Smackdown Results, Questions and Comments

The final show prior to Bragging Rights is upon us, and as it's Friday Night—you know what that means. Green Day is tuning up the band to get us ready for the evening, SyFy network tuned in, the show pre-taped from Tuesday and Team Blue in the house!

What will the final lead-up to Kane vs Undertaker bring? 

We know that Kane is fighting Randy Orton in what will likely be the main event, but you have to know that The Undertaker will be involved somehow. He's not likely to be held out of the final card before the pay per view, is he?  

Given that The Undertaker used a lightning bolt last week, what are the odds he'll use a tornado this time around?  Seems far more likely than a hurricane, now that Gregory Helms is without a job.

Now that both Team RAW and Team Blue are assembled, what sort of interaction will they have tonight? I have to think that they're in attendance.

Back on RAW, United States Champion "American Dragon" Daniel Bryan (Danielson) challenged Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler to a match at Bragging Rights, which is a main reason why I'm thinking about ordering this event. 

Are they going to continue to show that they don't care much about secondary (or tertiary) titles by not having Bryan in attendance? It wouldn't surprise me if he's left off the show despite the fact that his match only has one segment's worth of build.

Speaking of secondary titles, as far as I know there's no scheduled match for the Unified World Tag team Championships as of yet for Bragging Rights. Would they consider setting something up for that? 

Even if it's The Dudebusters asking for a shot, getting told they're not worthy of a title shot yet, and the response being that they'd take a match with Rhodes & McIntyre just for "bragging rights".

Those are just some of the things I'll be looking for as the night progresses. Now, let's get down to it!

We start off the evening with Team RAW and Team Smackdown both in the ring, looking at one another, the knock-off Stanley Cu... I mean the Bragging Rights trophy is in attendance. Could they at least show us.

Interesting concept, the competitors select the matches for tonight, and we start with Captain's Choice.

I'm liking the match booked by The Miz, a six-man tag featuring The Miz, Ezekiel Jackson and Sheamus taking on Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio and I suppose Big Show?  It was his choice.

I definitely love the match that Edge picked, though I was hoping that Edge and CM Punk would be in a feud with one another, not just a random match on Smackdown. Should be entertaining, though.

John Morrison saying he wanted to face the Smackdown competitor who has trouble with the English language, and I'm glad Morrison made fun of Jack Swagger, because that's the first person I thought of for that match pairing, but Alberto Del Rio against Morrison should be a fun watch.  I'm betting there will be some sort of fun attempt at the armbar submission.

Did anyone else have trouble following Swagger's logic about why he wanted to fight Santino? He mentioned something about the sharpshooter?

Match - Six-Man Tag:  Mysterio / Kofi / Big Show vs Sheamus / Zeke Jackson / The Miz

It looks like Big Show is in the match after all, and I have to wonder WHY he thinks it's the best idea to pick a couple of fast guys when faced with a team that includes two of the more powerful guys in WWE (as he mentioned in picking his options).  

Wouldn't this have been a good spot to give Tyler Recks some more in-ring time in front of a viewing audience?  

Does anyone else realize that unless the final members of Team RAW and Team Blue go without a match tonight, we're going to have to sit through Alex Riley vs Recks? Makes me wonder if that ever happened down in a developmental fed a year or two ago. 

And actually, Riley isn't even a part of Team RAW, right?  Is he just a stand-in for R-Truth?  Could there be anyone LESS similar to R-Truth than Riley?

When's the last time you saw a hot tag in WWE? It seems like WWE hates tag team wrestling SO much that I can't remember the last time they had a match that mattered enough to where people were interested enough by a hot tag.

Outcome - Team Blue gets the victory when Big Show hits The Miz with a giant chokeslam and then Rey Mysterio gets the pin following a huge leap off of Big show's shoulders.

Undertaker and Kane are going to be battling in a Buried Alive match. Shouldn't we get a reference to the fact that Paul Bearer was buried alive in cement by the Undertaker a couple years ago? That was one hell of a sand trap.

We get a little recap of what happened on RAW to setup an interview with Dolph Ziggler to remind people about the match that's going to be taking place between he and "American Dragon". 

Anyone else think it's ironic that Dolph Ziggler is complaining about being attacked from behind while doing an interview with "Rear View" Josh Matthews?  (Don't get the reference?  Check out some of my other Smackdown articles from the past few months).

Someone should tell Ziggler that he should look into the camera when cutting promos.  

Match - Jack Swagger vs Santino Marella

Is there any way that Santino Marella is going to get to start his first winning streak of 2010?  When's the last time he had a winning streak, back when he held the Intercontinental Championship?

Did anyone else see the graphic for the Bragging Rights ELIMINATION Match and think that one of the teams had eight guys and the other had six? They split the screen down the middle, but not very well.

If Swagger is on Team Blue, why would Hornswoggle stop the Eagle mascot (Swagger's mascot) from attacking Marella?  Wouldn't Hornswoggle want Team Blue to get whatever kind of advantage they could get? Ah, and now the announcers pick up on it too. Glad they see my logic.

I suppose it would've seemed too good to be true that Marella might've gotten two wins in a row. At least Hornswoggle got the leg-up on Swagger's mascot with his tadpole splash, and he's now leading the battle of the mascots. 

Since he had help from Marella, I won't say Hornswoggle got an Eagle, but I will give him a Birdie.

Outcome - Swagger gets a submission victory via ankle lock after getting a single-leg takedown while Marella was loading up the Cobra.

Cody Rhodes with another manscaping session, and someone should tell him to get rid of that sparkly nose jewelry he wears. Doesn't he realize that, at best, it looks like a bogey? 

Did he just say that our trip is complete? Does this mean that the video series might be over?  That'd be fantastic.

Match - Alberto Del Rio vs John Morrison

Del Rio rolls in with a Mercedes, and even with the crazy flip-up doors, this is still the cheapest car he's probably used for an entrance during his WWE tenure.

As Team Smackdown has won the first two matches, doesn't that make it highly likely that Morrison will pick up a win in this match?  I suppose Smackdown could stay on its win-streak. We know how Smackdown decision makers like to make things tough to predict.

Does Michael Cole really need to explain to us about the importance of the numbers advantage a team can gain with an elimination at Bragging Rights?  We all probably still remember the Team RAW vs Nexus match from SummerSlam, right?

There's the end of the match, and is anyone else disappointed that there wasn't a fun little spot involving Morrison reversing or blocking the armbreaker?

Outcome - Del Rio gets a victory via cross armbreaker submission, giving Smackdown a 3-0 advantage.

Match - Edge vs CM Punk

Can Edge still be the Rated R Superstar on a PG show? When's the last time he did anything even slightly edgey?  

Edge wearing red elbow pads, does that show a potential alliance with RAW?  Might he be the secret weapon for the Monday Night team and be a turncoat like Big Show was last year? 

He does wear mostly red and black, so that's likely the explanation for the elbow pad, but he was just recently acquired by Smackdown, so his loyalties to Team Blue aren't necessarily that strong.

Shouldn't Edge be the one working over his opponent's midsection? That's where the Spear connects.  Punk should be working over Edge's head and neck leading up for the Go2Sleep, not holding his own neck from the attacks of Edge. 

They've got things backwards. Maybe they'll fix it on the Back 9. 

If The Miz and Riley were looking to keep Punk from losing his match, why did they blatantly get involved, just to get Punk disqualified, giving Smackdown ANOTHER win?

Michael Cole messes up ONCE AGAIN as he gets his math wrong when he says that Big Show was the only one yet to show up.  Clearly Mysterio was still backstage. How could Cole forget about one of the most popular members of Smackdown?

Outcome - The Miz and Riley get CM Punk disqualified, and then everyone from both teams run-in.

Oh wow, LayCool is doing a great parody of Bret Hart and Natalya Neidhart. The goatee on Layla was awesome, and I will give Michelle McCool some credit for doing some of Bret Hart's mannerisms.

Match - Natalya Neidhart & Kelly Kelly vs The Hart FoundLayCool ("Hitman" Michelle McCool & "Anvil's Daughter" Layla)

Could we POSSIBLY get an appearance from the REAL Hart tonight, since we're still in Alberta, Canada?

Is anyone else having trouble watching this match since Layla's got the blonde wig with the pink stripe in it?

Does anyone else think that Kelly Kelly's short short shorts push the limits of TV PG (in a good way)? Maybe the reason she hasn't been involved in the match at all was because they were worried that things would go TV-MA if she got pinned and a member of LayCool hooked the leg too deeply.

Outcome - Natalya Neidhart gets the win with a submission via Sharpshooter

Is anyone else really surprised that Orton is listed as a seven time World Champion? 

I remember his first title win, and I remember him getting the belt back, then I remember him getting it back recently, but that still leaves four title reigns that I don't remember.

How is being buried alive TV PG? It occurs to me that you might not want a 10-year-old considering how frightening that would be. TV-PG-13 at least.

For my thoughts on the main event and the entire show as a whole, view the full version of this article over at my site, www.GuysNation.com where we also have a prediction contest for WWE Pay Per Views starting with Bragging Rights.