Last night, my brother and I went to the WWE taping of Friday Night Smackdown, which also included the live ECW show afterward. I highly recommend viewing the pictures at a larger size, because you can't see anything on the small size. On the way home I was disappointed that nothing came out but then when I uploaded them, I was pleased that I actually did get some good ones.
I think the number of my readers that care about wrestling falls somewhere between -1 and 1, but I will warn you about spoilers anyway. Most of the stuff I am about to comment on will not air until Friday.
The first thing we did was stand in line at the souvenir stand for at least a half hour. It's all very disorganized. No lines, just a crowd. You had to patiently fight your way to the front. I have, give or take, six favorite wrestlers and there was no merchandise for any of them. (The downside of rooting for the bad guys, I guess, but not even any Kurt Angle stuff- come on!) So I got a Rey Mysterio shirt, not because I like him that much, but it's white, which I like, and doesn't look too much like a wrestling shirt if you don't really look at it, so it might have a chance to make it into the public eye.
The first match of the night was Matt Hardy against some guy. I'm not sure if they even filmed it. Matt is one of the guys who is pretty good in the ring and pretty damn popular to boot, but the writers simply don't use him. He was getting killed the whole time and then won with a quick dodge and a school boy roll up for a pin.
The first official Smackdown televised match of the night was a tag team championship match- the champs, Paul London and Brian Kendrick vs. The Mexicools- Super Crazy and Psicosis. Before the match started, the crowd got a good SUPER CRAZY! chant going. My brother and I agreed that it's just a case of having a good name. If he was Jose Lopez, no one would care about him. Anyway, The Cools had the match won after a London mistake until Psicosis, who has not been a team player lately, tagged himself in and was quickly defeated. Afterwards, the Cools got into a fight and it looks as if they are officially broken up.
Next up was fitness guru Simon Dean vs. Native American hero, Tatanka. Simon never wins and always gets off to a bad start by riling up his opponent. This time he said that the Indians have been losers ever since they landed at Mt. Rushmore. Tatanka was well on his way to a squash victory when the proceedings were interrupted by the Great Khali- the biggest, stiffest stiff since The Giant Gonzalez. The crowd even started chanting YOU CAN'T WRESTLE!. I don't know if it was a savvy crowd, or if it's just really obvious that this monster being shoved down our throats is terrible. Khali beat up Tatanka and Simon Dean then mocked the Undertaker's signature arms-crossed pin.
Next was Finlay vs. Gunner Scott. I love the tough old Irish bastard and the WWE's insistence on providing him with an evil leprechaun assistant has actually been entertaining and not nearly as awful as it sounds on paper. My perception of Finlay's greatness did not stop everyone from leaving for the concession stands, however. The leprechuan, officially named Little Bastard, came out from under the ring before the match was over and almost got Finlay DQ'd, but Finlay was able to corral him. While the ref was distracted by that nonsense, Finlay whacked Gunner with his shillely and got the pin.
After that was King Booker vs. Bobby Lashley, yet again. Their fued is that they face each other nearly every week. Booker's entrance is insanely long and there's no way the whole thing will make it onto TV. William Regal says ALL HAIL KING BOOKER! about fifty million times as Book slowly saunters toward the ring. It goes from amusing, to tedious, to god awful, to so long that it actually starts to be amusing again. Like the famous Sideshow Bob rake scene from The Simpsons.
Lashley came out without introduction and the two men proceeded to have the most boring match ever. Eventually, Lashley could take no more of the King's cronies interfering and went postal with a steel chair. The match was never introduced and they didn't announce a winner either, but I can deduce that Booker won by DQ.
On the big screen later, Book decreed that he would never face Lashley again, but general manager Teddy Long told him he WOULD have to- inside a steel cage next week.
Next was another one of my faves, Mr. Ken Kennedy, whose gimmick is that he introduces himself instead of having the announcer do it. He's usually pretty funny, but tonight he sounded like his stuff was written for him. He told Funaki that nice guys finish last and "I'm not a nice guy- I'm Mr. Kennnnnedy!" Kinda lame. Ken won a squash match with a swanton bomb. (That's flipping off the top rope and having your head land on a guy's stomach).
Finally it was time for the main event. A world title match between champion Rey Mysterio and challenger- the world's strongest man, Mark Henry. Rey has never beaten Mark in the past and the last time WWE came to Albany, the title changed hands so it was an uphill climb for little Rey-Rey. The turning point came when the ref got knocked out and Rey's friend Chavo Guerrero came to help him. Chavo whacked the chair on the ring post really loudly and then handed the chair to Mark before the big guy knew what was happening. The ref woke up from the noise, saw Mark with chair in hand and announced Rey as the winner by DQ.
They announced that everyone should stay put because coming up at ten o'clock they were going live on the sci-fi channel for the new ECW show. It only took twenty minutes to change the ring and cover all the Smackdown set pieces. In no time, ECW was on the air.
First up was Sabu vs. Tony Mamaluke. Sabu did a neat spot where Tony was flying toward him so he just threw a chair up at him. Then both man and chair landed on him. Sabu is crazy, you see. Sabu won by submission.
Some of the kids in the crowd were falling asleep at this point because the whole show has been so long so far. The sadder part is that holding an ECW show for a Smackdown crowd just doesn't work. It felt like a WWE crowd doing a pale imitation of the ECW crowd. They need to get ECW back onto the small venues where the crowd is up close to the action and practically part of the show. That psycho atmosphere is what got ECW its cult following- not just chair shots being legal.
Big Show came out and was challenged by Tommy Dreamer. There was no ref so Show just beat him up and left. The crowd seemed confused.
John Cena was shown backstage making his match at the next PPV into a lumberjack match. The crowd exploded at the sight of him, but my brother theorized that since they only showed him backstage, he probably wasn't even really there. After that segment, a guy a section over from us reminded everyone that Cena was booed out of this very building in January and proceeded to get a very loud CENA SUCKS chant going. Good job by that guy.
The Sandman's gimmick is apparently beating up on the joke of the week. This week he defeated Nacho Libre. Not Jack Black, but a guy doing a Macho Man Randy Savage impression. That match was over after two moves. Sandman wins.
There was a segment where some girl named Kelly started dancing and taking her clothes off. YAWN. You know they can't show anything. Sure enough, when she got her bra off, some wrestler I didn't recognize put a towel over her and led her away.
The main event of ECW was Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam vs. Randy Orton and Edge. Pretty good back and forth match- the end came when RVD hit his splash from the top on Edge to get the pin. This tells me Edge is going to win on PPV this Sunday.
The building started clearing out, but I wanted to maybe get a better picture of Kurt. I didn't really, but before we left our seats, a dark match started. The Great Khali and Mark Henry vs. The Undertaker- 2 against 1. This match was advertised on local TV but I would have been okay if they had forgotten it. Three lumbering big men doing next to nothing, very slowly. Bad, bad, bad. Khali got tied up in the ropes while UT pinned Henry. Tough night for the world's strongest man.
Overall, it wasn't the best show in the world, but like my brother said, we got two whole shows of matches. Not one single interview or talking segment. What it boils down to is that we paid 26 dollars each for, literally, a 4 hour show. I don't care if you think wrestling is the dumbest thing ever- that's a good bargain for your entertainment dollar.
Joey, Kasey, Rachel and Clay