9/24 WWE Smackdown Hits & Misses: Kane - Undertaker, Alberto Del Rio takes out Christian, Big Show, Kaval, Ziggler vs. MVP
Sep 27, 2010 - 12:20:17 PM
By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist
SMACKDOWN HITS
Alberto Del Rio: Del Rio is becoming one of my favorite things about Smackdown. He is very entertaining. He understands his character and performs well on the mic. I enjoyed his performance talking about Rey Mysterio. I thought it was odd that the live crowd didn't pop when he announced that Mysterio would be returning next week. Perhaps they doubted he was telling the truth (maybe they all thought Mysterio's music will play, but a chihuahua in a luchador mask will come out instead. Come to think of it, I will be disappointed now if its the real Mysterio). The crowd might not have been into this segment, but I was.
The beating on Christian worked well. I knew something would happen to explain Christian's real injury, so this wasn't a surprise, but it still worked. Del Rio is making a name for himself by injuring fan favorite wrestlers. The problem is that there aren't many left on the roster for him to fight next.
Closing Segment: I had mixed feelings about this ordeal with Kane, Paul Bearer and The Undertaker. I liked some of it, but didn't like all of it. However, on a show with so much to dislike, I guess I feel that this was better than the vast majority of what lead up to it for the rest of the show, so I am giving it a Hit. For one thing, while I didn't love Kane's performance at the start of Smackdown, I thought he was better on the mic at the end. I'm not a fan of Paul Bearer. I didn't like the fact that the announcers didn't say that Bearer is Kane's father, which makes me nervous that WWE is going to ignore that bit of the storyline. They've done a nice job with this angle in terms of bringing up 13 years of history (with a few fudges here and there). So, I hope they don't ignore that important aspect of their past. I could've done without Bearer's involvement in this angle, but considering the epic and historic feel of the feud, I can accept it. It does make sense to bring everything full circle. I also wasn't a huge fan of how far Kane's mood dropped from the start of the segment to the end. It was too much of a fall for step 1 in this new part of the story. But, considering they only have two weeks to build to Hell in a Cell I can look past that. It certainly was a high end to the show which was nice. I had some problems with it, but it should make fans excited to see the PPV so it is a Hit.
SMACKDOWN MISSES
Opening Segment: This didn't do it for me. Kane vs. Chris Masters should have been a squash. I know that Kane dominated much of the match, but the dominant World Champion who fairly easily defeated (in a clean victory I might add) the Undertaker at the PPV should have totally dominated this match. It should have been half as long. I know WWE needs to build up some more babyfaces, but having Masters have a decent showing against Kane isn't going to work (and they need to come up with some babyfaces to push other than Masters). I have enjoyed much of the mic work from Kane as of late, but this performance wasn't quite as good as far as I'm concerned. It wasn't bad. I did like the idea of going out into the audience, but it felt unintentionally funny when he sat down next to that kid who looked freaked out. The match made little sense to me, the promo was only decent, so that adds up to a Miss.
Kaval Loses Again: I don't understand the mentality behind starting a new wrestler's "push" with a losing streak. Yes, the moment of triumph when he finally gets that first win can be a good moment. But, that is far from guaranteed. You can also get a fan base that isn't behind the wrestler whom they see as a loser. Kaval won NXT Season 2, and instead of doing something with whatever momentum (ok, probably not much) he had from that, they are making him look like a loser. Yes, he still does a few cool moves. But, who cares if he keeps losing?
Big Show Handicap Match: It makes me sad that instead of doing something with a tag team that has potential like Kurt Hawkins & Vance Archer, WWE put Drew McIntyre & Cody Rhodes randomly together as a team and now they are Tag Team Champions. It makes me sad that they take Hawkins & Archer and have them lose a handicap match to the Big Show in less than 2 minutes. Does Big Show really need handicap matches at this point in his career to build up how dominating he can be? Didn't he just get a strong PPV win over a former multiple time World Champion in CM Punk? Is this just a case of the writers having nothing for Show, but wanting him on Smackdown and they couldn't come up with anything better?
Gallows The Babyface: When will WWE learn the lesson that having a heel faction kick a member out of the group is not a good way to turn that wrestler babyface? It didn't work with Randy Orton and Evolution several years ago. It didn't work with Darren Young and Nexus a month or so ago on Raw. And it won't work with Luke Gallows on Smackdown. The crowd was clearly apathetic towards Gallows despite him being presented as a babyface threat to Punk. Some were even chanting for Punk during their match. I don't think this was a serious attempt to get behind him as a babyface, as he lost the match. But, they still need to do a better job of addressing the lack of faces on this show.
MVP vs. Ziggler: I had a lot of problems with this match. Mostly, it represented the laziness of WWE writers. Dolph Ziggler got a clean win in an Intercontinental Championship defense against his arch rival Kofi Kingston, presumably ending that feud. So, what to do now? He had a totally random IC Title defense against Montel Vontavious Porter who had been feuding with Jack Swagger. Lazy. They want to build up MVP as a potential feud for Ziggler, so they have him win without winning the Title via count out in that random match. Lazy. They want to have tension between Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero and her NXT rookie Diva Kaitlyn, but they don't want to really build to it, so they jump right in with Kaitlyn shoving Guerrero and walking out. Lazy. They don't seem to want to take the time to really build to something, the way they just proved they can do with the good feud between Ziggler and Kingston. Also, I'm still not 100% sure that this was an IC Title match. I didn't think it was at first, but then the announcers seemed to say it was since Ziggler lost via count out, so he still had the Title. On that same front, if you are MVP wouldn't you try to stop Ziggler from leaving? He had all the time in the world to run after him and pull him back into the ring. That made MVP look like a fool. I guess it isn't as bad if it weren't a Title match, but I'm still not sure.
Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Superstars each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.
For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.
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