The big question heading into this week’s SmackDown was whether the piss-poor build to tonight’s Survivor Series PPV would be rescued. The answer was, well, not really.

We started with a match, Batista beating Matt Hardy. I saw this in the main event a couple of years ago and that match felt like it lasted about a year and ended in a bullshit DQ and had Matt come close to winning a few times.  This match was basically the exact opposite of that, and what should’ve been done with the first encounter, as Batista just destroys Hardy and wins quickly with the Batista Bomb.  It was a very impressive performance that put Batista over as a destroying machine really well.  After the announcers showed a replay of the contract signing angle with Rey and Batista last week, Josh Matthews catches up with Batista as he’s walking backstage after his match.  Batista says Rey made a mistake in signing the hold harness agreement, and he’ll be hurt for costing him “his” World Heavyweight Title and embarrassing him last week. 

Then a video package was shown about The Brothers of Destruction.  This fucking RULED, all the talk about how one is from the darkness of the grave and the other is from the firey depths of hell and show then chokeslamming people and looking scary, it was perfect.

After this, we got a truly wonderful segment with Teddy Long, Vickie Guerrero, Eric Escobar and Vince McMahon.  Essentially Vince reminded Teddy that he’s still on probation and chastised him for putting Survivor Series at risk by teaming up the Brothers of Destruction tonight (even though it was Vince’s idea), then he named Vickie as a consultant for SmackDown and Vickie gave the greatest celebration you’ve ever seen in your life. She was sqealing with joy, jumping up and down, and celebrating like this was the greatest thing ever.

The next match was Finlay v. Drew McIntyre, and Finlay basically stiffed the fuck out of Drew for two minutes beating the fuck out of him, until Drew got an eye poke and the double-arm DDT out of nowhere for the clean win.  I think Finlay as a pissed off asskicker works, but they have to change his damn music from the Hornswoggle theme.

Next was a long CM Punk promo, as he does a Straight Edge intervention, throwing away cigarettes, pills and a bottle of whiskey into a garbage can, and talking about how living his lifestyle would be better for everybody.  This got major heat, and it showcased just how good Punk is as a promo guy and how into this character he is, that essentially a time-filler promo could have the crowd hanging on every word.  The big payoff here was R-Truth interrupting, and doing a spiel about how people should be free to make their own choices, before attacking Punk and pouring the whiskey onto him.  Punk’s performance was incredible here, he’s vying with Jericho for best character in the company, as has been the case for most of the year.

Next was the latest edition of the Dolph Ziggler Failure Tour 2009 as he lost a 2/3 falls InterContinental Title match to John Morrison in a bout that very disappointingly only went about 8 minutes or so.  The story was that Morrison got his ribs worked over, including Ziggler getting his knees up to block Starship Pain, but Morrison was able to surprise Dolph with a rollup out of nowhere for the first fall, but he was still injured so Ziggler was able to quickly level things up with the Zig Zag.  The final fall saw Ziggler continue the punishment, before Morrison countered something with a DDT and hit the Starship Pain for the win.  With these two although their work is good, they’ve wrestled so many times that I just want to see them involved in something different now. 

Next saw Mickie James beat Layla in a short match, but afterwards Michelle McCool appeared on the titantron in a video where she called Mickie “Piggie James” and put pictures of pigs on screen with Mickie’s face on them.  If this is just the heel being bitchy and Mickie is going to win the title from her at the end and shut her up, that’s fine.  But given some stories have broke recently that the WWE are unhappy with Mickie James’ weight there’s the chance that this may be WWE being mean spirited and sending a message to Mickie to shape up or fuck off.  Never mind the fact that Mickie looks totally fine, using McCool, who almost died from malnutrition a couple of years ago and still looks anorexic, to drive home a message about body types is a questionable judgement to say the least.

Then we got Rey Mysterio v. Tyson Kidd, only for about four minutes but it was four awesome minutes, and for Kidd it was probably something of a dream match, and like when he faced Evan Bourne towards the end of last year, for Rey it’s him in there with a chance to work the fast pace he was known for in his athletic prime against a modern version of him.  They protected Kidd with an inconclusive ending, seeing Batista, who was on commentary, shove Kidd down to cost Rey the match by DQ.  This led to a Rey-Batista cat and mouse game as Rey took Batista down with a senton, then ran away when Dave chased after him, which enraged the big man.  Have a feeling the payback will be Batista destroying him tonight though.

The main event was the tag team non-title match featuring Unified Champions Chris Jericho & The Big Show facing The Brothers of Destruction.  Undertaker and Kane’s joint entrance was something that felt really special, and I wouldn’t mind them becoming a more regular tag team for at least a short run before they retire, especially if they could get Paul Bearer to come back and manage them.  The match was really fun, seeing four major stars, and Jericho was fantastic here as the only small guy but also the heel with the most heat, and being able to embrace that role brilliantly rather than try to stand toe to toe with his opponents and try to look tough like some others would in the same position.  The match went to a non-finish as Jericho had been laid out, and when Big Show went to check on him, Jericho nailed him with a Code Breaker, which the announcers played up as accidental, as did Jericho by his reaction.  The show ended with Jericho stealing the World Title belt, and posing with it on the ramp.

Don’t forget to join us tonight for live Survivor Series coverage here at iFight365.com and our PPV preview will be up on the site this afternoon as well.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com