The Furious Report: WWE Smackdown 12.22.06

BACKSTAGE King Booker & Finlay complain to Teddy Long and want a re-match against Batista & John Cena. Long says it isn’t happening. When Booker demands the best competition he has to offer so Long books them against against the Brothers of Destruction.

We’re in Hampton, Virginia. Hosts are Michael Cole & JBL.

PROMO TIME – The Mighty DAVE~! Batista wishes everyone “Happy Holidays”. He’s in the holiday spirit with his red trunks. He says this year had up’s and down’s but he’s finished up strong. He talks about being back to where he was at the start of the year – the heavyweight champ. He’s interrupted by SANTA CLAUS. JBL doesn’t care because he’s rich and he doesn’t need gifts. If he wants something he’ll buy it. Batista gets suckered in by Santa who turns heel on him with a steel pipe shot. TEDDY LONG is so offended he comes out here. Long returns his “cheap shot” by booking him against Batista right now.

BATISTA v SANTA CLAUS

Santa goes to work on Batista’s bad arm and hits an armbreaker. Cole calls the heel Santa “Bad Santa”. Batista has had enough. He throws Santa back into the corner and backdrops him out. Spear! He rips off the costume and it’s SYLVAN GRENIER. Spinebuster for Sylvan. Demonbomb. Goodnight. Match time was 1.41.

Winner: Batista via pinfall. What was the point again?

CLIPS – Armageddon. They show Benoit-Chavo in stills. Chavo gets a re-match because the clean finish was so controversial. That’s next.

US title – CHRIS BENOIT (c) v CHAVO GUERRERO w/Vicky Guerrero

Vikcy is still selling whiplash from, what, a month ago? That’s some pretty serious whiplash. Chavo starts faster so Benoit chops him back into the corner. Hard whip into the corner and the snap suplex gets 2. Benoit has a lot of the usual intensity here. Cole brings him the “whiplash” point that I mentioned a minute ago. It’s been long enough now that it’s starting to seem like an oversell. Benoit with a drop toehold and he looks for the Crossface but Chavo is close enough to the ropes to get out quickly. Chavo takes over and whips Benoit. Not as hard as Chavo was whipped across himself earlier. Benoit rolls him up for 2. Chavo kicks him back down. Benoit switches on a waistlock and goes to the Rolling Germans. He grabs the ropes after the first one and they both end up spilling out to the floor. Ad break although not for me. Apparently Chavo controlled in there. Chavo works on an arm and adds in a bodyscissors. Benoit wrestles his way out into a back suplex. Chavo with an over the shoulder backbreaker for 2. Benoit with a double leg and he tries for the Sharpshooter. Chavo kicks him off. Chavo whips Benoit into the corner again and his focus has generally been the back. Chavo chinlocks for about a minute and a half. Chavo misses a dropkick and gets himself strapped in the Sharpshooter. But he manages to block the turn over and kick Benoit off. Benoit runs himself into a knee and goes down. Benoit chops away to come back and goes to the Rolling Germans. He makes the trifecta this time. He calls for the headbutt and goes up top. Flying Wolverine scores…for 2. To the ropes where they battle over a superplex. Chavo shoves Benoit off and adds in the Frogsplash but Benoit gets his knees up. Crossface but Vicky runs in with the belt and this time nails Benoit with it for the DQ at 10.09.

Winner: Chris Benoit via DQ. If the aim during this series was to elevate Chavo by having him hang with Benoit over a couple of matches and therefore make himself look that much better, it’s failed. Chavo has looked outclassed and outdone in every match. He needs a manager to get him even a faint hope of victory and even then he doesn’t have the skills to get the job done. So it’s now 0-3 with the title in play and giving him another title shot doesn’t seem reasonable at all.

POST MATCH Vicky starts selling the neck. Benoit looks a little upset but refuses to attack Vicky. The look of disgust was enough. Chavo rants at Vicky about her costing him the match. He prods at her until she falls over. Benoit comes back down here to check this out. Chavo jumps him from behind again. Chavo with a belt shot and he celebrates as the crowd boo.

BACKSTAGE King Booker & Finlay talk about how Kennedy has disappeared and MVP is still in a burns unit. Finlay says tonight is an opportunity. They can take care of these guys. Booker fires himself up and they’re ready for tonight now.

FROM THE VAULT – June 2006. Booker v Lashley. This probably means the UK had something edited out of the show. This match is really bad btw. I didn’t watch it at the time but Booker just uses a bunch of rest holds and Lashley can’t hit anything clean. It’s only when Booker starts breaking out the high spots, which is rare, that anything worthwhile happens. Lashley wins with a powerslam and takes the US title.

PROMO TIME – Gregory Helms. He asks for some competition for Christmas because he’s beaten the whole cruiserweight division. He’s moving into the heavyweight division. His ranting about there being no cruiserweight who can beat him should logically lead to a challenge from a cruiserweight so out comes THE BOOGEYMAN. Helms shows some backbone by not backing down. In fact he gives Boogey a shoeing as he arrives in the ring. No sold. Helms gets beaten down. Boogey breaks out the worms causing Helms to bail and run into the crowd. Boogey feels he has to give someone worms in the face. Tony Chimmel becomes that someone after announcing him “he’s the Boogeyman and he’s commin’ to getcha”. Worms for Chimmel and he runs off. JBL tells us something has to be done about the Boogeyman.

BACKSTAGE Joey Mercury walks. He’s looking seriously fucked up after that ladder incident.

PROMO TIME – Joey Mercury. JBL tells us Mercury’s first reaction was that he’d lost his eye. He has a broken nose and two swollen shut eyes. Lots of close up’s of the brutal injuries. He talks about Armageddon and tells us what happened. “Violent trauma”. He wants the footage played of it. Mercury looks pretty cut up and the crowd appreciate him. There’s applause. He holds two people responsible for his injury – the Hardyz. He says he’s lost 50% of the vision in his left eye and his nose is shattered. He calls the Hardyz “bastards”. His “movie star good looks are gone”. This brings out MATT HARDY. He says they didn’t intentionally injure Joey. It was because they were a dangerous match with high stakes. Matt says he could have been hurt too. He tries to leave but Mercury isn’t satisfied with Matt’s words. Mercury points out the Hardyz maimed him. Mercury calls him a tough guy and wants to fight him. Mercury with a shove and Matt looks sorry for Mercury. He stands there shaking his head. Mercury challenges him to fight against JOHNNY NITRO right now.

OPINION – You know what I’d have done here? Even though it would stop the MNM and Hardyz tag team thing. Turned Matt heel. Had him come up doing the whole V1 thing instead of looking sorry for himself. Told Mercury he was worthless and then Joey gets to be the sympathy babyface and might even get over on his own for a change. Matt got boring as a face a long time ago. It’d also help the WWE to stop doing all the MNM-Hardyz brand crossover stuff and keep their brands focusing and self contained. Plus heel Matt>babyface Matt. If they insist on keeping Mercury heel then have him wear a mask when he’s ready to compete then keep it on him for at least a year and use it to cheat.

JOHNNY NITRO w/Melina v MATT HARDY

Nitro attacks from behind ahead of the bell. Hardy counters and this is a fight not a wrestling match. Nitro bails and drags Hardy outside to kick at him. Nitro with crossface punches in an attempt to mess up Hardy’s face. Hardy with a clothesline in the corner leading to a bulldog for 2. Nitro swings at Hardy but ends up having to grab the ropes to prevent a Side Effect. Nitro bails for a LADDER. Again, he wants to mess up Hardy like Mercury got hurt. Ad break. We return with the ladder not having made it in. Hardy hits a back superplex. Both men stay down. During the break Nitro got the ladder dropkicked back into his face and officials took the ladder away. Nitro runs into a boot but Melina distracts and Nitro Enzuigiris him off the top. “Maim him, hurt him” – Mercury @ Nitro. Matt gets laid out on the apron and Nitro boots him in the chest. Guillotine on the ropes with a catapult. That gets 2. Nitro goes for the springboard kick but Hardy ducks and hits a clothesline. Hardy comes back with strikes and kicks Nitro in the head for 2. Nitro fires back but runs into the Side Effect for 2. Hardy with a neckbreaker and he goes up for the Yodelling Legdrop for 2. Nitro escapes the Twist of Fate into a backslide for 3 using the ropes in the process at 11.39.

Winner: Johnny Nitro via pinfall. Good little match.

PROMO TIME – JBL. He says he’s appalled at what happened at Armageddon. He says the Inferno match hadn’t been used for 7 years for a reason. JBL says it looks good on paper but “somebody gets burned”. JBL gets all biblical calling the Inferno match “hell”. He blames Teddy Long. We get clips of MVP getting set on fire. He says it wasn’t entertainment it was garbage. He calls Teddy out here and wants an apology on behalf of MVP. Long doesn’t come out here so JBL turns his anger towards the crowd. He says the crowd don’t cheer for the wrestlers working hard. He says they want to see blood, falls and fire. He calls everyone in the crowd responsible. He points out that no one would pay to see anyone in this crowd do anything. JBL goes off on a rant saying that “if America goes down” it’ll be because of the common man not its great warriors. Comparisons to Rome & the Gladiators in there.

ASHLEY MASSARO/LAYLA EL v KRISTAL MARSHALL/JILLIAN HALL

Justin Roberts has taken over on announcing from the scared Tony Chimmel. Jillian is on the heel side this week. Ashley starts by womanhandling Kristal. Layla comes in for a tag team double elbow drop. Kristal flees and tags Jillian in. Layla backbumps off nothing. Jillian bounces her head off the mat a few times. Backbreaker from Jillian gets 2. Jillian goes for the handspring but Layla boots him in the back and tags Ashley. Headscissors on Jillian and a rana gets 1 with Kristal in to break it. Layla comes in to knock her over but the ref has to get her out so Kristal runs over to hold onto Jillian preventing a monkey flip. Jillian pins with her feet on the ropes so Layla kicks them off. Jillian grabs her so Layla hangs her up on the ropes and Ashley breaks out the Savage Elbow for the pin at 3.07.

Winners: Ashley & Layla via pinfall. The good news for everyone is that Ashley has improved drastically since the last time I saw her (on RAW). She looks genuinely competent so it might be time to switch her back over to RAW where the women’s division is. The bad news is that Layla is exactly where Ashley used to be. Green as hell. While Ashley never made a mistake as bad as Layla’s back bump of nothing tonight she was around that level when she started out. Layla looks great so she’ll get time to improve. The replays show two further timing errors. One from Kristal (late on the monkey flip prevention) and one from Layla (late in kicking Jillian’s feet off the ropes).

RINGSIDE – Vladimir Kozlov. Cole asks him how it’s going. He loves “dubbel dubbel ee”. Cole says he’d love for Kozlov to be on Smackdown leading to a loud rant in Russian from the newcomer. Kozlov celebrates Cole thanking him for his time.

KING BOOKER/FIT FINLAY w/Queen Sharmell v BROTHERS OF DESTRUCTION

Taker starts wailing on Booker in the corner boxing style. Taker grabs the arm and yanks away on it. Old School connects to the shoulder. Finlay tries to save but gets booted and his arm is worked over too. He goes for Old School on him as well but Booker runs into the ropes causing a crotching. To the ropes and Booker hits a superplex. Taker does a big kickout and the zombie sit up. Finlay in and he pounds away. Taker fires back and hits his flying DDT. Zombie sit up. Kane tags in. He cleans house. Booker walks into a sideslam for 2. Finlay was on hand to save to Taker piles in to hammer him. Big boots for the heels. They call for stereo chokeslams but the heels bail and we go to an ad break. We return with the Brothers of Destruction continuing the beatdown. Kane backs down impartial referee Nick Patrick. Kane elbows away on the apron and Finlay comes in to protest so Taker legdrops Booker for good measure. Kane pins for 2. Taker tags in and hammers away some more. He intimidates impartial referee Nick Patrick clean out of the ring. Finlay in and he fires away with European uppercuts. Taker boots him in the head. Taker with the Snake Eyes and another big boot. Taker goes for another in the corner but Finlay ducks and Taker boots the ropes. He falls outside where Booker superkicks him. Kane had actually tagged in before that corner spot so Finlay jumps him. Booker in but Kane has already recovered. He hits a back elbow and goes up. Finlay tries to stop him and can’t but Booker dropkicks Kane as he comes off the top. Sidekick connects and Kane is down. Finlay bounces Taker’s head off the announce table to keep him out of it. Finlay tags in to chinlock Kane. Outside Booker nails Taker with a chair. Referee must have missed that one. Booker back in to hit a leaping calf kick for 2. Finlay goes to batter Taker with the shillelagh, which Sharmell distracts for. Taker goozles him but Finlay goes low and nails him the shillelagh. Taker is down again. Kane meanwhile is getting controlled with tag teaming. Kane ducks a clothesline into a double clothesline spot. Taker is back up and he kicks Finlay down. He’s on the apron for the tag and gets it. Taker cleans house on both guys. He goes for the double chokeslam but the heels both kick him in the gut. Kane is in though and it’s a double chokeslam. Booker rolls outside leaving Finlay prone for the Tombstone, which finishes for Taker at 16.16.

Winner: Brothers of Destruction via pinfall. I hate the Undertaker. Two foreign object shots don’t seem to effect him at all and he just happily pops back up and wins the match with relative ease. I know he’s “undead” but the booking on Taker is ridiculous at times. Meanwhile Finlay takes ANOTHER job. If you see him in the main event it’s because the WWE doesn’t want to job one of their hand picked guys out. Although I do like the Tombstone finishing as that’s the finisher that Finlay used in WCW. A spot of Taker revenge there. I dig.

I’m back in a week’s time with Smackdown. For a change there’s no PPV this weekend and I don’t get the Tribute to the Troops RAW until the 28th by which point it’s too late. Have yourselves a merry little Christmas folks.

AF