Report by: pwinsider.com
SMACKDOWN
GM Teddy Long comes up on the screen and announces that the first hour of SmackDown will be seen on WWE.Com and the second hour will be seen on UPN on Friday Night at 9 p.m. Long flubbed up and originally said “9 p.m. Central” and then quickly corrected himself. He announced that tonight, you’d see three of the biggest matches in the history of the WWE. Chris Benoit defends his U.S. Title against Orlando Jordan, Eddie Guerrero takes on Rey Mysterio in a Steel Cage Match, and Batista goes up against JBL in a Bullrope Match for the World Heavyweight Championship. “One of the biggest matches in WWE history” and “Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan ” do not need to be grouped together.
WWE Tag Team Championship
Road Warrior Animal & Heidenreich vs. MNM
Mercury & Nitro are accompanied by the always-lovely Melina. You’ve got to check her out Friday night on WWE.Com. She was wearing this tiny black miniskirt. It was so short that if she walked a certain way, you could see half of her rear-end. Jillian and her monster growth was nowhere to be seen and probably not missed. MNM spent the whole match working over Heidenreich, which led to the hot tag to Animal. Heidenreich and Nitro spilled out to the outside, while Animal started slamming Mercury into turnbuckles. The second turnbuckle he rammed Mercury into had the referee Jimmy Korderas in front of it, so he went down. Melina grabbed one of the tag belts and attempted to blindside Animal. Animal grabbed the belt from her and backed her into the corner. Just as Mercury was about to attack, Animal splattered the belt across his forehead. Animal revived the ref and got the win.
Winners and STILL WWE Tag Team Champions: Road Warrior Animal & Heidenreich
After this match, attention was drawn to a luxury box, where Teddy Long, “Network Executive” Palmer Canon, Stacy Keibler, & Christy Hemme are seen watching the show.
Ken Kennedy vs. Paul London
After Chimel introduced Kennedy, Kennedy took the microphone and berated Chimel some more. “There’s two things you are really horrible at: announcing and…announcing.” Kennedy then introduced the match being one-fall with a 20-minute time limit. He then introduced himself at 243 pounds as “Mr. Kennedy…Kennedy”. London came out. This was nothing but a squash. London really is getting buried since that verbal scuffle with Vince backstage. Kennedy hit his amazing finisher off the middle rope for the win, and announced himself as the victor.
Winner: Ken Kennedy
Paul Birchill vs. Scotty 2 Hotty
I had no idea Scotty was still around. They showed a replay of Birchill debuting on Velocity two weeks ago, attacking Scotty. William Regal accompanied Birchill and did commentary. Pre-match, Birchill gave his first promo. This got the “What?” chants going for a legitimate reason: either he was talking so low or the audio volume decreased to the point where we could barely hear him. After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Scotty set up for the Bulldog which usually precedes the Worm. But Birchill threw Scotty left- shoulder first into the ring post, and did it two more times for good measure. He then hit Scotty with a beautiful shoulder breaker and followed with a Fujiwara Armbar for the tap out victory.
Winner: Paul Birchill
Josh Mathews is backstage with Randy Orton & Cowboy Bob Orton. They are holding a gift for the Undertaker, which is a giant check.
The Undertaker comes out to the ring, intro and all, and says it’s time to quit playing games. “You and your father are going to find out what death and The Undertaker have in common: we wait for no man.” Father & Son then come out. They ask people to come out with their gift for the Undertaker. The signed Undertaker DVD they put up on WWE.Com’s auction block apparently sold for $1,416 and they had a check ready for Taker’s retirement fund. Orton put his signature on the check, but told Taker he had to come get it himself. The lights and the titantron start getting screwy. Taker apparently uses his dark, magic power to summon lightning that strikes down on the check and sets it on fire. Both Ortons bolt out of there.
Chimel informs us that this is where WWE.Com’s portion of SmackDown cuts off and UPN’s portion starts.
Steel Cage Match
Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio
The match starts off interesting. Rey immediately tries to go for the 6-1-9 but right when he’s about to do it, realizes he can’t with the way the cage is. Lots of high spots in this one, such as a Russian Leg Sweep from the top rope, Rey powerbombing Eddie from the top rope, and Rey jumping from the top of the cage on Eddie, who is standing on the turnbuckle below him, and hitting a hurricanrana. The finish comes when Rey, instead of climbing out of the cage, tries to hit a cross body splash from the top of the cage, but misses. Eddie is on the steps about to touch the floor, but goes back in to hit a Frog splash and finally gets a win in WWE-land over Mysterio, 1-2-3. Certainly not the best cage match ever, but it was good for TV. Crowd was split for Rey and Eddie, with tons of “Eddie” and “Eddie Sucks” chants.
Winner: Eddie Guerrero
Ken Kennedy meets up with Sharmell backstage and introduces himself. He plays troublemaker by telling Sharmell that her husband and Chris Benoit are such good friends, but Benoit hasn’t given Booker any title shots. He then defends this with a classic line: “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk…but they sure as heck give each other title shots!” As Sharmell is about to respond, Kennedy thanks her for her time and, reminding her that the name is Ken Kennedy, leaves. He than pops right back in the shot and says Kennedy again. This guy is seriously money. I’ve honestly never seen a guy this charismatic since the breakout days of The Rock. And he’s getting over too. As one guy in my section said after this promo, “Wow, that Ken Kennedy guy is f****** awesome!”
WWE United States Championship
Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan
Before the match, they replayed both matches from SummerSlam and SmackDown last week. Right when the match started, a timer came up on the TitanTron, and you knew then this match wasn’t going to last long. Benoit squashed Jordan in 22.5 seconds. Jordan threw a temper tantrum in the ring, while still selling the shoulder.
Winner and STILL United States Champion: Chris Benoit
World Heavyweight Championship Bullrope Match
Batista vs. JBL
After JBL makes his intro, he reminds us that it was this very match in which he won the WWE Championship in, and tonight would be no different. Batista comes out to the biggest pop of the night, even bigger than Undertaker’s. They did the same deal from the JBL/Guerrero Bullrope Match with the lights in the corner. JBL’s was green and Batista’s was red. This is where it gets weird. Batista had the biggest pop of the night, but this match was a huge snooze. It was easily worse than their Great American Bash and SummerSlam matches. Bullrope Matches are usually bad by default, but Jesus, this was brutal. The crowd was absolutely dead. After about 30,000 clotheslines, Batista hits the Batista-Bomb and starts dragging JBL around behind him while touching corners. JBL remembers his old tricks from the Guerrero match and touches the corners after Batista does. After the third one, JBL jukes in front of Batista and is no less than 6 inches away from the World Title. After about 10 seconds, Batista finally pulls him back, hits a spinebuster, and touches the 4th corner for the win. As J.R. would say, mercifully it’s over.
Winner and STILL World Heavyweight Champion: Batista
This is where SmackDown ends.
Local advertising was promoting a special bonus dark match, a 6-Man Tag with Batista, Rey Mysterio, & The Undertaker vs. JBL, Eddie Guerrero, & Randy Orton. It really didn’t look like this was going to happen and about half of the arena was empty……when Randy Orton’s music hit. Orton came out bedecked in his wrestling gear, sans Cowboy Bob. Orton got on the microphone and said, “I’m tired of all the smoke and the mirrors, and I’m tired of the bulls***. Get out here Undertaker, and let’s fight right NOW.” Taker comes out, Brian Hebner’s in the ring, and it’s an instant-super bonus match.
SUPER BONUS DARK MATCH
Randy Orton vs. The Undertaker
Orton and Taker easily had the match of the night, and I’m willing to say this one was better than their WM21 or SummerSlam encounters. It was just that good. No man dominated this one and it was totally competitive. Immediately after Hebner got squashed in the corner, Orton hit the RKO on Taker, but there was no referee to count. Cowboy Bob came out dragging Charles Robinson to the ring, but only got a two-count. Taker chokeslammed Orton, but the Cowboy dragged out Robinson at 2 and just decked him on the outside. Orton went for another RKO, but Taker shook him off. While he was distracted, Cowboy Bob came in the ring and nailed Taker in the face, which Taker no-sold. Taker tombstoned Cowboy Bob, chokeslammed and tombstoned Randy, and pinned both after Brian Hebner recovered.
Winner: The Undertaker
NOTES
--- People were wondering where Christian was all night. There’s an obvious demand for this guy, and why WWE has chosen to not capitalize on that and do nothing with him is one of the biggest mysteries. A lot of people were disappointed they didn’t get to see Captain Charisma. But his t-shirt was in fact on sale and it seemed to be a hot seller.
--- Arena was not full, the entire upper deck was tarped off and a lot of sections on the hard camera side were empty. The place looked sold out for RAW back in March, but didn’t look anything close to it tonight.
--- Batista got the biggest response of the night.
Report by: Vikki99, rajah.com reader
--Smackdown--
Webcast Taping
1) Heidenreich & Animal vs. MNM--> Heidenreich & Animal Won
2) Paul Birchall vs Scotty 2 Hotty --> Paul Birchall won
3) Ken Kennedy vs. Paul London--> Ken Kennedy Won
Television Taping
1) Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio (Cage Match)--> Eddie Guerrero
Won
2) Orlando Jordan vs. Chris Benoit--> Chris Benoit won in 22.5
Seconds!!
3) Batista vs. JBL (Bull Rope Match for the Title)--> Batista Won
Highlight of the Show:
The Undertaker came out, calling out Randy Orton. Randy comes out with
his father and has a giant yellow check brought out for the Undertaker
Retirement Fund for $1,416. The Undertaker did not accept the gift and
instead a explosion of fire setting the check burning in flames !!
Biggest Pop:
Benoit
Batista
Guerrero & Mysterio (Tie)
Christy & Stacy
Backstage Note:
During the whole Smackdown show, Teddy Long and the "network guy" were
up in a suite overlooking the arena. Christy Hemme and Stacy Kleiber
were up there as well. Security had to surround the area, thanks to the
Kleiber fans.
After the Show:
Undertaker vs. Randy Orton--> Undertaker won
