Credit: PWInsider.com
Smackdown Spoilers – January 31, 2005 in San Jose, California (HP Pavilion)
John Cena enters to a MASSIVE POP and plays to the crowd. Teddy Long comes out and explains that he’s having a tournament to determine the #1 Contender for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21. He mentions that, should Batista decide to join the Smackdown roster, Smackdown’s WrestleMania main event will be a Triple Threat Match between the winner of No Way Out’s Steel Cage Barbed Wire Match, the winner of the tournament, and Batista. John “Bradshaw” Layfield comes out with “Chief of Staff” Orlando Jordan and whines about the stipulations. Long mentions the upcoming tournament matches – next week is John Cena vs. Orlando Jordan and Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio. JBL tells Cena that he’s not in the same league as him. Jordan attacks Cena from behind, Cena throws Jordan over the top rope and gives JBL an FU. Cena leaves.
Kurt Angle Invitational: Kurt Angle vs. Nunzio. Kurt Angle comes out with security guards holding his gold medal. Nunzio’s music hits and he walks out and confronts Angle. Angle questions Nunzio as to why he’s there since he’s not from San Jose. Nunzio responds that tonight, he will be from San Jose and since Kurt Angle punked him out and took his Royal Rumble number yesterday, he wanted some revenge. This match was all about Angle dominating Nunzio, although during the match, Nunzio did bust out the Sicilian Jumping Jacks.
Winner: Kurt Angle via submission (Ankle Lock)
Rey Mysterio vs. Mark Jindrak. Huge pop for Rey Rey. Good match where Rey used his quickness and agility and Jindrak used his strength, leading to a back-and-forth match.
Winner: Rey Mysterio via pinfall (springboard)
Handicap Match: The Big Show vs. “Secretaries of Defense” The Basham Brothers. Big Show started the match by using his strength and throwing both Bashams around like ragdolls. The massive chops Show was giving was reverberating throughout the stadium.
Winner: The Big Show via pinfall (chokeslam)
Rene Dupree (w/ white Fifi) vs. The Undertaker. A fair amount of heat for Dupree, WILD POP for The Undertaker, in a very rare Smackdown appearance. During the match, Mark Jindrak and Luther Reigns came out and were distracting and attacking Taker whilst the referee wasn’t looking. At the end of the match, Jindrak and Reigns caused Dupree and Undertaker to take the fight outside of the ring. The ref started counting and, even though Undertaker was near the ring, he couldn’t get in quick enough due to his leg being attacked during the match.
Winner: n/a (Double Count-Out)
After the match, Undertaker gave Dupree a Tombstone Piledriver and posed in the middle of the ring.
Main Event: Booker T vs. Eddie Guerrero. Wow, Booker’s pyro is HOT. Eddie and his low rider got an INSANE reaction from the crowd, as they were chanting his name all night and were excited to see him. Booker dominated the majority of this match. The match was slow-paced, which elicited some “boring” chants from the crowd. Lots of rest-holds were used, which wasn’t helping since the entire crowd just sat through both a Raw and a Smackdown show. There were a couple of ref-bumps during the match. One of them, Booker pinned Eddie for over a 3-count, but once the ref regained consciousness to start the count, Eddie kicked out. Eddie tried to lie, cheat, and steal his way to victory by pretending that his knee was hurt, but Booker was smart and didn’t get distracted.
Winner: Booker T via pinfall
After the match, Booker T got on the mic and said that Eddie was his amigo, his compadre, his friend. And said that he just kicked Eddie’s ass in San Jose. Booker T then attacked Eddie in what seemed like a heel turn. Eddie got the upper hand and hit a frog splash on Booker.
I’m assuming the cameras went off at this point. Teddy Long came back out and told the crowd not to leave yet and that he promised the crowd a handicap match, so he would deliver one. Kind of an odd statement since we did see a handicap match with Big Show and the Bashams earlier, but oh well. GM Long sets up a match with JBL and Orlando vs The Big Show. JBL and Orlando come out and JBL screams at Teddy, calling him “Peanut Head”. The Big Show’s music hits and this match gets under way. Back-and-forth match, but Big Show is able to get JBL out of the ring and isolate Jordan.
Winner: The Big Show via pinfall (chokeslam)
Tony Chimmel thanks us all for coming.
Random Show Notes: The stadium looked very full. The Smackdown lesser divas (Michelle McCool and….uh….the other ones not Torrie or Dawn or Miss Jackie) threw shirts to the crowd prior to the show. There was no huge Smackdown fist on the set. Big Show is ENORMOUS. Eddie’s name was chanted in between each and every match. Some flunkie immediately drove Eddie’s lowrider to the back after Eddie got into the ring – maybe the lowrider had a curfew. JBL’s limo wasn’t seen. The crowd loves The Undertaker, plain and simple.
