WWE SmackDown Review: March 18, 2011

SmackDown has been consistently good since I began writing reviews for Bleacher Report; for me, it's been the top show every week. This week, I wondered if they could better themselves by getting rid of the pointless promos that have brought them down in past presentations.

We were introduced to the announcement that Big Show and Kane would challenge The Corre for the tag team championships later that evening. First successful move by SmackDown this week—and it has only been on for 10 seconds. Perfect booking, capitalizing on what had occurred in previous weeks.

Michael Cole was introduced next. They are really taking this “Cole mine” seriously. My question is, why does he need it on SmackDown? I thought the whole point was so he could be protected from anything Jerry Lawler might do...? Anyway, I digress. Haven’t got time for Cole this week as SmackDown was action-packed to say the least!

Edge came out for a match with Brodus Clay, but when he did his signature pose on the ramp, the pyrotechnics failed to go off. I could swear I saw Edge looking daggers at someone to his left. Whether a fan irritated him or it was meant for the pyrotechnics guy we’ll never know. (The same thing happened at the Royal Rumble though...)

I love Brodus Clay. He doesn’t fit the usual Superstar criteria of today: athletic, toned and to an extent, good-looking. He looks like a total brute, the sort of wrestler who was abundant throughout the late 80’s early 90’s.

He also uses moves that I haven’t seen since the likes of Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit were wrestling. Suplex after suplex—he reminded me of Tazz.

I’m also glad he is being given a chance to control the matches with the big-name Superstars, because if Brodus Clay was squashed then it would be a sad day for variety in wrestling.

That’s exactly what he did: took control of the match with Edge, diving on him at one point. “Just crushed him, dawg!” (Booker T never fails to crack me up). It was the perfect match to start SmackDown.

Ricardo Rodriguez distracted the ref while Alberto Del Rio held Edge’s foot, preventing the spear for the time being. Christian decided to interfere on Edge’s behalf, attacking Del Rio, and allowing Edge to capitalize with the spear and pick up the win.

Del Rio started on Edge when his hand was raised—and a brawl the likes of which I’ve never before seen on PGTV, broke out between Christian and Del Rio. They were all over the announce table and it was just pure aggression. Brilliant.

Teddy Long came out to announce a cage match between Del Rio—and you guessed it, CHRISTAN! In the words of The Miz, “Really?” Someone needs to tell Teddy that Christian’s name has an ‘I’ in it. Holla.

As you know, I usually moan about Superstars appearing on brands they aren’t supposed to, but I have to make an exception this week for Sheamus.

He deserves a decent push and giving him TV exposure on both brands was an excellent way to do it. Then I realized he was up against Kofi Kingston—and assumed he didn’t stand a chance.

It was another fantastic match. Sheamus and Kofi started the match extremely well with Kofi being on the receiving end of a vicious neckbreaker. Kofi busted Sheamus’ mouth and did a good spot on the stairs, which Sheamus proceeded to use as a weapon.

As they got back in the ring, Sheamus obliterated Kofi with a ridiculous brogue kick—and Sheamus won! Even if the rest of SmackDown was rubbish, I’d be happy that Sheamus picked up the win. The Celtic Warrior is back! (Not according to the ring announcer—who couldn’t decide whether to call him “King” or not.)

A backstage segment followed, where the Big Show asked Kane to put their differences aside and take the tag team championships from The Corre. Kane responded with a choke hold and the Big Show returned the favour. Then, they broke it off, and Kane said: “You complete me.” Weird to say the least...

Trent Baretta was waiting in the ring (someone needs to tell me who he is and where he came from) when we returned from commercial, and he is facing... Cody Rhodes! It took a while for me to realize who it was from his distorted music.

What an excellent bit of character development. Words can’t describe how excited I am about Cody Rhodes' character. He is extremely adept at portraying a mentally disturbed individual.

Cody removed his towel and turned immediately aggressive, using his mask as a weapon. This was basically a squash match, anyway; and Cody Rhodes, wrestling in his suit again, returned to the back with the black towel over his head under the dim blue lights that represented a descent into madness. In my opinion, this is definitely a nod to Kane when he was unmasked.

He almost looked like Darth Sidious on his return to the back—but maybe that’s just the Star Wars fan in me.

Divas match with Kelly Kelly blew me away...because of her wrestling. She started with a move reminiscent of Tajiri’s tarantula, then did X-Pac’s X-Factor and finally went for Chyna’s handspring elbow.

It was the first Divas match in about 10 years that I’ve not wanted to end. It lasted longer than a minute as well. I thought they deserved it, anyway, because of the mockery Cole made of the Divas on Raw, but Kelly Kelly definitely deserved the spotlight.

Michelle McCool provided the distraction, and Layla picked up the win. That was the only bad part of the match.

Big Show came out to huge cheers from the crowd and the tag team match was underway. Slater took control after focusing on Kane’s leg. Quick tags occurred until Gabriel got caught with a gruesome uppercut after a failed high-risk maneuver. The Giant came in and cleaned house, until Gabriel pulled the ref out and got disqualified. Cue beatdown by The Corre.

Big Show was thrown onto the announce table. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be through the announce table but Big Show failed to break it. I know. Toughest announce table ever.

A squash match for Jack Swagger followed, and he ended Chris Masters with the anklelock and got Cole to apply it as well. Then, they ran around the ring, celebrating like the arses they are.

Mysterio took on Ted DiBiase in the penultimate match of the night in what I assumed would be a squash match for Mysterio, but DiBiase got in a lot more offense than I'd anticipated. By the way, I can’t believe how much Mysterio kicks out. It isn’t right. Mysterio picked up the victory with a 619.

It was now time for the final match—Christan! (sorry, I couldn’t resist. Holla.) and Del Rio in a steel cage. SmackDown ended how it started, with an excellent show of wrestling. There was a good spot in the cage where both Del Rio and Christian took a big bump. Del Rio kicked out of the killswitch.

The end of the match looked like Christian was trying to mount Del Rio on the outside of the cage, but I’ll lay off the gay gags due to WWE getting into trouble over it...

The end of the night approached, and Edge was getting ready to destroy Alberto’s car before Brodus Clay battered him from behind. The show ended with an ironic conchairto to Edge’s arm, as Del Rio and Brodus stood tall.

This was the best SmackDown I have possibly ever seen. Great matches with a lot of time for each (hence the mammoth review, and I still didn’t say everything I wanted to) and I couldn’t really fault it. The only thing that brought it down was the Swagger match and the Cole segment. Boring.

Please leave comments in the comments section below! I do my best to reply to all comments that warrant it. Thanks for reading.

Also if you missed my Raw review this week, please head over and check it out!

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/636373-wwe-raw-review-march-14-2011