WWE should be commended on their green initiative. I mean, Smackdown is at the very least comprised of 35% post-RAW waste, right? It's the grandest gesture of recycling by a major entertainment company that I can remember in awhile. Seriously, RAW segments and YouTube vids that were already shown on RAW and pay-per-view clips. I'm beginning to think that WWE just doesn't care about filling out two hours of TV on Fridays anymore. It all goes back to the problem of having a massive roster that they just aren't using. It isn't so much the people, but it's the time allotted to them.
Thankfully, the exposition we got was in the ring, which in this business is THE most important kind. If you have the gift of gab, that's great, but so few guys can whip a crowd into a frenzy by speaking. Most wrestlers make their bones by handling a crowd in the ring. We saw that tonight with two really good matches: Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow, and Wade Barrett vs. Alberto del Rio. A case could be made for Randy Orton vs. Jack Swagger too, but I guess the point is they got time to wrestle tonight. Maybe it's my natural distaste for Orton that kept me from completely enjoying that match, but they tried at least.
Ultimately though, with the template of having a bunch of matches mixed in with recaps being dominant tonight, Smackdown, like it has in some prior weeks, felt a lot like Superstars of old. Yeah, there weren't a whole lot of jobber matches, but then again, just because the wrestlers don't take steroids anymore doesn't mean that the people laying out the show didn't pump them into the format. It's certainly more a jacked up form of that skeleton, but it's there with one exception.
They made a point to have Swagger and Zeb Colter run into RED BELLY in the hallway. We the People dismissed Barrett's well-wishing and threw him in the same lot as del Rio. Swagger is establishing himself as a man without ally, someone above the normal alignments as an uber-dick. I guess one tasty nugget of character development is better than nothing, eh?
Thankfully, the exposition we got was in the ring, which in this business is THE most important kind. If you have the gift of gab, that's great, but so few guys can whip a crowd into a frenzy by speaking. Most wrestlers make their bones by handling a crowd in the ring. We saw that tonight with two really good matches: Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow, and Wade Barrett vs. Alberto del Rio. A case could be made for Randy Orton vs. Jack Swagger too, but I guess the point is they got time to wrestle tonight. Maybe it's my natural distaste for Orton that kept me from completely enjoying that match, but they tried at least.
Ultimately though, with the template of having a bunch of matches mixed in with recaps being dominant tonight, Smackdown, like it has in some prior weeks, felt a lot like Superstars of old. Yeah, there weren't a whole lot of jobber matches, but then again, just because the wrestlers don't take steroids anymore doesn't mean that the people laying out the show didn't pump them into the format. It's certainly more a jacked up form of that skeleton, but it's there with one exception.
They made a point to have Swagger and Zeb Colter run into RED BELLY in the hallway. We the People dismissed Barrett's well-wishing and threw him in the same lot as del Rio. Swagger is establishing himself as a man without ally, someone above the normal alignments as an uber-dick. I guess one tasty nugget of character development is better than nothing, eh?