Jim Reviews WWE Weeklies

[Jim]

I remember watching Macho Man making his predictions. I remember he said, "Good News, Owen Hart...", then pulls his name off of the bracket and throws it behind the board, "Doesn't qualify or move on" something to that effect. Then that ended up being the winner. Kind of wonder if that was intentional or what. Looking back at that King of The Ring, he was the obvious winner.

"The good news is Owen Hart...runs out of rocket fuel".

That segment was actually pretty fun because of how Savage would explain all of his choices for the winners.

[Cloud Strife]

"The good news is Owen Hart...runs out of rocket fuel".

That segment was actually pretty fun because of how Savage would explain all of his choices for the winners.

Ah yes, thanks for the correction. If I remember correctly, the only first round winner he got correctly was IRS defeating Mabel? I think Kid beat Double J by DQ or something, and Razor made it to the finals. It would be kind of cool for WWE to make this an event again. If nothing else, make it a Network Event. Have 16 Wrestlers, wrestle qualifying matches on their brands and then have all three rounds in the same night. They could also do a female version as Queen of The Ring on the same show. That way you have six matches, which could cover two hours. If not, throw in a Mid Card title (even the CW Title would suffice) match. Just my opinion though.

[Jim]

Smackdown
July 8, 2004

Michael Cole and Tazz runs down the main matches tonight including two title matches - John Cena defending the US Title against Booker T and The WWE Tag Champions The Dudley Boyz defending against Billy Kidman and Paul London.

Rob Van Dam vs Mark Jindrak
RVD’s current rival, Rene Dupree, joined the commentators to provide some guest commentary. At this stage, Jindrak is still doing his Reflection of Perfection act, but he’s already lost his manager, Teddy Long. The Reflection of Perfection was such a dud of a gimmick that it only lasted a few months, mostly on Velocity. In fact, since coming over to Smackdown in the draft back in March, this is only Jindrak’s second match on Smackdown, with the previous being way back in April. Jindrak would attack before the bell to give himself far more offense than you would have expected. Most of the offense is build around working over RVD’s back. RVD would make a comeback only to set-up a very awkward Rolling Thunder attempt because he took forever to actually attempt the move. Seriously, I don’t know what happened. First RVD looked at the crowd, then slightly adjusted Jindrak, then looked at the crowd some more, stalling, looking at the crowd, before finally going for the Rolling Thunder that Jindrak would counter with a pair of knees to the back. Not that Jindrak’s regaining his time on offense would matter though as moments later, RVD knocks him off of the middle rope during a superplex attempt with RVD finishing Jindrak off with the Split Legged Moonsault. Just in case you weren’t already aware that Jindrak was a geek, he was beaten by something that wasn’t even RVD’s finisher. With that, Jindrak would be sent back to Velocity where he’d kill a few months before finally returning to Smackdown in the fall to become a member of Kurt Angle’s new faction. Pretty easy victory for RVD despite rarely being on offense. **

In a replay from last week, JBL defended his newly won WWE World Title by beating Spike Dudley. After the match, Eddie Guerrero came out to attack him to continue the fight. Guerrero announced that in two weeks, the two would have a cage match.

Backstage, Josh Matthews interviewed JBL regarding his WWE World Title defense inside of a steel cage next week. JBL puts himself over as such a gentleman while Guerrero is a lowlife. In a questionable line, JBL claims that Guerrero never bothered coming to wrestle in Canada while he was WWE Champion like JBL is apparently going to do tonight in Winnipeg. What a bizarre line. I understand heels lie, but it was just a few weeks ago that Smackdown held a televised taping in Toronto while Guerrero was champion and he wrestled on the show. Couldn’t you have just given some BS insult against Eddie that while true, isn’t fair to use against Guerrero? Anyways, JBL brings out another champion, El Gran Luchadore, to tease their upcoming match tonight. Don’t worry, JBL promises to pay for Luchadore’s hospital bills. See, THAT sort of BS line is something I love since it’s Canada. Even if Luchadore is going to have to go to the hospital, it’s not as if he’d have to worry about it money wise like he would if the show took place in America.

The Dudley Boyz © vs Paul London and Billy Kidman - WWE Tag Titles
A rematch from the last episode of Velocity where Kidman and London won a non-title match by DQ. Going into this match, there wasn’t any reason to suspect a title switch would even be a possibility. After all, their previous match didn’t even air on Smackdown! At this point, just seeing London in such a match is pretty rewarding because even though he is really low on the card, he’s hungry to deliver a good performance. The entire match was built around London excelling. Early on, it was just London’s dives before he crashed and burned on the outside. That set-up a Dudley Boyz’ face-in-peril sequence with the commentators questioning if London will even be any help to Kidman if he could get the hot tag. Once Kidman got the hot tag, things picked up with a lot of hope spots for the challengers. London is showing fire and you’re somewhat buying into the idea that an upset is at least possible. London prevents a Dudleys’ What’s Up by knocking D-Von off of the top rope. Kidman would switch places with Bubba Ray and London would deliver a What’s Up Drop that literally destroyed London’s knee brace due to the force of coming down on the mat. London would lay Bubba out with a super kick and Kidman would nail a Shooting Star Press to win the match and crown NEW WWE Tag Team Champions. Great job by London and I found it impressive that they slowly won over the crowd. Although London/Kidman wouldn’t do anything with the titles, considering the fact that they were penciled in to be The Dudleyz program for the next couple of months, they needed this upset victory to add any sort of heat to the program. Otherwise, it’s just The Dudleyz randomly feuding against a pair of JTTS. ***

Backstage, the new champions are congratulated by their fellow cruiserweights, The Bashams (...wut), The FBI, and Billy Gunn. The Dudleyz confront London and Kidman and after a stand off, offer their hands in a sign of respect to the new champions. I’m actually surprised that the WWE put as much effort into this as they did.

Elsewhere, Josh Matthews interviews Kenzo Suzuki. He’s looking to win the WWE US Title, but now states that he loves America. Hmm…

Cena comes out to defend his WWE US Title. He cuts a quick rap on Booker before Kenzo Suzuki runs out to try and attack Cena. Cena is able to get the best of Kenzo, but in knocking Suzuki out of the ring, Luther Reigns blindsided Cena. Reigns would drop Cena on the mat with his finisher, The Reign of Terror. Looks like the US Title match will have to wait.

JBL vs El Gran Luchadore
Billed as a Champion vs Champion match with Luchadore apparently the champion of all of Mexico. This is actually a rematch from the April 22nd edition of Smackdown, which oddly enough also took place in Canada. On that night, the masked man was portrayed by Paul London. This time around, it’s Shannon Moore. It’s pretty decent for what it is. Luchadore hangs in there, but he’s all about posing, resulting in JBL easily able to always get the best of him. Late in the match, a second El Gran Luchadore appears to knock JBL out of the ring. The new Luchadore switches places with the original and actually gets in offense against the champion. Immediately it becomes clear that this new Luchadore is actually Eddie Guerrero. The match just sorta...ends with JBL on the outside and the new Luchadore getting on the mic to hype next week’s JBL/Guerrero WWE Title steel cage match. We couldn’t get a finish here? Eh, it served its purpose. ** ¼

Backstage, Josh Matthews interviews Booker T regarding his upcoming WWE US Title shot. Booker’s all smiles due to Cena’s previous attack by Kenzo and Reigns.

Raw Rebound highlights Eugene’s chance to be GM for the night due to Eric Bischoff’s absence. Chris Jericho earned an WWE IC Title shot by winning musical chairs, but Batista would interfere in his match to ensure Randy Orton retained the title. Meanwhile, Triple H conned Eugene into fucking over Chris Benoit and Edge during a tag match against Triple H and Ric Flair. Vengeance is this Sunday.

Backstage, Rey Mysterio is hanging backstage with Spike Dudley and Scotty when The Dudley Boyz show up. Dudleyz request some alone time with Spike where they reminded Spike that they offered to accompany him during his match last week against JBL. Spike refused to let them, which meant he may have prevented himself from becoming WWE Champion. Bubba again tries to talk Spike into accepting his offer of providing Spike a bit of help in his upcoming match, but Spike blows off his brothers, laughing at the fact that they’re no longer the tag champions.

Rey Mysterio, Spike Dudley, and Scotty vs Chavo Guerrero, Jamie Noble, and Akio
Although this one obviously didn’t receive much time, they made the most out of what they were given. The first half was just about Mysterio playing the face-in-peril until he could get a hot tag to Scotty. That kicked off a second half where it was all about all six men hitting spots and immediately going into the next spot. Tons of energy with even guys like Akio standing out with his dive to the outside. Despite not becoming The Boss yet, Spike already feels more relevant and fresh than he had in a couple of years in this current position. Alas, the Spike story is about how despite looking good, he can’t get victories without The Dudley Boyz helping him out. As a result, Noble counters a Dudley Dog into a neckbreaker and then pins Spike with a Tiger Driver. A bit surprising that Noble would be the one picking up the pinfall instead of Chavo since this is only Noble’s second victory on Smackown this year, the first being way back in mid January. Fun stuff. ** ½

Back from commercial and Paul Heyman is in the ring. He reads off a written speech where he throws his now former clients, The Dudley Boyz, under the bus, blaming them for everything that happened to Paul Bearer. Heyman is in tears as he begs for forgiveness from The Undertaker. Heyman is a great sniveling coward.

Before the main event, we get another plug for next week’s main event. Inside of a steel cage, JBL will defend the WWE World Title against Eddie Guerrero! Also announced is Luther Reigns vs Charlie Haas in a rematch from Great American Bash. Joy...

John Cena © vs Booker T - WWE US Title
Booker earned this title shot by winning a triple threat last week against RVD and Rene Dupree after he stole the pinfall from RVD. These two always had shit chemistry and this wasn’t any different. Before the match began, Kurt Angle was wheeled out by Luther Reigns to watch the match up close. Although the match only went fifteen minutes, it felt way longer. While Angle spent the match cheering on Booker, he would also break one of his crutches over Cena’s back when the referee wasn’t watching. This allowed Booker to maintain the advantage for most of the match. Cena would slowly get in more and more offense the longer it went on, causing Angle to become more desperate. The finish would see Booker selling on the outside, Angle using a cane to stand next to Booker, screaming for him to get up when Cena would continue the fight with Booker. Due to Booker ducking during a Cena closeline attempt, Angle would accidentally by hit with the closeline instead. Stealing Angle’s cane, Cena would knock out Reigns and then toss Booker back into the ring. Just before Cena can get the victory, Reigns attacked to cause the DQ. So glad I endured all of that just for a fuck finish. It gets worse though as Angle gets on the mic and demands that Reigns brings him the US Title because as a result of Cena laying his hands on the Smackdown GM, Cena is officially stripped of the US Championship! My big annoyance about this is that it didn’t really led to anything. Sure, Booker would become US Champion next week, would have a future messed up match with Cena in the future to kick off the Best of Five Series, but Angle flat out screwed Cena over, but it didn’t result in a Cena/Angle program. Why bother going to the effort of stripping Cena of the title and giving Booker the title if you’re going to keep the Cena/Booker feud going on and there’s already plans of having another screwy finish in an upcoming match? It’s all pointless. Another dull Cena/Booker encounter, but this one has the extra bonus of being overbooked when it didn’t need to be. * ½

Overall
If nothing else, this edition of Smackdown felt newsworthy. Between Cena being stripped of the WWE US Title and the Dudley Boyz being upsetted for the WWE Tag Titles, that’s two title switches, of sorts, in one night. With Great American Bash now eight days in the past, you can really feel like Smackdown is beginning its next chapter following its initial post-Wrestlemania angles. Eddie/JBL is just about done with Guerrero set to renew his program with Kurt Angle following next week’s episode. Booker T is now set up as Cena’s main rival. Spike Dudley actually an angle going on with the Dudley Boyz, who are now in a somewhat interesting program with Billy Kidman and Paul London. Even Chavo Guerrero has been depushed out of being a meaningful Cruiserweight star. Quality wise, I’d say the next few months is slightly better than the post-WM months, but the post-WM months had much greater highs such as the two Guerrero/JBL PPV matches beating out anything Smackdown is going to offer for the rest of the summer and fall.

[Stojy]

I take complete credit for this review. You're welcome everybody .

Expected that sort of rating for the RVD/Jindrak match. Didn't realise this episode of Smackdown was such a big one in terms of title changes though, crazy. One thing though, boy that entire Cena/Booker program was a stinker.