Mike Tedesco’s Smackdown Thoughts
February 2, 2013
By: Mike Tedesco of Wrestleview.com
Smackdown opened up with another bland in ring segment involving Booker and a bunch of wrestlers. The only thing of note that happened was Dolph Ziggler chose not to compete in the Elimination Chamber, and Jack Swagger came back. Swagger doesn’t have a new look, but he’s got a new attitude, or at least the seriousness of his face says he does. We’ll see how he fares.
I really enjoyed the opening tag team match. It’s no secret that I’m a huge Rey Mysterio fan, and he really brought it tonight – not that the other three guys in the ring were slouches, though. Mysterio is just fun to watch. He can literally work with anyone, and tonight’s match was a microcosm of his career. He can make stuff look good with wrestlers of all sizes. I’m kind of hoping Mysterio’s victory can shoehorn him into the Elimination Chamber. I just don’t think Khali should be anywhere near it.
Nor should The Great Khali be allowed anywhere near a wrestling ring period as evidenced by tonight’s match. The guy can barely walk anymore. For his own health it’s just not a good idea. For my mental heath, it’s even worse.
Sheamus was just getting his match off against the newly single (in terms of tag teams) Damien Sandow when The Shield attacked him. The Shield laid out the last three guys from the Royal Rumble on Monday, and they continued to target one of those guys tonight. Sheamus made a fight of it, but he was overwhelmed. I don’t quite see where they’re going with The Shield attacks yet. They were constantly attacking Randy Orton, but nothing has come from that so far. Now that CM Punk isn’t champion anymore, what are they really going to do?
Speaking of Randy Orton, he handily defeated Wade Barrett tonight who is just having an awful week. Barrett left Bo Dallas lying a little while after this match, though. I’m hoping this year will be a big year for Barrett. It won’t come together by WrestleMania, but I’m hoping by the summer he’ll get involved in something a little more substantial.
Jack Swagger put his new attitude on full display by ripping Kofi Kingston apart pretty much. The match went a little longer than it should have, in my opinion, but I guess they wanted to drive home the point that Swagger isn’t joking around anymore. I’m going to let him run for a bit with the new attitude and see how I feel in a few weeks before passing judgment.
The parking lot brawl between Alberto Del Rio and Big Show was underwhelming, and I’m being nice about that. It was really poorly thought out. Big Show was just rolling around the car like a worm, and Del Rio was smashing glass because he’s angry. Then, after trying to make us believe that the commentary table weighs 1,000 pounds last week, they wants us to believe that Big Show can outrun Alberto Del Rio this week. He ran in what looked like slow motion to get to that car to drive off. Just very awkward.
The main event was a very good match. The crowd was way more into Del Rio this week, and he did a good job keeping them in it when the excitement started to wane a little bit. Big Show’s attack on Ricardo Rodriguez after the match was well done. I thought that could have been used in lieu of the parking lot “brawl.” Big Show and Del Rio really played their parts well, and Rodriguez makes a great punching bag.
Bump of the Night: Bryan hitting Mysterio with a reverse Backstabber!
Match of the Night: Del Rio/Ziggler & Mysterio-Cara/Hell No **
Final Rating: ** 3/4
Thanks for reading!
Mike Tedesco is the official recapper of WWE Smackdown for Wrestleview.com.