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Here are my thoughts on the show:
I liked that the show started off with Drew McIntyre. Since Raw had Wade Barrett back on the show so for people who knew about the visa issues, they had that resolved immediately on Smackdown as well. With Vince McMahon still out of the equation, it made sense for Drew to be very humble when dealing with Teddy Long. It seems like the tables have been turned for these two men since it was a few weeks ago that Teddy was begging for his job, but now Drew had to get on his knees and beg. It made sense for Drew to try to suck up to Teddy by saying that he would be the one to nominate Teddy for the WWE Hall of Fame for next year since they will be back in Atlanta, Teddy’s home town. Teddy was able to see through Drew’s BS and made Drew earn his way into the Money in the Bank match.
With Teddy making Kofi Kingston as Drew’s opponent to get into the Money in the Bank match, it continued their feud and did not give Drew the easy match that he had when Vince McMahon was around to give him easy opponents.
The Triple Threat Match for the other spot in the Money in the Bank Match was good. With Chavo and Dolph in the match together, you had a feeling that they would be working together in the match and then when you add Vickie at ringside, it was almost a given. I thought Porter did a good job dealing with the disadvantage in the match.
The progression of Chavo during the match was well done. Early in the match, Chavo was willing to let Dolph get the pinfall attempts on Porter and did not seem to care about winning the match. While this was a bit contradictory to Chavo’s attitude last week when he vowed to do for his Aunt Vickie what Dolph couldn’t do, but I guess that was resolved at a family dinner last week. After the superplex by Porter, Chavo seemed to remember that most wrestlers want to be a World Champion and that could be achieved if you win Money in the Bank. Chavo must have seen the briefcase over his head because he actually wanted to win the match.
I thought Vickie’s reaction to Chavo not following the plan was great. She was about to see her ‘man’ lose the match so it made sense for her to pull the referee out of the ring. Since there are no disqualifications in multiple man matches in the WWE, it was not hurting Dolph. Then once Dolph recovered, Vickie grabbed Chavo to prevent him from ruining the plan any further.
As I mentioned before, I think the Alberto Del Rio vignettes would have worked a lot better if we didn’t have a show like NXT to push the younger talent in the company. Unless they were pushing Del Rio as a veteran talent who had a strong career before coming to WWE, then the video packages would be effective. However, we know more about the wrestlers on NXT who have been given an hour a week for a few months to try to connect with the fans. It also does not help when they show the two video packages and one is from the prior week. While some people might miss a show, when you watch every week, it turns into something you can miss and might even make the regular viewer miss any segments with him.
The Rey Mysterio in the training room segment started off slowly because with the way the physician was talking, I was wondering how Rey could be medically cleared to wrestle with a ligament tear. While others have wrestled with injuries, it would have made sense for Rey to stay out of action, and even out of his wrestling gear. Then the segment got a lot better when Jack Swagger came in and put Rey in the ankle lock and then took him through the backstage area while holding Rey in the ankle lock. You had to ignore the fact that nobody was there to help Rey for such a long period of time. The image of Swagger dragging Rey into the arena to reapply the ankle lock worked since it showed what Swagger is willing to do to keep the advantage and to reinforce the underdog gimmick for Rey.
Big Show should have been the one to save Rey if there was only one person because of what Jack did to Show two weeks ago.
While the Hardy and Christian versus Archer and Hawkins match was secondary to the Money in the Bank match featuring Hardy and Christian it was an okay match. The video package before the match reminding us about the Peep Show should have gotten people wondering if Matt and Christian could work together. We saw that they couldn’t when Christian pulled Matt over the top rope during the match and walked away, allowing Hawkins and Archer to get the win.
In the past, during tag matches, they have had any contact between partners considered a legal tag, so I was surprised that they didn’t make Christian the legal man in the match. While it made more sense to have Hardy remain the legal man since Christian walked away and would have only led to a count out win for Hawkins and Archer.
I liked the McIntyre/Kingston match. Kofi did a good job trying to get the early victory because that would have been a demoralizing way for Drew to be kept out of the Money in the Bank match. These two men have wrestled so many times on television and pay per view that they should know what to expect from the other. We saw some of the standard moves countered by the other like Kofi’s SOS and Drew’s Future Shock DDT. I liked the spot when Kofi was in the ropes holding Drew when Drew hit the reverse Alabama slam since it is a move we haven’t seen from Drew. I thought that we might have seen Drew get a cheap victory when Kofi rolled Drew back into the ring when the referee was at seven or eight and Kofi would have gotten into the ring just after the ten count. I liked the way that Drew countered the Boom drop on the apron by sending Kofi into the ring post, and that leading to the finish of the match. It was something we had not seen from Drew and Kofi.
I liked CM Punk and Luke Gallows’ reaction to Rosa Mendes in the back.
The Straight Edge Society situation developed further with the teasing of some dissention. While at first it looked like the problems were between Luke and Serena over what Serena did on Memorial Day. I like that they are giving Luke and Serena a lot of time on the mic so they can develop their characters beyond blind followers of CM Punk. They both did a good job during the promo and Serena’s apology to Punk and Luke’s condemnation of Serena’s ‘fall’. I liked that instead of siding with Luke, Punk sided with Serena and did not appreciate Luke speaking for him.
I thought Cody Rhodes looking at the mirror on the video wall on his way to the ring was a bit creepy, but fit in with his current gimmick. I wonder if he will morph into a ‘Ravishing’ Rick Rude or an ‘Adorable’ Adrian Adonis character. Maybe they will turn him into the Narcissist since they were showing the Lex Luger Fourth of July slam challenge videos last week.
The JTG/Cody Rhodes match was okay for television and allowed Cody to continue his push. Even though it was a short match, I was surprised that JTG got in as much offense as he did. It was a bit strange to see JTG hit the sliding uppercut against the brother of the man who perfected the drop down uppercut.
I thought the segment with Kelly and Layla was okay. I was a bit surprised to hear them acknowledge that Layla is the ‘real’ champion, but I think it could be a good match at the pay per view. The two-on-one beat down worked but I was a bit surprised that Tiffany was not with Kelly during the interview because of Layla and Michelle’s pattern of behavior.
I thought Big Show’s promo before the main event was good. Show came off as someone whose primary goal in the match was not to win but to show Jack Swagger what it is like to be a bully and see if Swagger likes it. Show saying that he is okay two weeks after the attack can be used to show that it takes that long to recover from Swagger’s ankle lock so it can affect Swagger’s match with Rey at the pay per view.
The main event was okay, but like I mentioned above, it was not a match that Big Show was trying to win. He was trying to send a message to Swagger. The count out finish made sense, but since Swagger had lost so many matches while champion, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he lost. I liked that Swagger got the upper hand on the stage when it looked like he was going to succumb to Show’s revenge.
I thought the Kane/Swagger situation was a mixed bag. It made sense for Kane to move on to another suspect since CM Punk proved that he did not do it. However, it only enforced my feeling that Kane was responsible. I was a bit surprised that he would give Swagger a week to give his alibi.
What to watch on your DVR: McIntyre/Long promo; Triple Threat Match; Swagger/Mysterio segment; Straight Edge Society segment
