Following on from Part 1 which was posted last week, here’s the review for Disc 2 of the Decade Of Smackdown DVD, and after how much I enjoyed Disc 1, and how much I enjoyed the show last week, I couldn’t wait to get back into this.

#69 is a collection of clips of Mr. Kennedy doing his own ring introductions, and I’m picturing Phil Lowe laughing at me as he reads this, safe in the knowledge that I’ve had to watch this fucking idiot one more time and he hasn’t.  The guy was horrible to watch in the ring, and his only talent was saying his own name. Plus, he’s a complete liability when it comes to media statements that get the company in trouble. So in summary, he’s a bad worker, a one-note-wonder promo, and a tool of a human being. Does that really make him one of the highlights of the last decade of Smackdown?

#68 is from September 9th 1999, as The Big Show throws Mankind off the stage into a grave that was set up off the ramp for the Buried Alive match where Show and The Undertaker took on Mankind and The Rock.  This was a really impressive-looking bump by Foley, and not one that really gets talked about, or even shown in video packages back when he was in WWE to showcase him getting his ass kicked, and it really should.  Hell, I’d even forgotten about it completely until seeing it again on here.

#67 was Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley winning the Women’s Title from Jacqueline on March 30th 2000, which was the go-home show for that year’s WrestleMania.  Luckily the match is shown in highlight form, as I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sit through an entire match.  DX ran interference to help Steph win, and with HHH as WWE Champion at the time it really added to the image of those two as the power couple of the company, even if she never really did anything with the belt until losing it to Lita in a RAW main event a few months later that proved to be one of the most memorable moments ever on that show, and a fairly glaring omission in my mind from the RAW 15th anniversary DVD that came out last year.

#66 is the first full match of disc 2, as Randy Orton debuted in the company with a win over Hardcore Holly on April 25th 2002.  I think this would’ve been around the time that Matt Capotelli got the shit kicked out of him by Holly on Tough Enough, because the announcers put Holly over as Vince McMahon’s hand-picked guy to deliver beatings on the new kids.  It’s weird now to see Orton as the underdog babyface selling for a generic midcard heel, but even though he was totally miscast in that role you could tell back then he would be a big deal someday, and his cocky smile after getting the upset win showed that a run as a heel was where his future lied.

#65 is an excuse for the talking heads to mock Kurt Angle, as they show him celebrating wining the European Title from Val Venis on February 10th 2000, which was his first title in WWE.  People treat the title as a joke, and laugh at Kurt for his over the top celebrations.  The attitude shown here shows everything that’s wrong with the WWE right now, winning a title SHOULD be a big deal, and celebrating that achievement is something that needs to be done.

Kurt always treats his title wins as something hugely important to him, and that meant that when someone won a title from him, if Kurt was a heel it would allow the fans to celebrate all the more, and if he was a babyface it allows fans to sympathise with him even more.  If nobody gives a shit about winning titles, why would fans give two fucks about whether or not they keep hold of the title? This was a bullshit inclusion for the reasons they included it. I’d have preferred they just show the match in full.

#64 is from December 16th 2005 as MNM lose the tag team titles to Rey Mysterio & Batista.  I’d have preferred they just show the match in full (woah, déjà vu), as for some reason they only showed clips here, and this was an excellent match from what I remember.  Maybe some of the Eddie Guerrero tribute stuff such as Rey doing the shuffle as his version of hulking up, and both guys holding up Eddie’s tribute t-shirt can make for nice memories when they’re in clips and you can voiceover Michael Hayes talking about how that was real emotion without having it shoved down our throats in such an exploitative way on commentary at the time.

#63 is from September 16th 2004, as Heidenreich kidnaps Michael Cole from ringside, locks him in a room backstage and threatens to rape him while reading a poem.  Somebody in the WWE’s DVD department thought this worthy of inclusion on a DVD titled BEST OF SMACKDOWN.  That person deserves to be fired, and given the current economy I hope they don’t find another job for ages too.  The talking heads mention how disgusting this is, and when they go back to Michael Cole and Matt Striker to link to the next segment Matt continues ribbing Cole to the point he walks away.

#62 is the next full match on the set, as The Dudleyz beat The Rock in a handicap tables match from March 3rd 2000.  Rock’s matches from this time period are so fantastic to watch now as the atmosphere even on everyday TV matches doesn’t happen nowadays.  The crowd brawling, which I remember feeling was remarkably overexposed at the time, looks great now as people are going crazy for The Rock fighting in amongst them, and it’s definitely a thing that might have lost some impact on TV but the live crowds always loved it, which makes me think that perhaps it should happen more today.  This was so much fun it’s ridiculous, and I’m extremely happy it was included here.

#61 is a great promo from January 24th 2002, but a promo that makes you think firstly “great promo” but secondly “horrible missed opportunity” as its Vince flipping out and saying how he’ll bring the nWo in so he can kill his creation, injecting the company with a lethal dose of poison.  Vince is such an incredible promo that those great lines are still memorable today, but the nWo’s run in WWE was incredibly mismanaged, beyond like the first RAW after this when they actually put over how those guys killed WCW and nobody wanted them in WWE. They really should’ve kept Vince with them and had him as the crazy dude on his biggest ego/power trip yet and really play into him killing his own company.  But within a month Hogan had turned face, and they let people like X-Pac, Booker T and Goldust in the group which just made them a comedy midcard act.  Kevin Nash injuring himself by walking and Scott Hall being a pisshead waster didn’t help either.

#60 is the Eddie Guerrero v. John Cena parking lot brawl from September 11th 2003, shown in highlight form.  Cena talks about what a great time he had on Smackdown doing his raps, and his pre-match rap is shown here, before talking about how much fun this match was.  I really like this, it’s in full on the Eddie Guerrero DVD that came out last year, and because of the fairly unique setting it looks cool, and a finish of Eddie hitting a frog splash from the roof of one car onto Cena lying on the bonnet of another looks great.  I really think this is a gimmick match the WWE could bring back and use once every couple of years without burning it out, but as this DVD has come out now I almost expect a Parking Lot Brawl PPV in 2010, which would be overkill to the extreme.

#59 is the next full match on the set, and it’s a fairly famous one as Matt Hardy drops the cruiserweight title to hometown hero Rey Mysterio on June 5th 2003, with Rey’s family watching from ringside and an entire crowd going crazy for him.  The Matt Facts for this match point out that Matt is taller than Rey Mysterio.  The match is fantastic, with a lot of highflying in the early stages, including a running springboard plancha by Rey which led to the first commercial break when it aired on TV.  This was the first, and I believe only time a WWE TV show was main evented by a Cruiserweight Title match.

Rey selling his knee and Matt working it over was masterfully done, and it’s yet another string to Rey’s bow as one of the best underdog babyfaces in history, and Matt working as the big heel in a small division was by far the best role WWE have ever used him in outside of teaming with his brother.  Rey got the win for the title and the happy ending celebrating with his family in the ring.  This was great to watch again, and I’m very glad it was included in the DVD set.

#58 is a collection of various impersonations that have been done on the show over the years, including Rock mocking Big Show’s chokeslam hand motion, and getting a replay shown in slow motion, Kane running through Hogan’s catchphrases (unfortunately they don’t show him mocking Rock or talking about how he’ll win for 20,000 screaming Kane-a-nites and Rock’s AWESOME reaction to that from the same promo), and Edge in a mirror wearing Hogan’s boa and bandana running through his sayings.  They also show Edge and Christian introducing two old people as The Hardyz from the future, which was great.

 #57 is various feats of strength Big Show has done over the years, such as pushing over cars.  Who gives a fuck about that shit?

#56 is Stacy Keibler, in her Miss Hancock outfit, dancing on the table for Vince McMahon as he hired her to be his personal assistant on April 11th 2002.  We start with Vince refusing to hire various people who were either old or, in the case of one candidate who Vince’s first question was angrily yelling “Get out! Get out! Dammit Leave!” before Stacy saved the segment.  Regal and Santino put this over, and that makes me sad because if any two people could’ve reacted more entertainingly than Vince to this, it would be one of those two.  Unusually for Vince, pretty soon after he put himself with Stacy on TV, her role was marginalised and she was moved to RAW doing basically nothing until she got the place on Dancing with the Stars that led her to leave the company.  Draw your own conclusions there but I don’t think you have to be Lt. Columbo to work out that mystery.

#55 is the next full match on the set. It’s from September 4th 2001, and it’s a battle of Alliance members as Stone Cold Steve Austin faces Rob Van Dam.  RVD was ungodly popular during his initial run in the WWE, that they really should’ve struck while the iron was hot and put the WWE Title on him, instead of waiting five years when he’d been portrayed as a midcarder who isn’t good enough so often that he didn’t have the special fresh aura that he had during this time.  Austin in 2001 was incredible, his knowledge in the ring was at such a high level he can control a match just in knowing things like timing RVD’s comebacks and knowing when he’ll dominate, that just draws you into what he does, a phenomenal worker who during his time on top didn’t really get the credit he deserved from some people who criticised him as a bad wrestler who just did punching and kicking.  Austin’s intensity was fantastic, and RVD’s spectacular stuff is reigned in and put in places that make sense but still he does enough of it for the fans to go ape shit for him, as at that point RVD was the guy everyone wanted to see. 

#54 is a video package showing various clips of the Edge/Vickie Guerrero relationship, with various talking heads including such luminaries with incredible knowledge of the wrestling business like The Bella Twins and Santino Marella talk about how horrible all this stuff was.  FUCK THEM ALL. Edge and Vickie were great, and in particular the video of them in the park together was awesome in it’s over the topness, as was almost everything they did together, and I can’t wait until Edge comes back as a babyface and they’re interacting on TV together feuding, before hopefully a reunion once Edge inevitably goes heel again.

#53 is a highlight package of the October 28th 1999 edition of Smackdown.  DX beat up Kane, and stuff The Rock in the boot of a car and get the driver to drive off, before Austin locks Road Dogg in a bear trap, hangs Billy Gunn upside down and makes the roof fall in on X-Pac.  Then at the end of the show DX are in the ring, Austin drops a net on them and gives them a beating, and when they escape, Kane and Rock come back to even the odds.  Various people including Lillian Garcia talk about how good it was that DX had jokes played on them for once.

#52 is various people eating Debra’s cookies and pretending they like them, only for Stone Cold to talk about how horrible they are.  Seriously? That’s one of the greatest moments in the history of Smackdown? Fucking bullshit.

#51 is a collection of Rikishi giving people the stinkface, including Vince McMahon, which saw Vince getting his as the payoff for doing the Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club, and Booker T throwing up over Michael Cole after he got it.  As ridiculous as this looks, and as much as I’ve complained about some other stuff being included on this disc, I remember how over Rikishi was during this run, so I’m fine with this being included.  If we were making a match-heavy set, I’d have dropped it for his match with HHH in January of 2000 which was awesome and also incidentally the first Smackdown to be shown in full here in the UK, as before then we’d had to rely on clips on Livewire of all things.

#50 is the next complete match on the set, Eddie Guerrero and Tajiri defending the WWE Tag Titles against Team Angle.  I mark out immediately for the Team Angle jumpsuits, and to be honest the thing that most jumps out watching this match is that Haas and Benjamin have never been better.  I can’t remember a time in the past when two people have come into the WWE in their perfect roles, and got progressively worse and more boring as their careers went on.

I loved them working over Tajiri with various leg submissions here, and speaking of Tajiri he sold great, his kicks always looked great, and I always liked him so I’m very happy he was represented on the set here.  The finish was classic Eddie Guerrero, as Haas has Tajiri locked in the Haas of Pain, so Eddie rang the bell.  In the confusion as Haas thinks he’s won and the referee is yelling at the ring announcer, Eddie comes in, throws the belt to Haas and plays dead, so when the referee turns around Haas got DQ’d.  This got an absolutely gigantic pop, which was a great reminder of how unique Eddie was.  His character was basically “guy who cheats” and it made him the biggest babyface in the company, which is incredible and not something I think anybody else could pull off.

#49 is from July 11th 2002, and it’s The Rock and some guy called Busta Rhymes singing Under The Boardwalk.  This might have been a bigger deal to me if I knew who Rhymes was, but as it was I didn’t care and think there were probably a hundred Rock promos I could’ve chosen ahead of this.

#48 is Jeff Hardy’s WWE Title win celebration from December 19th 2008.  This was a really special moment that people such as Lillian Garcia, William Regal, Michael Cole and Michael Hayes correctly put over.  For long-time fans, they’ve seen Jeff as a no-name guy doing jobs as a 16-year old and watched his every step as he worked his way through the ranks right the way to the top of the company, in a way that doesn’t really happen, and it’s definitely one that as a fan you really can look at as something that was a guy getting deserved reward for being awesome rather than being the guy the company had decided to push no matter what.

#47 is the Billy and Chuck wedding from September 12th 2002.  I’d seen the famous Bischoff reveal as the minister before, which is still awesome, but this is the first time I’d ever seen the whole segment and Jesus did it ever drag.  The vows took forever, there was a needless Godfather run-in, a ridiculous highlight video, and then Billy and Chuck revealed that it was all a publicity stunt. This dragged on forever, but then Three Minute Warning’s run-in was fantastic, I can’t believe Stephanie McMahon took the Samoan Drop, so that makes it memorable at least.  Hokey, and overly-long, but the good was definitely good enough for this to be worthy of inclusion.

#46 is the Eddie Guerrero Tribute Show from November 18th 2005.  There isn’t really very much I can say about this.  Eddie was a tragic loss, and as a wrestling fan I still miss him to this day, and this was a great opportunity for the guys to say their goodbyes to a legend.

#45 is a collection of all the different places Mick Foley had his office when he was commissioner, complete with clips of him banging his gavel to signify that a decision he made was “FINAL” and getting cheap pops for naming the city the show was in.  I think Foley as babyface commissioner is something that seems even more special in retrospect, because it seems like WWE has forgotten how to do that with their authority figures, preferring the heel route seemingly for no other reason than it’s what they think wrestling should be. 

#44 is the segment on September 9th 1999 that saw Jeff Jarrett, in his woman-hating phase that was the last thing he did before leaving the company a month later, hit Fabulous Moolah over the head with a guitar and lock Mae Young in the figure four.  

#43 is the next complete match, and it’s the Eddie Guerrero v. JBL Steel Cage Match from July 15th 2004.  It’s a shame the WWE didn’t hold off until they’d completed ten full years of Smackdown before compiling this set, because the CM Punk/Jeff Hardy cage match from this year absolutely blows this match away.  There’s a strange dynamic as Eddie is portrayed as the heavy favourite, not normally the case when he’s the smaller babyface in a cage against a large bully heel.  It’s probably most memorable for the spot where Eddie delivers a frog splash off the top of the cage, which really should’ve been the finish, rather than doing the El Gran Luchador screwjob.

#42 is a spot I’ve never seen before, as The Big Show interferes in a Brock Lesnar v. Rey Mysterio match, catching Rey on a 619 attempt and throwing him five rows back into the crowd.  That was a cool moment, but it doesn’t even compare to John Cena and Edge’s crowd-FU spot at Backlash earlier this year, and as such I don’t think it’s really all that worthy of inclusion here.

#41 is a collection of clips from one of Smackdown’s comedy couples over the years, Jamie Noble & Nidia.  From redneck trailer-trash to being left money by Noble’s rich aunt which meant they could buy a bigger trailer and Nidia could wear a mink coat.  These two are probably the only people on the roster at the time that could’ve pulled this off, and it’s a great addition to the set.

#40 is another full match, and this is a fairly famous one, as it’s the simultaneous pinfall and submission between WWE Undisputed Champion The Undertaker and Kurt Angle, from July 4th 2002, with the big hook being whether American hero Angle could win the title on Independence Day.  Undertaker is in his biker days here, and it’s a really nice period in his career to look back upon as it’s such a huge departure to see him trash-talking opponents and doing things that the regular Undertaker just couldn’t do.

The match was pretty good; if a little short for a TV main event between two big stars, but the finish was shit.  Angle locked in a triangle choke, but had his shoulders down, and the referee counted 3, with Undertaker tapping out simultaneously with the 3-count. The fans went silent for a good two minutes, not knowing what had happened, before chanting bullshit, and it wasn’t heat on the heel it was heat on the promotion feeling like they’d been ripped off with a crap finish. 

That brings disc 2 to a close on a bit of a sour note, and to be honest I think I prefer disc 1, although there is enough good stuff on here that it’s still worth watching.  I’ll be back with the remainder of the countdown on disc 3 in due time.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com