a shitload of blood, but in a way where the viewers could see it as well, was a big part of this feud.

In the ring, you can really see the strides that Orton has made in recent years in terms of his heel character.  The sadistic viper vibe he gives off now is not in evidence at all here, he’s much more just a generic bad guy.  This was also around the time of Taker adding more MMA-influenced stuff to his work, but the crowd hadn’t really learned to respond to it yet, so Taker working Orton’s arm over like a lost Anderson brother to lead to armbar submissions didn’t get over as it would today.  Still, these two had good chemistry together, and could probably do even better as opponents today. 

#95 is Matt Hardy’s Matt Hardy Version 1.0 character, complete with Shannon Moore as his MFer (that’s Mattitude Follower for any newer fans).  Everyone puts over the Matt Facts, and several are shown including “Mattitude is considered Sacred in Japan” and “Matt likes orange juice with pulp.”  My personal favourites from back then were some of the digs at Jeff, such as “Matt was the star of the Hardy Boyz book” when that came out.

#94 is the closing segment of the show on September 23rd 2004, as Kurt Angle hit The Big Show with an elephant tranquilizer dart, and once Show collapsed, Angle shaved his head.  Show says it hurt like hell, and a bunch of people, including the fantastically entertaining Todd Grisham mock Show by doing the slow talking like you’d get in movies to sell people slipping out of consciousness.  This fucking RULED.

#93 is the September 9th 2005 steel cage match between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio.  This is great, as you’d expect from arguably the two most perfect opponents for each other in the history of pro wrestling, and yes I understand what a big statement that is.

Eddie’s heel character in this year was fantastic, from his mannerisms, to his over the top promos, to his character’s increasing sense of desperation at failing to beat Rey so he’d get more and more vicious and evil with every loss, and Rey of course is your traditional perfect babyface so they match up perfectly.  It’s testament to how good these guys were that they’re working a match where the gimmick takes away a lot of their trademark spots such as the 619, dives to the outside, and springboards from the outside into the ring, and they worked around that, used the traditional cage match spots such as climbing and escape teases, and just worked them better than just about anyone could possibly do.

The ending, with Rey missing a crossbody from the top of the cage and crashing to the mat in pain, allowing Eddie to walk out the door, but he instead went back in and hit the frogsplash for the pin just to be a dick, was absolutely glorious.

#92 is Hulk Hogan coming back as Mr. America.  This was a fun gimmick that might have worked with somebody a bit lesser known, but Vince McMahon going mental and being “unable” to prove that the guy in the mask was HULK HOGAN, like it was some mystery, was way too far-fetched, and the sarcastic comments of the likes of CM Punk and Santino Marella really hammer that home.

#91 is Vince McMahon trying to join in with Stone Cold Steve Austin’s guitar playing, doing some shit about “the old Stone Cold is back” so Austin took his guitar and hit Vince over the head with it.  WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT?!? If we’re doing 2001 top heels playing guitar on SmackDown, I fucking want to see KURT ANGLE DOING JIMMY CRACK CORN AND I DON’T CARE, I GOT OLYMPIC GOLD, followed by Austin telling him he’s horrible and telling Debra to tell Kurt he’s great cos he spent a lot of money on “gee-tar lessons” not this Vince bullshit.  That had better be coming further in this countdown for fuck sake.

#90 is Edge mocking Kurt Angle.  Firstly by showing Kurt a bunch of pictures that had stuff written on the back (so the cameras could see it) like “I do suck” “It’s True” and so on.  Then we get Edge presenting Kurt’s new t-shirt, which had “You Suck” on the front.  Kurt predictably flipped out, which led to the fans chanting “You Suck” at Kurt, which then became a chant they’d do to the beat of his entrance music, and I speak from personal experience when I say that is tons of fun to do to Kurt at live shows and watch him flip out, and is one thing I miss about him in TNA.  Damn you Jim Johnston for writing such catchy themes.

#89 is from December 30th 1999, as Chris Jericho faces Chyna for the Intercontinental Title.  It really sucks that in Jericho the WWE had this hot new young heel who left WCW and everyone had such high hopes for, and his first feud was with a top star’s girlfriend and he had to sell for her and treat her as an equal opponent.  I remember actually not minding their matches at the time, but looking back you really see how ridiculous it is.  And I’m hoping WWE haven’t watched this DVD and gone “ya know what? I think we should bring in Bryan Danielson and have his first feud be with Michelle McCool.”  This is the match with the double pin finish as Jericho back suplexed Chyna, but they landed on a chair and were both knocked out, and two referees counted pins, one for each participant, leading to them being co-holders of the InterContinental Title for a while, which sucked.

#88 is Kurt Angle breaking Bob Holly’s arm with a moonsault.  I have literally no idea what to say about this being included. 

#87 is the events of the go home show for No Way Out 2000, when Cactus Jack put his career on the line against Triple H.  Hunter and Stephanie had Cactus arrested, and put in a cage throughout the show.  Stephanie pretending to feed him pizza and Hunter wanting to poke him with a stick like he’s an animal was hilarious.  Then at the end, they reveal that they’d tied the cage to the DX Express bus, and dragged him out of the arena.  That was great.

#86 is the return of Piper’s Pit for a short run in 2003.  Matt Striker does a dead-on Piper impersonation, and for such a weird character as Piper that’s quite difficult to do, and clips are shown of him mocking Vince McMahon for the XFL being a failure, and recreating the famous Jimmy Snuka coconut deal when Sean O’Haire attacked Rikishi and Piper nailed him with the coconut.  I thought Piper and O’Haire in a mentor/monster package could’ve gone somewhere, but Piper was done with the company only a month or so later.

#85 is Carlito winning the US Title in his first match with the company against John Cena.  Carlito got an old-style debut with the company, as several weeks’ worth of vignettes aired, mainly looking like re-dos of the Razor Ramon debut vignettes from 1992, but they worked, and he actually had some build coming into his debut.  Still, since then he’s been a lazy flameout who’s been lucky to be in the WWE midcard, so the inclusion of a victory over the company’s current franchise player in a bad match on a DVD set like this is puzzling to me,

#84 is Eddie Guerrero spraying The Big Show with pig shit from October 9th 2003.  This was fun, and The Miz and others put over Eddie’s gift for comedy stuff. 

#83 is The Boogeyman.  The segment was worth it just for William Regal’s pronunciation of his name.  They show him biting the giant growth off Jillian Hall’s face and eating it, which Michael Hayes says might have been a mistake.  MIGHT HAVE BEEN?!? It was fucking vile.

#82 sees Hulk Hogan make his return to SmackDown in the red and yellow colours from January 23rd 2003.  The Miz, Matt Striker and several others talk about growing up as Hogan fans and what a great moment this was.  This is the famous seven minute standing ovation for Hogan just for his entrance, which really was a fantastic moment.  Of course, if Hogan watches this DVD, pretty soon the story will be expanded to they started the taping on Tuesday and had to cancel the Friday night house shows because the crowd were still on their feet and hadn’t stopped applauding him.  Jokes aside, this is definitely a special moment worthy of inclusion, as it showed just how much affection people have for The Hulkster.

#81 was something of a controversial match at the time, as on April 20th 2000 the WWE Champion Triple H beat ECW Champion Tazz, who took the belt as a favour to his former company in the fallout of Mike Awesome abandoning that company to join WCW, presumably because he wanted to work for people who would actually pay him, a not unreasonable request.

The match itself was fine, as HHH was on top form in the first half of 2000, and the crowds were always super-hot which helped things even more.  The finish was seen as burying ECW a bit, and Vince McMahon even gave one of the most disingenuous apologies I’ve ever seen for it on the Rise & Fall of ECW DVD a few years back.  Tazz had the Tazzmission on, but Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley distracted the referee, allowing HHH to hit a lowblow and pedigree.  But before he could cover, Tommy Dreamer ran in, only to get punched off the apron.  Then, as Dreamer went to get a chair, HHH ducked and Dreamer nailed Tazz, allowing HHH to pedigree Dreamer and pin Tazz.  Yeah, you can say it buried ECW, but Tazz was a WWE guy and while they could – and arguably should – have done more with him afterwards, Tommy Dreamer was a fat jobber from a dying indy promotion, you’d need to have rocks in your brain to think HHH should be selling for him and treating him as a threat.

#80 is the APA and the New Age Outlaws getting in a brawl at THE FRIENDLY TAP~!  I was always a huge mark for these, and the APA were perfect ass-kicking bar room brawlers.  It was definitely something to look forward to once or twice a year, Tim White’s pub getting trashed by WWE guys, and seeing it here was a fun trip down memory lane for me.

#79 is from August 9th 2001 as Rhyno GORE GORE GORE’s (and The Miz did get in with that line in Paul Heyman voice) Chris Jericho through the SmackDown set, which I believe saw them change set to the giant fist design that lasted until WWE switched to the one set for all three shows when they started broadcasting in HD at the start of 2008.  It’s difficult to imagine given how his WWE career petered out quite dramatically and now he’s a midcard nobody in TNA, but his initial run in WWE was definitely one of the major successes of the Invasion-era, he was really over and the fans bought into him, helped by moments like this, as a potential star. 

#78 is Triple H running the gimmick match gauntlet on September 23rd 1999, as he lost a chokeslam challenge to The Big Show, lost a casket match to Mideon & Viscera – this show was The Undertaker’s last appearance until the following May when he came back as the biker, he was originally in this spot but refused to do the match, allowing him to be written out to heal injuries.  Then HHH won an inferno match against Kane, a boiler room brawl against Mankind and a Brahma Bull Rope match against The Rock.  At the time (and some would argue not much has changed), WWE television was all about doing anything they could to try to get HHH over as a top level guy, and really it was a failure until Stephanie McMahon turned heel, so putting something on the set from the total failure overpushed period is puzzling.

#77 is a collection of highlights of The Rock N Sock Connection.  It’s a two minute or so highlight clip, and sadly it’s a different league as far as comedy goes from anything the WWE have tried in the last several years.  William Regal, Michael Hayes, Matt Striker and Jerry Lawler all put this over really strongly.  Highlights include a beaten up Foley lying on the floor surrounded by referees, and calling out to Rock “just one time, win it for The Micker!” only for Rock to respond “Who the hell is The Micker? – Idiot!”  The odd-couple nature of the team is something WWE actually do a decent job of more often than not, but NEVER this good.

We also get the awesome moment where Rock is doing the head fake in between “what the Rock” and “Is cookin’” and his sunglasses fall off.  Mankind picks up the glasses, hands them back, the crowd goes apeshit, Rock MILKS it for a long time before just simply going “The Rock thanks you for that” – shit like that is just fucking perfect, I could watch it all day.

#76 is another turn on the Hulkamania nostalgia run as on May 2nd 2002 he defends the Undisputed Title against Chris Jericho.  Jericho essentially runs through his routine of mocking his opponent and the crowd, and running through old Randy Savage spots including crowd stalling and bumping for Hogan.  He even used the old “run and jump over the top rope and snap opponent’s neck against the top rope” that Savage always did, and I don’t recall seeing Jericho do before or since.  Jericho’s performance here was fantastic, and it was amazing to see Hogan do the nostalgia run, but then it’s ruined by an overbooked cheap ending, which is a shame, as this match was crying out for the big boot and legdrop happy ending to give it a total classic 1980s feel.

#75 STONE COLD STEALS KURT ANGLE’S GOLD MEDALS~! This was from August 30th 2001, and much like a lot of Steve Austin’s 2001 character, he was great, and there were lots of callbacks to earlier moments in his career, such as almost running over Angle with a car, and threatening to drop the medals down a manhole.  Throwing the medals in the river, followed by staring blankly at the camera and saying “What?” is just awesome.

#74 is Eddie Guerrero auctioning off all Kurt Angle’s stuff after stealing it from his dressing room on 29th July 2004.  WHO WANTS SOME GOLD MEDALS ODALAY~!  Eddie was one of the best ever at doing comedy stuff like this, and given that on the surface it’s such terrible material you really appreciate how awesome Eddie was, because nobody today could make it this entertaining.

#73 is Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie getting into a fight at Al Wilson’s funeral.  Dawn is a perfect bitchy heel and really was underused in her WWE run in that role.  William Regal puts this over as hilarious, and it really was.

#72 is from May 11th 2000, and it’s a Vince McMahon promo.  It’s pretty much your standard Vince McMahon heel promo when he’s not got a match to build and just wants to talk about how he’s great and all the people in the audience aren’t. But then, just as I’m wondering why the fuck they chose this promo, Vince delivers an absolutely amazing final line, in full-on McMahon growl.  “LIFE SUCKSSSSSS……..AND THEN YOU DIE!”  Incredible.

#71 is a selection of highlights from HEAD CHEESE.  Unfortunately they don’t show Al Snow’s poem about the team, although maybe that took place on RAW, but they do show Blackman doing bad stand up at an old people’s home, and going on a blind date with a crazy fat girl.  Hit and miss, but a fun thing to see again.

#70 is a big 8-man tag team match from the debut of the show on My Network TV on October 3rd 2008, as Jeff Hardy, Batista, Rey Mysterio & Finlay beat Kane, The Bryan Kendrick (and there’s a name I didn’t think would make this DVD set), JBL and MVP.  This went three segments and was a good long match, and while it’s always fun to see Rey work, and Jeff was so over – I question the selection of this bout as I think I could probably come up with at least 100 better matches on SmackDown over the ten years of the show.  Still, I liked this a lot, Rey sold great to build to the hot tag, and everything exploding at the finish with people hitting their big spots until Hardy finally hits the swanton for the win, and having a strong match was a good way to wrap up disc 1.

Well, that wraps up disc 1, I’ll be back soon with a review of discs 2 and 3.  And if disc 1 is any indication of the quality of the rest of the set, I’m gonna absolutely love it.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com