We have two more shows before Summerslam and this is the first of them. I’d expect a lot of build for Christian vs. Orton V and also some more from the midcard stuff that Smackdown has gotten good at. The big thing though is the freshly face Sheamus continuing Mark Henry. I’m giddy over that one. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Sheamus vs. Henry. The crowd popped huge in the arena for the line of “I’ll fight him.”

Sheamus vs. Great Khali

Here’s a test….kind of. I was confused at first because the tron video said Jinder Mahal, which would have surprised me. Josh immediately gets on my nerves by saying they’re on the campus of the University of Kentucky, which is flat out not true. The city owns Rupp Arena and it’s not on the campus. The only affiliation it has with UK is the basketball team plays there. Everyone makes that mistake that isn’t from here though so it’s understandable. For some reason it’s like they’re afraid to say Lexington.

Sheamus vs. Henry is announced for Summerslam. Khali takes him down quickly with the power game. Sheamus gets him tied up in the ropes so that Khali is facing the crowd and pounds away on the chest. He goes up top but gets chopped in the chest to send him back down to the floor. Time for a nerve hold since Khali isn’t that versatile in the ring, nor does he need to be.

Khali chops away in the corner and Sheamus fires off some double axes to the chest. Sheamus is all fires up but a chop to the head stops the Brogue Kick. It only gets two, despite being the finisher of a former world champion. Vice Grip goes on but Sheamus breaks that too. He elbows Khali in the ribs and the Brogue Kick hits for the pin at 5:22.

Rating: C. Yes it was kind of boring, but what are you expecting here? Khali is a giant and Sheamus is a power brawler. If they had done technical stuff or anything else, it wouldn’t make any sense and would probably be awful at the same time. Not sure what else to say here but this was fine.

The Rewind is Beth eliminating the Bellas and turning heel on Kelly. This was the Slam of the Week in the arena. No idea why they changed it.

AJ vs. Natalya

What an odd choice for a match. Commentary goes silent for some reason and until Josh says something about AJ being the Diva next door or something similar to that. AJ takes her down with a headlock and Natalya can’t figure her out. And never mind as a crucifix is countered into the Sharpshooter for the tap at 2:00. This was nothing.

Post match Nattie turns on AJ, beating her down and hitting a snap suplex on the floor. She says she’s with Beth: no more pretty princesses.

Ryder will be giving the State of the Showski later. The reaction to this is fake as the fans didn’t move for that graphic other than a few people.

Orton gets a big pop and we see a video from last week where Orton hit an RKO on Truth on the table and then a second to go with it. He’s not worried about Summerslam because he knows Christian can’t beat him clean.

Video on Justin Gabriel in South Africa. This is different from last week’s and it has more wrestling in it.

Tyson Kidd vs. Daniel Bryan

Barrett is on commentary. Bryan has new music which sounds like it’s out of a thriller movie trailer. Bryan’s pop was barely there when he came out. Some chain wrestling starts us off and Bryan does his moonsault out of the corner. Kidd is sent to the apron and then to the floor where Bryan hits a big dive through the ropes, shoving Kidd to the floor. Kidd gets a shot in on the knee and starts the attack on it.

Figure four around the post goes on and Bryan is in trouble. Barrett talks about how he doesn’t think Bryan is going to cash in. That makes sense as it would be surprising if he made it that far. We take a break and come back with Kidd working on the knee. I’m not sure if anything actually changed in that break so they might have just picked up immediately where they left off.

A quick leg lock goes on until Bryan starts his comeback. He goes up top but gets crotched instead. Cole and Barrett ramble about how much they hate Bryan. Good to see them talking about the match at all. Kidd hasn’t been talked about once. Bryan fights Kidd off the top and hits a missile dropkick but can’t follow up due to the knee.

He fires off some kicks but has to pause because of the pain, allowing Kidd to hit a (American) dragon screw leg whip and a half crab. Bryan escapes but can’t get the LeBell Lock. Pinfall reversal sequence doesn’t go anywhere but Bryan gets all fired up and hammers away with forearms. BIG kick to the head sets up the guillotine choke and we’re done at 7:00. I timed the match at 7:45 live so we didn’t miss much at all.

Rating: B-. Solid match here that would have been better with more time. The just under 8 minutes wasn’t enough time to get going but Kidd has been able to put on some good stuff over the last few months and I’ve been liking him pretty well. Good stuff here and it’s the kind of win Bryan needs: physical, come from behind, submission wins.

Barrett and Bryan stare each other down post match. There’s a match teased but not officially announced.

State of the Showski is up next.

Here’s Ryder who got a small reaction but it was there. Ryder takes credit for the ratings going up because he’s the assistant GM. He says he’s going to change a lot of stuff but Big Zeke cuts him off. He got zero reaction at all. Zeke says Ryder must think he’s here to beat up Ryder for being in the handicap match last week. Jackson isn’t happy but Ryder says he thought they had an agreement.

They’re cut off by Cody’s music and here’s one half of the biggest rib in wrestling history (think about it: the sons of Dusty Rhodes were a metrosexual and whatever Goldust was. How could that not be a massive rib?) along with Ted who is in wrestling gear. Cody says Jackson has sour grapes and is unbecoming of a champion. He says Jackson is making the championship look bad so Cody should just take it from him and resurrect it, just like he’s resurrected Ted’s career.

Jackson says he’s merely using DiBiase. Cody says Ted has free will and Ted should come out and beat Jackson right now. That’s up to Ted and Ryder though. Ryder says cool but here’s Teddy (who got a surprisingly good reaction) to protest. Ryder is NOT the assistant GM but rather Teddy’s assistant. Teddy makes Ryder vs. Jackson for right now. Gee it’s a good thing they’re both in wrestling gear.

Ezekiel Jackson vs. Zack Ryder

Cody and Ted are banned from ringside. Cole hates Ryder so I’m really not sure if he’s face or heel here. Ryder takes over and gets some kicks to the head. Front facelock doesn’t work at all and Jackson catches a middle rope cross body to start up the slams. Rack and we’re done at 2:30 with the tapping coming on Jackson’s head.

Teddy is in his office and here’s Aksana, now with long black hair and a leather suit. There’s bad romantic sounding music in the background. She wants to talk business with him so he gives her one of his cards. She asks for his personal number which he gives to her. That was rather odd.

Mark Henry is up next.

At this point the show stopped taping and HHH came to the ring and talked about having stress. Ryder was still in the ring and HHH got in some one liners about various wrestlers. He asked the crowd if they could keep a secret and dropped Ryder with a Pedigree. Awesome moment and the pop of the night.

Mark Henry vs. Vladimir Kozlov

Vlad fires away but can’t really get anywhere. He manages the trapping headbutts but Henry remembers that he’s a monster heel and plants Kozlov with the World’s Strongest Slam for the pin at 1:15.

Post match he Pillmanizes Kozlov’s leg, which explains him leaving since Kozlov was released today. Sheamus comes out late for the save with a chair. Henry bails, not wanting to fight until Summerslam. Kozlov goes out on a stretcher.

After a break Sheamus says that Henry isn’t just beating people but rather is taking their ability and will to do what they love. That won’t happen to Sheamus though because no one can take away his passion to compete here. There are many reasons but the biggest is because he’s Irish, which means he has the Luck of the Irish. The following is a near direct quote of the next few things he says: “And that means I was born with a 24 karat horseshoe up me arse. And if need be I can rip that horseshoe out and leave hoofprints on him.” Oh and Henry is a whale that belongs in the ocean with Shamu.

Michael McGillicutty/David Otunga/JTG vs. Trent Barreta/Uso Brothers

The Usos do their rhythmic dance thing. Remember when they were all sophisticated or whatever it was? Jey vs. JTG to start us off. Off to McGillicutty and then Otunga rather quickly. And now let’s talk about what the announcers are tweeting at ringside. Apparently Booker said Cole is a tool. Jimmy is getting beaten down at the moment and there isn’t much else to say as far as the match goes. Hot tag to Trent who is someone I’d like to see more of. Everything breaks down and the champions hit that elbow drop/backbreaker combo to end Baretta at 3:43.

Rating: D+. Just a six man here and nothing interesting at all. I have no idea why Baretta and JTG of all people got picked. They’re not bad or anything but why them? Anyway this was fine but the Usos need to get their title shot already, hopefully winning the titles. I’ve liked them recently and some fresh champions would be nice.

Johnny Curtis sees the writing on the wall and will be in action next week.

Raw ReBound is about the Cena vs. Punk vs. HHH moments from Raw and how the match at Summerslam was made.

Christian says he isn’t surprised that the match with Orton is now no holds barred. Everyone has been on Orton’s side. Truth pops up to say it was a conspiracy. He says not to let the Little Jimmys fool him and that tonight Orton is gonna get got. Christian still doesn’t know who Little Jimmy is.

Randy Orton/John Morrison vs. R-Truth/Christian

When did Morrison lose his pyro? Oh ok that part wasn’t on the broadcast. Kind of surprised they didn’t have that for the live crowd though. Orton and Truth start us off and Truth hammers him down into the corner. Morrison comes in and Truth runs so he can tag in the Canadian. There’s that big spinning springboard kick for two.

Christian takes him down though and it’s off to the coward crazy R-Truth. Suplex into the Stunner is countered (called that move by Booker) and Morrison goes all angry JoMo on him, hitting the running knee for two. Christian breaks it up and Orton chases him to the floor and into the crowd where we take a break. Back with Morrison and Truth hammering away on each other. During the break Orton stared Christian down a lot while the other two laid down in the ring.

Truth works on the neck which is logical. Good thing that when he went nuts he didn’t lose his wrestling psychology. Christian comes in and gets a neckbreaker for two. Have one of those ever broken a neck? Middle rope headbutt misses but Christian is smart enough to take Orton out before John can make the tag. Truth comes in and does a little dance which makes it look like he wants to make a little love to Orton.

Morrison comes out of nowhere with the C4 to put both himself and Truth down. Hot tag brings in Orton and the fans are all fired up. Powerslam puts Christian down and Orton gets a jackknife cover for two. Killswitch is blocked into the backbreaker for two. Orton grabs a rollup out of the corner for two. Christian hits a spinebuster that Booker calls a sidewalk slam. Spear misses but Christian avoids the RKO.

Instead Orton gets him in punting position but Truth and Morrison come back in. Morrison sends him to the floor and dives out onto him. Christian jumps Orton but gets caught in the elevated DDT. Truth comes in and takes the RKO but Christian grabs the Killswitch and pins Orton 11:55 shown of what I thought was closer to 20 minutes but whatever.

Rating: B. I liked this a lot as the ending was rather intricate with all of the spots intertwining very well. The whole point of this was to make it clear that Christian could get the pin on Orton in what you could call a clean method and that’s what he did here. This worked well and was a solid main event that did a few things well. Good stuff.

Overall Rating: B. This was a moving day episode of Smackdown. Not a lot actually happened here but a lot of stuff for the future was set up. You can see most of Summerslam now which you could only see pieces of a week ago at this time. The stuff that we got was pretty good and the show is shaping up pretty well. Also Aksana being back with those abs of her is never a bad thing.

Results

Sheamus b. Great Khali – Brogue Kick

Natalya b. AJ – Sharpshooter

Daniel Bryan b. Tyson Kidd – Guillotine Choke

Ezekiel Jackson b. Zack Ryder – Torture Rack

Mark Henry b. Vladimir Kozlov – World’s Strongest Slam

David Otunga/Michael McGillicutty/JTG b. Uso Brothers/Trent Barreta – Elbow drop/backbreaker combination to Barreta

Christian/R-Truth b. Randy Orton/John Morrison – Killswitch to Orton

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Tonight we continue the road to Summerslam with the first public statement from the champ (I think) CM Punk. HHH is still in charge and in theory JR will he here as well. We’ll probably start the building to the PPV as there are only two Raws left before the show, which has really snuck up on us. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of what got us to have two champions. I still don’t see why Vince didn’t strip Punk of the title as MITB went off the air or book him in a “champion can lose the title by countout” match with anyone he could find.

Here’s Punk, still with the new song, to open the show. He holds up the belt to a solid reaction and declares that THE CHAMP IS HERE. He has a story to tell us. Punk says he knew for about a year that his contract was going to be up. He loves working in WWE but not the bosses. He spoke his mind and we managed to get some change out of it. Vince has been relieved of his duties and that’s change.

Punk takes some credit but the fans are to be thanked also. Punk is here to make this fun again but he couldn’t do that from his couch in Chicago. He made the call to come back and the timing couldn’t be better. Cena may have a belt but what Punk has is a championship title. This title means that he’s the best wrestler in the world.

Cue HHH who says he brought back Punk because it was good for business. That’s why he brought back JR and Morrison (again, when was he actually gone other than to injury?): business. Personally though, HHH thinks Punk is smug, overrated and believes his own hype too much. Punk says it’s like looking in a mirror.

The champion talks about how Vince has let guys go that are main event level talent: guys like Batista, Foley, Jericho and Lesnar. HHH says if you want to tell the truth, why not do it about why you re-signed? Punk isn’t sure about this but HHH says it’s because he wanted to hear his own voice. Punk has called the microphone a pipe bomb, but what happens if no one is around to hear a pipe bomb? He needs the WWE Universe for the platform.

Punk calls that a 50/50 shot, but the truth is that he’s the WWE Champion. HHH says that’s true but so is Cena. HHH says he’ll fix that tonight and his music plays him out. Punk says cut the music, even though he loves Motorhead. He says he’s just getting warmed up. Punk isn’t going to shut up just because he signed a contract. If Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Punk’s words) wants to talk about egos, let’s talk about HHH’s.

We get references to HHH using his power backstage that he got from sleeping with the boss’ daughter and how he held everyone down. That’s true to a degree but that’s a big debate for later. HHH says because he’s the boss, he can’t break certain rules, even though he wants to take Punk’s head off. “Can you do that, or do you need to go ask your wife first?” Punk leaves HHH who is kind of smiling.

Rey has a tag match later and Morrison dives over him. They get Miz/Truth later.

Oh great there’s a Divas battle royal next.

Divas Battle Royal

Picture every Diva who isn’t champion and they’re in this. Kelly is on commentary here. They’re going out incredibly fast. We’re down to Alicia, Beth, Natalya, Eve and the Bellas. Scratch Nattie from that. This match actually takes a break. Really? Back with more boring Divas action. Alicia is out. There’s nothing to talk about here because they’re just trying to put each other out. Even looks good in pink though. Eve is out and landed pretty badly. Beth puts both Bellas out (one on each shoulder) to win at 7:18.

Rating: D. So? It’s the same stuff as always and it never was very interesting at all. There’s nothing else to say here as most of the match was either rapid eliminations or the commercial. It was what it was and that’s about all there is to say about it. At least Beth can destroy her now.

Post match Kelly goes in to hug her like an idiot and Beth turns heel and kills her, thank goodness.

Truth comes up to Miz and says they’re a lot alike. Miz disagrees so Truth says that having two WWE champions is bad. It’s horrible. It’s…..”A conspiracy?” Miz doesn’t like this and tells Truth to leave. Truth wants to know why HHH had them in a tournament if he was just going to bring back Punk. I guess we’re ignoring Vince making that tournament now.

Cena says his focus tonight is HHH because there are two WWE Champions. The decision is tonight so Cena will be there for it.

The Miz/R-Truth vs. John Morrison/Rey Mysterio

Miz vs. Morrison starts us off. John keeps going after Truth which lets Miz get a shot in. Suplex gets two. Nice leg sweep puts Miz down and it’s off to Rey. Seated Senton off the top gets two. Miz is sent to the floor as is truth. Rey hits a seated senton off the apron to take Truth down and John dives over the top with a corkscrew dive to mostly hit Miz and we take a break.

Back with Truth holding Rey in a camel clutch. During the break the evildoers actually didn’t cheat to take over. Nice to see for a change. Truth continues his old school offense with an abdominal stretch. Rey fires off but it’s off to Miz who gets a seated boot for two and we hit the chinlock. Enziguri puts Miz down but he keeps the tag from being made. Back to the chinlock, this time by Truth.

Big spinning forearm gets two on Mysterio. Rey dives again for the ropes but Miz makes the save again. Nice little story there for the match. Miz hits his corner clothesline but goes up and dives into a dropkick. There’s the hot tag to Morrison who gets a solid pop. See what happens when you build something up?

He cleans house and hits the C4 to Truth for two. He loads up Starship Pain but Miz pulls Truth out of the way. Back inside an axe kick misses and a Pele kick sends Truth into the 619 position. Miz makes the save and sends him into the crowd. Moonlight Drive hits Miz but Morrison walks into that jumping downward spiral for the pin at 11:03.

Rating: B. See, THIS I can get into. They built up the hot tag all match and the payoff for it was a solid reaction from the crowd. Things can be so simple and yet can still work very well. I liked it rather well here and Morrison’s mistakes were played up well by Miz and Truth, who caught him in his mistakes. Nice to see and it’s called psychology. Makes me all tingly.

Post match Truth hits Morrison with a bottle of water and Morrison takes the Finale.

HHH says nothing of note.

Summerslam Recall is Warrior taking the title from Honky in probably the best Summerslam moment for the vast majority of the series.

Here are Dolph and Vickie. I’m still not sure on the song. Vickie says her catchphrase a lot and wants to know why Dolph hasn’t been getting enough attention. Dolph says he’s more of a man than anyone in the arena and anyone in the back. Cue…..Alex Riley? I think I can work with this. Riley wants to know when Ziggler is going to accomplish something without Vickie. Dolph has Vickie step aside….and leaves.

Santino Marella/Zack Ryder vs. David Otunga/Michael McGillicutty

This is non-title and the Nexus name has been dropped it seems. King mentioned Ryder’s show before the breaHe gets the hot tag to a ROAR but gets beaten down after a brief flurry. Santino is sent to the floor and Ryder misses the Rough Ryder. He gets caught in something like a Demolition Decapitator at 2:22. This was fine.

We get some of the earlier exchange between the Game and Punk.

Punk says he’s the champ.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Evan Bourne

Bourne runs into a boot to start and the beating begins. Del Rio’s arm work is great as the psychology of the match is perfect for him. His finisher is an arm hold so why would he work on anything but the arm? That’s basic psychology for you: why would you do something to say Bourne’s back if you’re going to work on the arm to end it? Bourne makes a brief comeback and the armbreaker ends this at 2:30.

Post match he puts the hold on again and Kofi comes out for the save.

Here’s HHH for the big announcement on who should be champion. He’s about to say it but John Lauranitis (you try to spell it) comes out and says executive VP and in charge of signing talent. HHH doesn’t look happy here. Johnny Ace (see why he got that name?) says Vince would want Cena stripped of the title. That brings out Cena who says that Ace never thinks and is the yes man that Punk was talking about.

Cena says that he’s not going to strip the title because it would devalue the title. He talks about how he wants to hit Ace again because that was his favorite part about Money in the Bank. HHH: “I don’t have any problem with that.” Ace leaves and HHH says he’s not stripping the title. Punk only came back to WWE when Cena was pinning Rey and said to hit his music. HHH again says he won’t strip the title and that brings out the other champion.

Punk doesn’t like the idea that HHH is going to strip him of the title which he has a legit claim to also. HHH says that’s not what he was going to do and tells them to quit whining. Also to Cena, it’s not Hunter. He’s Cena’s boss. At Summerslam it’s the rematch for one undisputed champion. Kind of lackluster the way he said it but it’s the only way they can do it.

HHH leaves and they stare each other down. Punk holds up his title and his music plays us out. Scratch that as Cena holds his up and that music plays us off. Punk goes onto the ropes and now HIS song plays. This is kind of awesome. Now Cena does the same but Punk’s is the last one heard after it changes like 8 times total.

Overall Rating: B. This was a hit and miss show. The HHH and Punk stuff was good and the tag match was good, but the rest of the show was building to other shows later in the future, which is ok but a little boring for a TV show. Summerslam is looking better now though as you can see a lot of the matches coming into focus. Good sign and a good building show here, but not great due to the wrestling being subpar.

Results

Beth Phoenix won a Divas Battle Royal

The Miz/R-Truth b. John Morrison/Rey Mysterio – What’s Up to Morrison

Michael McGillicutty/David Otunga b. Zack Ryder/Santino Marella – Middle rope elbow/backbreaker combination to Ryder

Alberto Del Rio b. Evan Bourne – Cross Armbreaker

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