Even though a good portion of their talent has been claimed by Raw yet again, Smackdown keeps humming along. Despite a questionable booking decision, the rest of the card is humming along nicely, with a decent amount of twists and turns along the way.
Let's start with the only objectionable part of Friday night's show - Why did John Morrison job to Cody Rhodes, of all people? I understand that because Morrison is leaving the show for Raw, it doesn't necessarily matter as much if he loses. Also, Rhodes is a newcomer, so it would be nice if he established himself with a victory. However, Morrison just beat your brand's world champion a week ago! Why then have him lose to a guy who hasn't won a singles match in ages? If you want to re-establish Rhodes as a contender, then have him work his way up the card against Chavo and Dolph Ziggler; don't have him beat Morrison off the bat.
Beyond this though, the show was pretty splendid. There were two memes throughout the show - Swagger in taped segments with the belt bragging about his victory, and Big Show punching out various people. The two collided at the end, as Teddy Long named Show as the No. 1 contender for the title. It's certainly an interesting choice, as Show has been playing a heel or tweener for more than a year now. I imagine that a more natural face might get injected into the mix for a triple threat match, but I kind of like the tweener vs. heel idea better.
Some of the shows various angles - the Straight Edge Society picking on Mysterio, Drew McIntyre and Matt Hardy feuding - continued, and Kofi Kingston picked up a good win against Jericho, in the debut and the departure for them.
But the standout segment of the show was an intense verbal confrontation between Christian and Edge. It was the first time they had been paired together since Christian returned to the WWE, and there was a hinting of a future feud. With the exodus of talent from Smackdown and no clear feud for Christian right now, it would be nice to see him eventually get a title shot. While he was a world champion in TNA, and held the rebooted ECW title for several months, he hasn't ever really gotten a good shot at one of the big belts. If properly built, a Christian vs. Swagger (or Big Show) match could do some great business, a la the huge pops Benoit and Eddie Guerrero got when they won titles.
Finally, the guilty pleasure of the show? Lay-cool, or however you spell it. I talked about it the other week, but for some reason, it's a pretty neat gimmick for them. Seeing as the women wrestlers normally get no gimmick, it's nice that the WWE is letting them do anything. Sure, they lost again this week, but it makes sense given that Kelly Kelly was debuting.Grade: B+
(p.s. As a bonus, check out this cool YouTube compilation of every WWE/F title change since 1990! Although I think the creator is missing a couple, it is pretty god damn thorough.)
