My SmackDown, October 14th Recap

We opened up with the annoying Teddy Long and extremely dull John Laurinaitis (although he's managing to get plenty of heat form the crowds) announce that there would be an inter promotional battle royal to kick off SmackDown, and that the winner would receive a title shot of their choosing later on the same night.

The NXT and Superstars regulars predictably exited the crowded battle royal first. Daniel Bryan was eliminated far too early for my liking (before Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre for pity's sake) what is wrong with the booking when it comes to Bryan? This guy should be being built up a top wrestler on the blue brand. Instead he's still treated like a mid-carder. I would have had him reach at least the final five of the bout. I know I complain about this almost every week but it does frustrate me. 

Sheamus managed to take the most names during the match until Christian snuck back into it (he was eliminated by the 'great white') and eliminated him from behind. An understandably angry Sheamus gave chase to Christian all the way to the back. Shortly after Orton ran rough shot and threw over Swagger, Barrett and Mahal with ease. Leaving only him and the Miz who had earlier exited the ring under the bottom rope. Orton began to perform his usual match-ending routine until both men ended up on the outside of the ropes, The Miz rightfully looked like Orton's equal here as they battled to win the match. Randy pulled out an RKO and Miz clearly hit the ground first, although they did the old routine of "Which guy won? Who landed first?" As they do. 

Orton obviously revealed in an interview afterwards that he will challenge Henry for the World title later on. 

Much to my relief the match chosen for the 'From The Vault' part of the show was actually a decent one, hurray! I've recently complained about the selection of bouts they've used over the last few weeks, especially with the library they have access to.  It was a six man tag team match featuring Mysterio and Cryme Tyme versus Jeri-Show (Big Show and Jericho) and Dolph Ziggler. The best part of the match being when Mysterio (who is much missed in the company right now with his constantly solid performances in the ring) and Jericho tangled with each other. These two always seemed to work superbly with one another. It was an exciting match where in the end Ziggler picked up the win by pinning Mysterio after he had been KO'd by one of Show's punches. Let's have some more like this one from now on, eh?

Backstage we saw WWE champion Del Rio on his way out of the building when Teddy Long stopped him to inform him that he had a match booked against Sheamus later on. Much to Del Rio's displeasure. 

We then had Kelly Kelly versus Beth Phoenix for the Divas championship. Kelly was, as usual, flawed in places but the match was short so it was well suited for her. Phoenix grabbed the win after applying the Glam Slam on Kelly. Let's hope this is the last of their series, Beth deserves some new competition for the title.

Again we went backstage to witness the original Sin Cara being battered by the black Sin Cara. Once he was out the black Sin Cara stole his blue mask and put it on himself, to presumably steal back the identity. I was hoping this feud would've ended by this point, oh well.

The following match which had Justin Gabriel versus Sin Cara (the black one) was okay. It was mostly played out to a dead crowd who have most likely lost interest in this feud with the Sin Caras and don't really care what happens either way now. Justin Gabriel has seemed to have lost his place on the roster lately, which is a shame I think as I reckon he has something to offer the blue brand. Maybe he could feud with Rhodes over the Intercontinental title in the future?

Next up was Del Rio versus Sheamus. The bout was pretty mediocre. For the finish as the referee was distracted with Ricardo Rodriguez at ringside Christian pushed Sheamus while he was on the top rope, leaving Del Rio free to kick Sheamus in the head and grab the one-two-three. But Christian wasn't finished with the great white yet as he speared him not once, but twice.

The next match was a tag team bout featuring for the one night only, Evan Bourne replacement Zach Ryder and Kofi Kingston against Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler.The match was solid and another entertaining entrant into the series of tag team matches featuring these guys. In a strangely heel move while the ref was distracted with Swagger, Kingston crept in (Ryder was the legal man) hit Ziggler with the Trouble In Paradise and laid Zach on top for the win. Why wasn't Ryder allowed to beat Dolph cleanly? I'm guessing that he was given the win as a way for Ryder to challenge for the US title once again, maybe on next Mondays Raw. 

Then there was the main event for the World Heavyweight championship pittingRandy Orton against Mark Henry. Orton deserves credit for the hard work he's had to do with Henry in their bouts to make him look half decent, it can't be an easy task. Yet again it was a rather mediocre match on the card, Henry had most of the offense going during the bout but unfortunately for Orton as he began to mount a comeback Cody Rhodes interfered and the match ended on a disqualification. As he went to grab a paper bag to once again place on Orton the Big Show's music hit and he rushed out to take down Henry (it was a brief preview of their slow-mo match they're going to have at Vengeance) and also help set up Rhodes for an RKO courtesy of Orton. So I'll put money on a tag team match featuring the four men next week, which could actually be a decent match.
So SmackDown was all right, the most entertaining part being the tag team match with Ryder, Kingston, Ziggler and Swagger, which is a good sign once agan for the tag team division. I'm hoping the Big Show Mark Henry feud doesn't last too long, we don't deserve to suffer their upcoming matches for however long they have planned (two PPVs this year is enough). Nice to see Cody getting into a bigger feud with Orton too. I can't imagine him getting any kind of clean win over him but it's a good sign that he's been given a top tier opponent to clash with by the bookers.