The World's Strongest Champion has arrived. After defeating Randy Orton on Sunday, Mark Henry has won his first-ever World Heavyweight Championship after 15 years in the company. His reign of terror comes to Smackdown tonight. With 9 scant days between now and Hell in a Cell, Randy Orton needs a game plan if he wants to get the title back. The next shots will be fired tonight. Read on for my thoughts on the show as it happens.
Johnny Ace always sounds like he needs a Hall's.
Spot the FCW/NXT cameos! Darren Young, Maxine, Percy Watson, Titus O'Neil, Aksana, Derrick Bateman, and (FCW Champion) Leo Kruger! NXT's taped before Smackdown so it makes sense. I didn't know Kruger was there, though.
Awesome promo to start.
I was thinking we were getting HHH vs. Henry for a second.
Nice intensity by the champion.
I wonder which Sin Cara's there.
Anchorman reference?
I love heel Christian right now.
Are the Divas going to be around the ring too? I don't think that would be too helpful.
I guess in this case the fans are supposed to pull for either the lumberjacks or for Christian to get destroyed.
Slater back to be the sacrificial lamb. I don't dislike him THIS much.
"Bro Kick" sounds like a pretty goofy move. It's a BROGUE kick. A brogue is a thick accent.
I like Sheamus' signature offense. He's grown a lot in his fairly brief WWE tenure.
I think Booker might need to go back to decaf.
Slater is really good at selling; I'll give him that.
Sheamus really gets the "playing to the crowd" thing.
Christian's spot on. What a smarmy guy.
Khali's actually a former World Champion in his own right.
Barrett's brutal. I think he could be a top-tier heel if given a chance to (like in Nexus).
Gabriel's been impressive lately. I used to see him as pretty one-dimensional, but he's getting more going in his favor. A team with Bourne would be natural.
They were in kind of a tough spot with this one. They wanted to give Barrett a big win without destroying Gabriel.
They're in a tough spot with Orton/Rhodes, too.
Pretty solid Orton promo.
Cole and Booker cracking up before a Hell In A Cell package doesn't send a good message.
It's a shame that Foley's not here to talk about the dangers of the match. He'd be perfect.
Kaitlyn's awfully shiny tonight.
Divas of Doom with spiked shoulder pads. I love it.
Kaitlyn might as well be a crash test dummy at this point. At least put her on NXT or something so it doesn't look like her winning a contract was a wash. At least AJ got in some offense. All in all, though, they might as well be nameless shmoes as far as how they're booked on Smackdown. I don't think the win did too much for the team since they've made their opponents look so meaningless.
What if Rhodes wearing the mask to hide his face was just a way to use it as a weapon all along? That'd be pretty awesome heel material.
Again, they need Orton to look like a credible World Title contender without burying Rhodes. A rock and a hard place indeed. This is why Smackdown needs a deeper roster. Not to mention they're starting to over-expose the talents.
I hope Rhodes claims that his face was even more disfigured after Orton's DDT with him not wearing his mask so he gets his heat back to a degree.
Funny segment with Sheamus and the oblivious Christian.
Khali just feels like he's "there" at this point. He's not all that mobile and hasn't done much significant in quite some time.
If Khali kills Mahal here, the whole storyline might as well have been for nothing.
Mahal's a good deal younger and more mobile than Khali. He should be able to put up a good fight.
I guess they're writing Mahal off or going back to the drawing board with him. He and Johnny Curtis both feel like colossal wastes of time given the end result. Not that I dislike either of them, but all of their TV time has led them to hardly anything.
This LOOKS like Mistico, but I'm not really sure.
192 pounds and looking to become a World Heavyweight Champion. I'm just saying. People have issues with Mysterio's size, but they're ok with Bryan because of his submission expertise. Kind of weird to me.
These guys are both good technical wrestlers from their pre-WWE careers.
The commentators are confusing me, and that's the last thing you want to do with your viewers.
Some "off" spots in this match, which happens when you try that many flashy moves with not much WWE experience.
Pretty cool ending I think. I guess we end up with Sin Cara vs. Sin Cara vs. Daniel Bryan? Hopefully the second Sin Cara can be Hunico (or whatever new name) at some point.
I like the running story of Christian tonight.
I'm ok with this clash of good guys because we get to see what The Usos can do.
How many years has it been since Harlem Heat teamed? There's a time frame you pass where most of the audience has no idea who you're talking about.
Two much arguing and talking about "catch phrases" on commentary. Not enough putting over other tag teams in the division, or the win over Awesome Truth.
I really think it's time to replace Booker on commentary. He's just a joke at this point.
That video package was glorious.
How many Smackdown viewers have any clue who the NXT competitors are? The announcers certainly aren't telling us.
Why is Ezekiel so close to Barrett and Slater? They left him laying during the Corre angle. Faces and heels should be kept separate here.
That basically made everyone other than Henry look weak.
It's always Barreta...
We ALMOST had a count-out in a lumberjack match, which are specifically made to avoid count-outs.
Good ending I suppose.
That's all for Smackdown. I'll be back Monday for Raw, and a news post will be up later. Thanls for reading!
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