Tonight is the "go home" show for one of the biggest wrestling events of the year. WWE has its final chance to hype the upcoming Royal Rumble tonight, and they're doing it in a big way. The main event features the reunion of Edge and Randy Orton as they face off against their Championship match opponents, Dolph Ziggler and The Miz.
Here are my thoughts on the show as it happens:
Pretty good performances from everyone in the opening segment.
I liked where they were going with the Divas' match, but then Michelle won out of nowhere. It was a nice change of pace before then. Kaitlyn seems to have improved some since NXT. She still trains/wrestles in FCW (along with Aksana, Maxine, AJ, and Naomi among others).
The look Kelly Kelly shot Michael Cole when he said that she had a bone to pick with her was priceless. I don't think I've ever seen a wrestler next to the announce table without a headset show that they were listening to what the announcers were saying. It was a nice touch. The body language between Drew and Kelly was very good. I feel like an acting coach here, but I think that's really important to get inside a character's mindset. They didn't have to say a word and you could still get hints at what they were thinking. I'm interested in this storyline.
As weird as it was having Cody Rhodes do an interview with his back to the camera, the segment was really good and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the weeks to come. It's a shame that Rhodes won't be in the Rumble, but it makes sense for him to not show his face for weeks to come.
It was kind of funny for Edge to "slip up" and say DJ Gabriel. He was a wrestler with a dancer gimmick (with Alicia Fox) on the WWE ECW brand.
Michael Tarver continues to be an enigma.
Surely Striker knows that JBL had similar entrances to Del Rio. I'm glad they didn't mention it, though.
I was kind of hoping that Del Rio would bring out parodies of other wrestlers, like a very short Rey Mysterio or something. Not just for the comedy value, but to mock his opponents and look dominant in the process.
It'd make more sense if Mysterio or Kingston came before Kane. I thought they were randomly turning Kane face there for a minute.
Good match with Rey, Kofi, Kane, and Del Rio.
Didn't we last see Big Show being taken out by The Corre? You'd think he'd be a little more concerned and hurt coming down the ring. Pretty good promo by Show nonetheless.
So, Heath Slater suddenly attacks Big Show and the referee just jumps in there and makes it a match? I'm going to assume that he was ringside for the match after Show's promo. I didn't like Show almost disposing of The Corre that easily before Jackson nailed him. They could have easily just had The Corre jump in the ring instead of just Slater and start to attack him before some Smackdown wrestlers saved him. At LEAST explain why Daniel Bryan was there, even if it's just that he was visiting friends in the city and was backstage. Santino and Kozlov are accounted for as the tag team champions. R-Truth has appeared here enough that I can somewhat forgive that one.
Kind of an odd beginning to Miz's promo, but it turned out well-delivered. At some point I want Miz to berate the crowd for finishing his catchphrase.
I miss when they called some of Edge's moves "Edge-o-matic" (where he grabs his opponent backwards from the chin) and "Edge-uction" (kind of like a DDT). It makes them seem more important to me for some reason.
The stipulation for Edge vs. Ziggler is a little odd. I didn't think that the match needed anything added to it. I would have liked for Ziggler to have pinned Edge here (even if it's due to Riley's briefcase or something) so he could say that he pinned the Champion. Especially since he's the underdog going into that match. I wouldn't say that Ziggler was buried by taking those spears, but it certainly didn't help him going into Sunday. The dropped the ball a little bit here.
That's all for my thoughts on this week's Smackdown. I'll be back with coverage of the Royal Rumble on Sunday. A preview column for the event will be up tomorrow (Saturday).
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