Creidt: PWInsider.com
Smackdown was taped at the Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio tonight, on the campus of Wright State University, next door to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. This is a very small arena to begin with, but there were four full sections tarped off on the camera side and about 5 sections that were partially tarped off. I was on the camera side, near the curve and only about 10 rows of my section were uncovered. The camera side was pretty much full, though. Tiny arena, ‘ok’ ticket sales. š
On to the matches, I think there were two dark matches, but I didn’t catch any of them. The last guy was leaving the ring when I sat down and then the announcers for Velocity came out. Josh Matthews got a **HUGE** ovation, one of the biggest pops of the night.
VELOCITY SPOILERS
*Hardcore Holly over WWE Cruiserweight champion Spike Dudley (non-title)
*Handicap Match: Big Show over two jobbers (Steven Lee & ?)
*Shannon Moore over Akio
*Luther Reigns & Mark Jindrak over Funaki & Nunzio
SMACKDOWN! SPOILERS
Right off the bat, John Cena came out and did a little promo/rhyme about his match tonight with Carlito Caribbean Cool for the US title.
Next was the stupid Tough Enough segment. This was the time when I should have went to the bathroom to keep from ruining my night, but I didn’t. In any event, tonight their challenge was to make it past the Basham Brothers. Sounds easy enough. Basically they had 30 seconds, and the ring was divided into a few sections. In the corner where the guy stood there was a line that he had to start from behind. On the side where the Bashams were, there was a line marking off a big section. These were diagonal with a flag attached to the corner where the Bashams were. The object was to simply get through the Bashams and take the flag. They really weren’t allowed to do much of anything in terms of hitting, etc. Everyone’s strategy seemed to be run as fast as they could to try to get past them and the Bashams’ strategy seemed to be to keep them off their feet. Really, only the big military guy and Puder had a chance. The big guy pulled along the ropes at one point dragging the Bashams with him, but he ran out of time. Puder made it close to the corner too, but was taken down.
In the end nobody got the flag. – During all of this, one of the Bashams kept having problems with his contact lens. At first it came out, then Chimmel cleaned it for him or just handed it back, one of the two, and he put it back in but it kept bugging him the whole time he was out there. At one point the ref signaled to the back that he would be OK to finish up out there, but he had trouble with his eye the whole time. After each of the contestants takes a run at them, they go back to their corner where Al Snow would talk to them for a minute, trying to stall a little while the Bashams were off camera on their side of the ring while the one was playing with his contact. One camera shot somewhat through the contest will show the guy in his corner and the Basham with the eye problem on his knees trying to make it better. This is the only indication that you will see of this unless Cole and Tazz say something about it.
*Chavo Guerrero over Billy Kidman
Carlito & Jesus go to Teddy Long’s office and Carlito tries to get out of the match. He takes his shoulder x-rays and a doctor’s note but Teddy tells him that he is not getting out of it or he will be stripped of the title.
*Charlie Haas w/ Jackie over Heidenreich via Countout
I don’t know what was a bigger waste of time, the Tough Enough stuff or this. They basically wrestled for like 30 seconds. Heidenreich then leaves the ring and sort of falls to the floor. He then climbed over the railing and laid down on the floor by everyone in the fetal position. This went on for about 3 or 4 minutes until Sgt. Slaughter among others came out to try to get stupid to get up. Heyman gave him his jacket which he hugged for a while and then he finally left like 5 minutes later. I’m sure that they will probably cut this down on TV, but I had to sit through it, unfortunately. Everyone was pretty much quiet during most of this. There was one small boring chant, but there was also one loud SLAUGHTER chant! All he did was come out and they chanted his name.
RVD & Rey Mysterio were shown in the back getting ready for their match. RVD introduced Rey to the girl on the floor, his new personal trainer: Michelle McCool from the RAW Diva Search Contest.
*RVD & Rey Mysterio over Kenzo Suzuki w/ Hiroko & Rene Dupree (non-title)
Video that aired during Survivor Series was shown reminding us that WWE will go back overseas again this Christmas. That got a big cheer.
Kurt Angle came out and introduced his way of ‘giving back’, the Kurt Angle Invitational. He said that every week he will let a ‘hometown hero’ come out and try to pin him. If anyone can, then he will personally deliver to him the prize, Kurt Angle’s Olympic Gold Medal.
*Kurt Angle over Dean Visk (?)
JBL is shown backstage introducing Orlando to his new image consultant: Amy Weber from the RAW Diva Search Contest.
JBL comes out and does a promo about how it’s great to be the champ and that he won just like he said that he would. Basically, everyone who wants a title shot comes out from here. Booker T comes out and talks a little bit. Then Eddie Guerrero comes out in a car (They had the mirror thing pulled out of the way and he had the headlights on for like 3 minutes before he came out, but everyone seemed surprised when he came out). Eddie talked for just a minute and then the lights went out. UNDERTAKER came out next. This is when the place erupted because nobody thought that he would actually be there. Undertaker never said a word all night, he just sort of stood there. JBL was visibly scared. Teddy Long came out after a minute and said that JBL’s next title defense would be a Fatal Fourway with all of the names just mentioned. Later in the night they showed a graphic which showed that match as being at SmackDown!’s next PPV. Eventually, Booker T and then Eddie left. Undertaker was still standing in the same spot and would not leave. This is where JBL turned into a comedian and started saying things like he would give him a three count to leave the ring and that “These people don’t want to see you kick my ass”. After some more antics, Undertaker finally did knock the tar out of JBL and Orlando, too. Undertaker eventually left after doing so and then JBL turned into a comedian again. Instead of quietly “coming to”, he slowly rolled from where he was at to the end of the ring by the ramp. Each time he rolled over, he said something funny into the mic and everybody enjoyed this thoroughly. These included things like “I can’t feel my left foot” and “I feel like Ohio State playing against anybody: I got my ass kicked.”
Carlito was shown in the back getting his shoulder massaged by WWE’s newest licensed masseuse: Joy Giovanni *US Championship: John Cena over Carlito Caribbean Cool
The match was extremely short. It was built to Cena winning all night through a series of MANY, MANY video clips that aired before or after commercial breaks ALL NIGHT recapping ALL events between Cena and Carlito. Basically, John beat up Carlito for a minute, then Jesus, then he hit Carlito with a chair (missed completely hitting the pole but oh well), then he took out Jesus one final time and pinned Carlito for an easy three count. It was extremely short (3-4 minutes), but it kept Carlito from working too much and getting hurt more.
After the match, Jesus attacked Cena, punching him in the back where his scar should have been. This made Cena need like 10 refs and a stretcher to leave. To make matters worse, to call for the stretcher, Patrick threw up the now famous “X” sign about five times in a row. I guess this was to make those who think they know what’s going on feel like maybe they don’t, but I obviously wasn’t fooled.
OVERALL, I drove from Cincinnati to Dayton (around 50 miles and an hour each way) any really didn’t think that this show was worth it. Maybe if my ticket was only $20, but it was close to $50 total. I had more fun and enjoyed the show more when I went to see ROH last month in Dayton at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds (plus I met Ricky Steamboat). ROH is coming back in February and I will definitely be going to that show, but I’m not sure if I will be driving to Dayton again for garbage like tonight’s show. Maybe if they are in Cincinnati, it’s RAW (not SD!), and I don’t have anything else to do.
