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With the pay per view this weekend, I will look at how well the segments built for the pay per view in addition to my usual thoughts.
Here are my thoughts on the show:
I liked the opening segment with CM Punk, Serena, and Luke Gallows along with the new recruits for the Straight Edge Society. By giving Luke and Serena more to do than stand by and blindly follow Punk, it adds to their characters. Luke has been good on the mic over the last few weeks and Serena is improving and will only get better if she is given mic time. The opening segment also did a great job to set up the match between Punk and Rey on Sunday and showed that it is more than what happens in the ring, Punk is trying to get Rey’s soul.
I did not like that the Straight Edge Society has glommed the official cage lowering music for the head shaving ceremony. Why can’t you use some other music for head shaving? It isn’t like too many people have been added to the group lately.
I thought Rey’s appearance during the opening segment was good because it was brief. Rey and Punk would be in the ring together later in the show and there is no reason for a confrontation before the match. I liked how Rey was able to show Punk with a shaved head but still with the Mike Knox beard. As I mentioned on the Smackdown Audio last night, I thought Punk looked a little like Ivan Koloff with the shaved head.
With the way that the ‘new recruits’ were holding their right arms up, it is possible that some people could be offended.
I liked that Punk decided to take out his frustrations over Rey’s interruption on the new recruits.
The opening segment did a great job of building for the pay per view and gave us a possible preview of Rey’s induction ceremony into the Straight Edge Society.
I am not a big fan of the ‘co-champions’ for the Women’s Title. Layla got the win over Beth and should be the women’s champion. I understand that it is probably going to lead to the break up of the team, but it makes it seem like Michelle cannot let someone else have the spotlight.
The women’s tag match was okay when you consider who is in the match but as is the case with most women’s matches on television, it did not get enough time for anything to develop. I liked that when Kelly hit the cross body off the turnbuckles to the floor, Layla did not sell getting hit with the move when Kelly never touched her. As I mentioned on the Smackdown audio, there are too many times when a wrestler is a bystander for a high impact move and they sell it even though they were never touched or even in the Palsgraf ‘Zone of Danger’.
Since none of these women are on the pay per view, this did not add anything for Over the Limit on Sunday.
I thought the Big Show ‘Did you know’ segments were fun and were a good counter for what Jack Swagger did in past weeks. I liked how they were spaced throughout the show and then the way the third one set up the finish of Swagger’s match on the show.
I thought the JTG/Caylen Croft match was okay, but I think this is the start of the journey for both men to become Superstars regulars. JTG has moved on from his feud with Shad and after a week with MVP, it looks like he is back as a singles wrestler. Croft and Barreta don’t appear to have caught on with the crowd since being moved to Smackdown.
Since none of these men are on the pay per view, it did not build for Sunday.
I did not like the segment in the back with Christian and Vickie Guerrero. Why does Vickie need to be a guest on the Peep Show? Vickie is the number two person on the brand so she should be able to be on television whenever she wants, and with Teddy Long not on the show, she was the de facto leader. Christian is usually good with his promos and backstage segments, but this one seemed forced when he was going through people who finished ahead of Vickie. It would have been funny if they would have put Mike Adamle in the group ahead of Vickie, but still would have felt like something forced.
There is some potential with the Vance Archer and Curt Hawkins tag team, but if they are only going to beat ‘local’ wrestlers and not face anyone who is on the current WWE roster, it loses some of the meaning. I have a feeling that this will lead to a match between this team and the DudeBusters with the winner staying on Smackdown and the loser going elsewhere. Hawkins and Archer work well together and show a few similarities to Archer’s former tag team in TNA with Kid Kash.
This was another segment that did not build for the pay per view because none of the wrestlers in this match are on the pay per view.
With the exception of the Peep Show, this was the end of the part of the show that had nothing to do with the pay per view and the build for Sunday’s show resumed with the Swagger/Kingston match.
I thought the Kingston/Swagger match was the best match of the night and they gave them enough time to tell a decent story. Swagger has been in a bit of a rut in the ring over the last few weeks, but he is able to show that he is one of the best in ring technicians in the company. Kofi also looked good in the match and he was able to showcase his athletic ability in the match. Kofi looked to be a step ahead of Swagger during much of the match but Swagger was always able to withstand what Kofi did in the ring. Since it was the show before the pay per view, I did not mind the interruption during the match that much. I don’t know if it was necessary for Swagger to lose another match, but the win helped Kofi a lot for his match with Drew McIntyre on Sunday.
I did not think the Peep Show was that good. Maybe it had something to do with the guest because I have not been a fan of the Hornswoggle segments when he was with the guest hosts on Raw and put into situations where he was embarrassing Chavo Guerrero. The one positive of the Peep Show was that it continued the feud between Christian and Dolph Ziggler. I was hoping that Ziggler would have put Hornswoggle in another sleeper since he saw where he was hiding. I also expected to see Hornswoggle do something to prevent Chavo from hitting the frog splash.
Has anyone told Hornswoggle that Degeneration X is no more because of Shawn’s retirement and Hunter’s injury or is that the only thing that he owns for clothes?
I thought the Gallows and Punk versus Porter and Mysterio match was good and continues the excellent build in the feud between Rey Mysterio and CM Punk. Gallows has improved a lot in the ring since he started working with Punk. Now that Porter is on Smackdown, he has shown a lot more in the ring and is reverting back to what he was doing during his feuds with Matt Hardy and Chris Benoit a few years ago. Since the focus of this match was the build for Rey and Punk, I did not mind that Luke and Porter were secondary at the finish.
I wonder when they are going to reveal the masked SES follower. I think that with his recent results in trying to interfere for Punk, he might not want to be a part of the SES because he is screwing up more than he is helping.
The Kingston/McIntyre confrontation in the back was okay since it was building to the pay per view match.
I was a bit disappointed with the time given to the McIntyre/Show match. While it was expected that Swagger was going to interfere, it would have been nice if they got more than four or five minutes. I thought Show looked good in the match and McIntyre is probably happy that he is wrestling a smaller opponent at the pay per view.
What to watch on DVR: Watch the CM Punk/Rey Mysterio stuff; Jack Swagger versus Kofi Kingston
