The John Report: Talking Smack for 12/18/09 (Batista vs. Mysterio)
Welcome to the Talking Smack column where I offer up a quick rundown of WWE's Friday broadcast, Smackdown. I don't have a whole lot of time this week due to being busy with Christmas stuff, so rather than recap it in detailed segments as I normally do I'll be a lot more brief in my comments.
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Live from Laredo, Texas let's talk some smack…
Teddy Long started the show, was interrupted by Batista asking for a shot at Undertaker. Mysterio came out, challenged Batista to a match and Long booked a number one contender's match with Batista vs. Mysterio. It was fine. Like I say every week, I enjoy Batista so much more as a heel.
CM Punk, Luke Gallows & Drew McIntyre beat John Morrison, R-Truth & Matt Hardy (**1/2). Of course they won, Matt Hardy was in the match. Give that man a feud already! Geez. Punk won with a Slammy shot to the surgically repaired abdomen of Hardy. By the way, why do the announcers insist on coming up with so many nicknames for Punk? I'm fine with "Smackdown's Surgeon General" myself. They don't need all the other ones. John Morrison's t-shirt? Not a thing of beauty. I'm sure the chicks like it.
My girl Mickie James-Canton and Maria were playing video games (all the nerds watching creamed themselves at that sight) when Beth showed up. She told Maria they have a match later. Only one minute of Mickie? Not enough.
Why do they have to replay the entire bad DX/Horny skit from Raw? Not as funny as they thought it was.
Kane beat Eric Escobar in a squash. The crowd was dead for Escobar. Vickie talked some shit to him, she got heat, but the crowd doesn't care for him. I don't think he's got the charisma to pull this off.
The Great Khali beat Jericho in a Raw-like three minutes via countout. It was the battle of the Johnny Award winning best wrestler (Jericho) vs. the worst wrestler (Khali). Jericho cut his usual awesome promo before the match talking about how he's no longer allowed on Raw and that his "best friend" Big Show isn't on SD with him. Good whining. I'm interested to see what they do with Chris in the new year. Khali was about to hit him with his finish, so Jericho bailed to the floor and got counted out.
The Hart Dynasty beat Jimmy Wang Yang & Slam Master J in about three minutes. I don't know if this was officially a #1 contenders match, but it felt like that. What a tag division. At least they were smart enough to put THD over strong. They cut a post match promo hinting at the screwjob by saying this is their revenge a decade later. They said they were better than their family in the past and they will prove it by beating DX for the tag belts next week. Nice to see them cut a promo for once.
They had a quick seg with Beth talking to Michelle & Layla. The heels went on and on about Mickie being chubby (still not a fan of it, but if MJC is cool with it then I am too) while Beth commented that she didn't approve the comment because she's a bigger woman too. This is leading to Beth turning face.
Beth Phoenix beat Maria in about two minutes. Maria tried some offense, but it never seemed to work. She took some good bumps, though. The one on the butt looked painful. I love how the announcers tried to say how Maria was so deserving of Diva of the Year. She's deserving when she missed months of screen time, she barely wrestles and other women won multiple titles? Um, yeah. I like her just fine and it was the fan vote (I have my doubts about the results considering she's on the Apprentice in 2010), but this was a bit of a reach.
They did a Raw Rebound. I wonder if Vince thinks it was a great show. It was brutal. One of the worst Raw's of the year.
Rey Mysterio beat Batista clean in 16 minutes to become number one contender to the World Title (***1/2). Really good match. One of my favorite things about Batista's heel turn? For his entrance there's no pyro. It's just a spotlight on him with the crowd blacked out. Awesome. It was a classic heel bully vs. underdog face type of match with Batista dominating the action and always thinking that he would get the win. He didn't. Batista hit a spear, Rey surprisingly kicked out and Batista was pissed. He went to finish Rey off, but Rey countered with a rollup for the win. Then he hauled ass out of there to celebrate. Batista looked very angry, selling his disgust at losing. Very enjoyable match. The best one of the three they've done. Rey's second only to Shawn Michaels in making bigger opponents look good while Batista's offense is better as a heel.
Next week's Christmas SD has DX vs. THD for the tag titles and Undertaker vs. Mysterio for the World title. Odds of Mysterio leaving next week's Smackdown as World Champion? I'll go with 0.1%.
Three Stars of the Show
1. Rey Mysterio - Continues to work at a high level with a bad knee.
2. Batista - Heel turn is working. Love the entrance.
3. The Hart Dynasty - Finally something of a push! About time!
5 out of 10
Last week: 5
Another five this week. I thought the Mysterio/Batista match was pretty good. They got time, they told a good story and Batista had good facial expressions in selling his defeat. The Hart Dynasty win as well as post match promo was nice to see. Nothing else really stood out as memorable. Next week's Christmas show should be fun with Undertaker vs. Mysterio and DX vs. The Hart Dynasty. Hopefully they each get 12-15 minutes of time. It's Smackdown, though, so of course they will.
No poll. I'm in a rush. You'll survive.
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Plug time. First up, from a reader of mine named Andrew Johnson that asked me to plug his blog and I agreed because I thought it was pretty good. Here are his words: "The JohnsoNation is a comedy blog that is updated weekly. It is the home to the ramblings of a lunatic freelance writer who hopes to one day be funny. When not contributing to his blog he writes movie reviews at The Charleston Examiner and other online publications." Enjoy.
I've made a couple of posts on my blog during the week. I've got more thoughts on Bret Hart's WWE return here plus a recap of the infamous Survivor Series 1997 here with a lot of extended thoughts on what happened. It's a re-post from July, so some of you might have read it already. Also, I've started up a Q&A on my blog with random wrestling questions covering current stuff as well as historical stuff. The first part is up here. Of course, there was also the Raw Deal and the Commentfest from Raw that is also available to be read there. I doubt I'll post much on the blog during the week although I do believe in updating it daily with at some content at least.
I'll see you on Tuesday for the Raw Deal. It's going to be very short because I have family stuff going on (as I'm sure most of you do) and I don't have an hour or two to spend writing about it. I will watch Raw on DVR and find the time to write about it a bit. My plan is to write as much as I can in about 10 minutes and post that. That's all the time I'm giving myself. I've got four awesome readers to help me out with the Commentfest, so while I won't be "hosting" that it will be in the column. They might not be as funny as me, but they will try! I thought I was going to miss next week's Talking Smack on Christmas, but it looks like it'll be a good show and my visiting family will be gone by Sunday. I'll write about the Christmas Smackdown next Sunday. Plus, I want to keep my streak going of not missing a show. I'm committed (in a good way) like that.
To those on the east coast dealing with the crazy amounts of snow, be safe. It's weird how you guys got so much, yet we haven't really had any snowfall here in southern Ontario yet. Not that I'm complaining. Thanks for reading.
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