#onemorematch: Not only do we get the glorious and triumphant return of Captain Charisma but we get in the form of another edition of The Peep Show. Surprisingly, he gets a pretty big pop even though he’s a heel. His guests at this time (take that Michael Cole!) are the two men running for GM of WWE, Theodore ‘Tag Team Match’ Long and John ‘Mr Excitement’ Laurinaitis. If this was anything like the current election season, tonight would be their 42nd debate. Still The Law Offices of David Otunga’s Travel Mug accompany Big Johnny. On a side note, I did think that ‘Law Offices’ promo for Otunga was pretty funny. Christian asks each GM to convince him to join their respective teams. Johnny promises a title shot if Team Ace wins and of course Christian accepts right away. Since this is Teddy’s show, he tries to book Christian in a match but Ace stops it. Doesn’t Long theoretically have booking power on the show he’s the GM? Anyways, the match ends up being new Team Teddy member Kofi Kingston against Travel Mug.
#objection!: So we get to see the mat skills of one David Otunga and if they’re anything like his courtroom skills, we’re in for a treat. Since that match was made moments ago, Otunga has to compete in his dress pants. That’s comical enough, but they rip in the middle of the match. To add insult to injury he ends up getting the Trouble in Paradise from Kofi and then gets pinned. It almost saves the fact that Cole spends the entire match ranting about how unfair Teddy is to Christian, Johnny, Otunga, blah, blah, blah.
#pintsize: So in a backstage segment, AJ asks Bryan how her dress looks and Bryan responds by saying it looked better on the mannequin. Oh man Bryan is getting better and better each week. I wonder what it will take for AJ to finally snap and go off on Bryan for mistreating her and how that plays out. The roles are reversed as this time Bryan accompanies AJ to her match. Only she comes out by herself and then Bryan comes out to his own music, great way for him to show off his ego. She faces a Bella twin and no one can tell which one it is, but that doesn’t matter as AJ wins with a rollup.
#monsterslayer: WWE’s hottest young heel Cody Rhodes has a backstage interview to talk more about Big Show’s failures at The Show of Shows and while it’s more of the same we’ve heard, it’s still nonetheless entertaining. Standard match hype where he says he’ll walk out of Mania still IC Champ. Before that he has to go through another monster in The Great Khali. I still can’t figure out why they gave Khali a mini-push recently, as he still looks at stiff in the ring tonight as he did then. Thankfully Cody takes him out with the Beautiful Disaster Kick for the win.
#officiallyofficial: Orton saunters his way down to the ring and calls out Kane, which hopefully means it will be made official that they’ll be facing each at Mania, which has been a tad more then hinted at in the past few weeks. Orton does a shot at Cena by saying he embraces hate. Kane comes out on the stage and presents a video of both of them shaking hands after a match last year. Kane says that makes him sick, weak and that he wants revenge at Mania. That’s it? Both men have been in the company for years and this is the best they could come up with? Correct me if I’m wrong, but in 2003 didn’t Orton interfere and cost Kane his match with HHH, thus causing him to unmask? That seems like a much better reason to want vengeance against The Viper. Even with the given reason, Orton vs Kane is now made official for Mania.
#squishsquash: Next up Big Show faces Drew McIntyre and almost literally squashes him with the WMD for the win and the next match is Mark Henry beating Yoshi Tatsu in yet another squash. Did Creative get lazy this week? I thought Smackdown was the ‘wrestling’ show? So what are they doing slotting in two squashes back-to-back? I mean it’s probably a good thing Show and Henry had short matches because it’s not like they’re technical masters but I’m sure Creative could have come up with 2 matches that would’ve had more actual wrestling in them.
#twonumberones: The main event of the evening is between the #1 contenders to both world titles in Jericho and Sheamus. I really like the idea of this matchup as it’s fresh, being between two guys that don’t have alot of history together and that’s a good thing. It’s also good that RAW wrestlers have started to make their way to Smackdown and the exchange isn’t just one way. Jericho is the best at staring out into the crowd with a blank expression that at the same time shows contempt. When he was a face he had his Jericaholics, now he calls the fans Jeri-Clones for wanting to be him in his pre-match promo. Pretty decent match that showcases Sheamus’ brawling ability with Jericho technical and veteran knowledge. Y2J does smartly target Sheamus’ lower back where The Pale One was injured during his match on RAW. Bryan, with Aj in tow, makes his way to the ring as Sheamus starts to be counted out by the ref. Inexplicably, they then cut to commercial. What a way to kill the suspense of a countout, not to mention the momentum for the viewer at home. Apparently, Jericho takes control during the break and keeps at it until Sheamus is able to turn it around. Very good back and forth action with each man countering each others finishers. Jericho even counters the High Cross into the Walls of Jericho but Sheamus is able to get to the ropes. Jericho wins by countout when Bryan knocks out Sheamus on the outside.
