Mike Tedesco’s Smackdown Thoughts
July 27, 2013
By: Mike Tedesco of Wrestleview.com
Smackdown kicked off with a pretty good match between the two current holders of the Money in the Bank briefcases in Randy Orton and Damien Sandow. The match was pretty back and forth with some good action from both. I was actually really impressed with Sandow during this match. Sandow showed a lot of aggressiveness with Orton in the ring, and he looked really good while doing it. His character needs more of that edge to make him more serious and credible. It’s ok to be the funny heel, but when you’re going for the title, I always felt like the traditional route of being more serious is best. Nobody looked bad coming out of the match. Sandow only lost because Cody Rhodes came to ringside and stole the briefcase, which distracted him. I don’t know if Orton was a little late on his cue or what, but when Rhodes stole the briefcase, Sandow looked like an idiot just standing there watching him do it. That was a little lame, but the match itself was good.
CM Punk was out next to cut a promo on Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar. Punk’s Summerslam match was confirmed on Monday against Brock Lesnar, so he came out to just follow up on that. Punk basically said all the things that he’s going to do to Lesnar and Heyman at the PPV before he was interrupted by Fandango. Punk quickly laid waste to Fandango, and that was the segment. Punk had some good promo work here, but you could miss it and not really miss anything. He didn’t say anything that he hadn’t already said or alluded to.
After seeing that match and Punk’s promo to kick off the show, I figured it was going to be a fun evening of Smackdown. I was wrong. After all that, the show kind of went downhill with maybe one or two highlights in between.
The next match was a six-man tag team match featuring Mark Henry and The Usos defeating Wade Barrett and the Prime Time Players. This wasn’t much of a match. Henry and the Usos won this tune-up for their match against The Shield this Monday on RAW. My only thought from this match was just a thought of how badly Wade Barrett’s career is going. He obviously has some issues that could be addressed in terms of proper selling and the like, but I always thought Barrett could be a big deal in WWE. It’s not looking like that’s the case.
Alberto Del Rio beat Rob Van Dam in a very quick match. Del Rio did a lot of stalling and wound up picking up the victory after a cheap shot. Del Rio celebrated wildly after the win. It’s understandable why it was so short as Del Rio is nursing a broken rib, but you couldn’t help but be disappointed.
AJ Lee was out next with Big E Langston to give a “state of her mind” address. The segment started out fine with AJ acting crazy, but it went downhill shortly after she displayed Dolph Ziggler’s house keys and he came out. AJ then began cutting up his driver’s license, passport, and money. Ziggler was trying to make it funny, but it didn’t come off that way. The crowd wasn’t really laughing. A “you are psycho” chant broke out from a section of the crowd, but that soon fizzled. It just got uncomfortable from there. I even wound up feeling bad for AJ, which I’m sure isn’t the angle they were going for. Ziggler was on the microphone trying to give some witticisms for the crowd as she was carrying out her crazy attack on $20 bills, but it just never clicked. It just went way too long. They tried hard, but it just never got going. Afterward, Kaitlyn came out and speared AJ down. That looked pretty nasty. Ziggler followed that up by giving Langston a famouser on the floor. It just wasn’t that great of a segment.
Erick Rowan and Luke Harper, representing the Wyatt Family, made their in-ring debuts against Tons of Funk last night. It was a quick squash match, but these guys are big, and they looked totally wild. I really liked it. After the match, Bray Wyatt cut another promo on Kane. I’m interested to see where they’re going with the Wyatt Family and what their deal is with Kane. They intrigue me.
Christian fought Jack Swagger in another good match. These two have always matched up well. I remember covering for Dave Stephens in 2009 for an episode of ECW when Christian and Swagger fought for the ECW Championship. It was a really good match back then. They had another good match last night. The announcers were really playing up the mini roll Christian has been on as of late. Christian picked up the clean win here.
After the match, Damien Sandow, who had been searching for Cody Rhodes and his briefcase backstage, came to the ring to call Rhodes out. Rhodes appeared on the titantron in front of the Gulf of Mexico. Sandow ran out there and begged Rhodes not to throw it into the Gulf, as he can’t swim. Of course Rhodes threw it in as Sandow stood there barely three feet away and did nothing. Sandow then jumped in after it and nearly drowned. It wasn’t that funny, and it was kind of a weak segment to close the show. The segment made Sandow look bad just because he was standing so close to Rhodes when he did throw it in the water. Couldn’t there have been a brawl that ended with Rhodes throwing him in? Sandow just looks like an idiot for standing there. It was poorly blocked out. The whole story arch for the show was kind of stupid and poorly written.
Bump of the Night: Kaitlyn spearing AJ outside the ring!
Match of the Night: Christian vs. Jack Swagger **
I realize in the recap that I had originally rated Christian/Swagger as * 1/2, but after watching some of Smackdown again, I realized that this was the better match and should have been rated the same as Sandow/Orton.
Final Rating: ** 1/4
E-Mail – MikeyT817@gmail.com
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Thanks for reading!
Mike Tedesco is the official recapper of WWE Smackdown for Wrestleview.com.