Smackdown – April 8, 2011 – More of the Same Means Still Good

Smackdown
Date: April 8, 2011
Location: Times Union Center, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Michael Cole, Booker T, Josh Matthews

We’re kind of in the new year here on Fridays as Edge is still World Champion.  Tonight we’ll probably start the build to Extreme Rules.  Since we’ve kind of passed go here, it’s rather hard to tell what else is going to go on.  It should be interesting as things usually are on this show.  Let’s get to it.

The theme song opens us up.  I guess the enemy this week is wrestling as this isn’t a wrestling company anymore.  The fact that Vince thinks this will get them more accepted by the mainstream is absolutely hysterical and head shaking at the same time.

Cue Alberto minus his car.  Is there a reason why he doesn’t have one as he apparently has like 50 of them?  He says that destiny can be delayed as it was at Wrestlemania.  He blames Edge and Christian for delaying his destiny and destroying his car.  It’s not about the money though, but those cars are like his children.  He starts to talk about revenge but is cut off by Edge.

Edge comes out in a tow truck which is pulling the Rolls Royce.  Nice bit there.  He says that if this car is like his child, Del Rio needs to love it unconditionally.  With a little tender loving care it can be fine again.  Edge pulls out some spray paint and writes something that I think was just scribbles.  Del Rio says he almost got him to tap out at Mania but Edge points out that he didn’t do it.  Alberto wants a rematch and Edge says no because there are people more deserving of title shots.

The driver of the tow truck honks the horn and it’s Christian.  Edge says Christian has beaten Del Rio multiple times so obviously Christian is ahead of Del Rio in line.  Here’s Teddy who makes Del Rio vs. Christian for the shot at Extreme Rules.  The match at the PPV will be a ladder match.

We’ll get to see Cena and Rock again tonight.  By that I mean the same thing from Raw.  They say highlights though which helps a bit.

There’s a rematch of the 8 man tag from Mania next that Josh says has a twist tonight that they’ll explain when we come back.  Now I’m no genius, but given that the graphic of the match says “2 out of 3 falls”, I’m thinking it’s in a cage.  I could be wrong though.

Corre vs. Big Show/Kane/Kofi Kingston/Santino Marella

 

We get a clip from the PPV of Show knocking out Slater and that looked AWESOME.  Kofi’s tights are lime green tonight.  It looked like there was a small edit during Kofi’s entrance but I could be wrong.  The video and song seemed to jump forward a bit.  Gabriel vs. Santino to start us off.  Slater comes in quickly and Corre takes over.  Remember that this is 2/3 falls.

Santino reverses a right hand into a throw and it’s off to Kane.  Show beats on him for a bit also and we get the Andre/Snuka splash with Kofi on top of Slater for two.  He sets for Trouble in Paradise but Gabriel and Barrett make the save as we go to a break.  Back with Kane working over the Intercontinental Champion in the corner.  Booker sounds out of breath for some reason.

Off to Jackson to face Kane.  Jackson gets Kane into the corner and Corre alternates in and out very quickly to hammer away on him.  Finally it’s off to Gabriel who gets a missile dropkick on Kane for two.  Kane finally remembers he’s fighting a cruiserweight and launches Gabriel to the mat.  Off to Kofi who cleans house and gets the first fall off a top rope cross body at 5:30 shown of 9:00.  Kofi looks shocked that he actually got a pin.

We take another break and come back with Slater vs. Santino.  Booker keeps going on and on about being ahead on points or something like that.  Santino escapes a sleeper but is taken down by a forearm for two.  Santino speeds things up and loads up the Cobra (I still can’t believe a move that Jon Lovitz taught him caught on like it did) but gets his head kicked off by Barrett.  Wasteland ties us up at 7:23 shown of 14:23.

Why doesn’t Barrett just cover him again?  There was no mention of a rest period or anything like that.  Barrett hammers away and it’s off to Slater again.  Jackson comes in and this should be a slaughter.  Clothesline in the corner gets two as Big Show DIVES to make the save.  Off to Gabriel and we hit the chinlock.  Show starts a weak Santino chant.

Gabriel misses a cannonball kind of move and it’s off to Kane.  Big side slam to Barrett gets two as does the top rope clothesline.  Everything breaks down as Corre takes over.  Kane sets for a chokeslam but all of Corre comes in to take him out for the DQ in the third fall at 11:10 shown of 18:10 (assuming 3:30 for commercials.  I watch a preairing from Australia so it’s hard to say for sure).

Rating: B-. Nice long match here to treat this like a match that deserved to be on Wrestlemania.  I like that they allowed this to play out so that Corre doesn’t look completely inept.  Also, when’s the last time you remember getting a nearly 20 minute match on free TV after getting a 15 minute one on Raw?  This worked rather well and was better than I expected.

The winners beat up Corre post match, including a triple (Santino helped) chokeslam to Jackson.

Sin Cara is still coming, even though he’s already been on Raw.

Cody Rhodes vs. Trent Barreta

 

I love Cody’s character right now.  At the forums I post on someone made a great point: Cody’s reaction to this is all the more psychological because everyone can see he looks exactly the same but in his mind he’s hideous now.  That’s very interesting.  Cody takes him down quickly and hammers away.  Trent gets a springboard dropkick to get two though so maybe this won’t be a total squash.  Russian leg sweep gets two for Cody.  This is the aggressive Rhodes as he sends Trent into the post shoulder first and Cross Rhodes ends this at 1:30.  Ok so maybe it was a squash.  Too short to rate.

Post match Cody beats on Trent some more until Rey makes the save.

We get the Rock vs. Cena confrontation from Raw again.  Eats up almost 15 minutes.  I get that it’s a major moment, but you could easily trim it down by at least half.  There’s no real need to use 1/8 of your total show and about 1/5 of your TV time to just show a segment from the more watched show.  I get that it’s huge, but they do this every week.  I’m curious about Corre if nothing else.

Edge says he hopes Christian wins because he’d love to have a ladder match with Christian.  Christian implies he’d win in the ladder match and says Edge can cheer for Alberto if he likes.  The camera stays on Christian after Edge leaves and he looks at the belt which Edge forgot.  Edge comes back and Christian says keep an eye on that, referring to the belt.  No sign of tension or anything here.

Laycool vs. Kelly Kelly/Beth Phoenix

 

Is Natalya injured or something?  I haven’t seen her in months.  Apparently she’s been on Superstars.  Ok then.  Josh asks Cole why he’s not in his singlet tonight.  Cole almost says he’s not wrestling tonight but cuts himself off to say entertaining.  The level of idiocy of this continues to astound me.  So remember people: this is an entertainment feature, not a match.  So in other words we have girls in small outfits performing choreographed moves while coming out to hip hop/R&B music while on a platform above the guests and gyrating around with other women.  Sound familiar to anyone else?

Beth vs. Michelle to start us off with Beth destroying her.  Michelle is knocked into Layla so Layla is yelled at.  Backbreaker gets two for Beth.  Layla is tagged in as Laycool argues.  After a scary press slam, Kelly is brought in and does her Tarantula kind of move to Layla.  X Factor gets two.  Layla reaches for a tag and McCool falls to the floor like Layla did, allowing Kelly to roll Layla up for the pin at 2:50.  Far more story advancement than match and that’s fine.

Laycool argues in the aisle.

We get a clip from Raw of Cole spraying barbecue sauce on Lawler.  In the arena Cole asks who shot JR.  HE DID!  Cole brings out Swagger who says training Cole was easy because Cole is smart and talented.  Swagger declares Cole the new Mr. Wrestlemania.  They take a victory lap but some music hits.  It’s Sin Cara who does his trampoline jump into the ring and takes Swagger down using a variety of speed moves including a corkscrew plancha to the floor.

We get the end of the Miz/Austin clip from Raw which was good.

Layla comes up to Michelle in the back and hands her a paper.  They’re going to have couples counseling.  Michelle says they’re not a couple.  Layla says just show up.

Decent length video recapping the Hall of Fame inductions.

Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio

 

Lot of time for this one.  We take a break before Christian’s entrance which is a nice perk because it means there will be some more time before the first break in the match.  Edge comes out to be on commentary.  Edge isn’t sure who he prefers to face as Christian is good with the ladders also.  Edge has been in 19 ladder matches.  That’s insane.

Christian takes Del Rio down with a headlock to start us off.  Both are sent to the floor at different times with Christian being the last one in the ring.  Big dropkick sends Del Rio crashing onto the floor again.  We take a break and come back with Christian being slammed into the steps.  Del Rio takes over and chokes him on the ropes back in the ring.

Time to start on the arm now as is Del Rio’s custom.  Christian fires off a bit right hand and goes up which gets him nowhere.  Well he went up but it didn’t advance him in the match anywhere.  Maybe I should just move on.  Superplex puts both guys down and Christian plays possum to get a cradle for two.  Edge is ripping into Cole here and it’s rather funny stuff.

Back to the floor again with both guys via a Cactus Clothesline from Christian.  Better than up their noses with a rubber hose I guess.  Christian fights back and gets an elbow off the middle rope for two.  Top rope cross body gets two.  Ricky Steamboat he is not.  Killswitch is reversed into an attempt at the armbreaker but that is broken up also.  Del Rio sends him into the corner and grabs the armbreaker but Christian gets a rope.  Christian sets for something but Brodus stops him.  Edge spears Brodus but the distraction allows Del Rio to hit the enziguri off the top for the pin at 10:30 shown of 14:00.

Rating: C+. Surprisingly enough this wasn’t very good.  It’s not bad but I couldn’t get into this one at all.  They were trying but at the same time nothing ever really got going.  Del Rio winning is probably the best choice as Edge vs. Christian is a potentially big match that needs to be on a big stage.  That being said I think we can pencil it in for Over the Limit.  Not bad, but I wasn’t huge on this one.

Overall Rating: B. Good show this week as it was very wrestling heavy and we had multiple storylines advanced at the same time.  Things seem to be staying the same after Mania but that’s ok I guess as it tends to be the custom after Mania.  Good show here but then again that’s par for the course here.  They’ve gotten very good at the use of squashes to advance stories which is incredibly hard to do in today’s product.  Solid show overall here though.

Results

Kane/Big Show/Santino Marella/Kofi Kingston b. Corre via DQ when all four members of Corre were in the ring at the same time

Cody Rhodes b. Trent Barreta – Cross Rhodes

Beth Phoenix/Kelly Kelly b. Laycool – Kelly Kelly pinned Layla with a rollup

Alberto Del Rio b. Christian – Enziguri