[Dave Youell]

Dark Match
Shannon Moore defeated Carly Colon with a corkscrew moonsault. Fayetteville isn’t far from Raleigh, Moore’s hometown, so he got a good pop to start the night. Several “Shannon” chants during the match (which was nothing to write home about).

Velocity
FBI defeated The Basham Brothers when Nunzio and Stamboli hit the "Kiss of Death" and got the three count. The crowd was into the FBI, as they played the role of the good guys in this contest. Did they turn face on Velocity or something? This was a pretty solid match. Nunzio was very entertaining, as usual, and he and the Bull did some solid tag team work. They should be challengers to the Dudley’s tag titles on SD ppv’s rather than having 4 throwaway matches instead.

Charlie Haas defeated Mark Jindrak when Haas hit a German suplex pin to score the pinfall. Before the match, Teddy Long hyped the Reflection of Perfection and Jindrak stared at himself in the mirror. Haas was also pretty over (hot-crowd). Jindrak is quite the athlete, but still needs some work in terms of wrestling. Decent match…

Paul London and Billy Kidman defeated Dudley Boyz via DQ (non-title match) when Brian Hebner was pulled from the ring while counting a pin attempt following a Billy Kidman Shooting Star Press on D’von. The lady next to me mentioned how small both Kidman and London were and shouldn’t be in the ring with those bigger guys (I told her size shouldn’t matter in pro-wrestling…she laughed). Anyhow, Kidman and London were impressive as usual, but the match still wasn’t that entertaining. There were a lot of “Tables” chants and Bubba mouthed off to the crowd quite a bit to ensure he got the heat he wanted.

Just before the SD tapings, several officials came out and set-up red, white, and blue banners all around the ring. (It’s funny…I seemed to be the only one in listening distance that didn’t say, “Are they going to do the Great American Bash again?”)

SMACKDOWN
The show opened Kurt Angle on the Titantron. At the Great American Bash, as true travesty had taken place in the Texas Bullrope Match. He continued by saying that the travesty was that Nick Patrick had declared Eddie Guerrero the winner when, in fact, he hadn’t won. Luckily, said Angle, the GM had gone down to the ring and made the right decision in giving JBL the title…Kurt introduced the new WWE Champion, JBL…JBL came to the ring and cut a promo on winning the WWE title and being a champion that we could all be proud of. I can only remember bits and pieces of this promo because the two hardcore JBL fans in front of me kept desperately trying to start a JBL chant (obviously no one cared that much)…The basic gist of this segment was to get across that the JBL-Eddie feud isn’t quite over and that tonight, JBL would defend the WWE title against someone who was at the GAB (I immediately thought of Spike Dudley). He also mentioned that Eddie wasn’t here tonight. Entertaining stuff from the new champ…also of note were the number of Eddie chants during this segment…

Booker T defeated RVD and Rene Dupree in Triple Threat match to determine the number one contender for the US title. This was a good triple threat match that was given the proper time to develop and turned out with no blown spots. Should come across well on TV. The crowd was really into Rob Van Dam, as there were numerous chants of “RVD.”

Backstage, JBL was visiting in the locker room with Cena, Book, the Dudleys, and Rey Mysterio. Basically, he announced that despite the fact that all the above were good performers, he had chosen Spike Dudley to be his opponent tonight with the WWE title on the line.

Rey Mysterio defeated Mordecai when Mysterio countered the Crucifix powerbomb into a hurricarana pin. Yes, you read that right; the cruiserweight champion defeated the second coming of the Undertaker. When Mysterio was on the offensive, this was a good match…when he wasn’t, the match wasn’t so good anymore…decent overall effort, but nice to see Rey get the win.

Backstage, Luther Reigns was talking to referee Charles Robinson about the mistake he made in the Torrie-Sable match at the GAB. Apparently, Robinson made the three count on Torrie despite her shoulders not even touching the mat. I figured, so what? Kurt Angle says- Re-match with Robinson as ref again…

Paul Heyman made his way to the ring and showed as all what happened at the Great American Bash again…Paul Bearer is dead and the Undertaker apparently did do the right thing because he got rid of his conscience on his own. Heyman said that Taker was now unleashed and would be a more dominant force than ever…and he owed it all to the brilliant mind of the former Paul E. Dangerously. Heyman went on to say that he expects to be repaid. Suddenly, lightning bolts strike the post and the Undertaker appears on the tron. Taker said that he had felt he had to get rid of Paul Bearer because he was his only weakness. He then said that since he had killed the only person who meant anything to him; just imagine what he was going to do to Heyman. Heyman looked stunned…

Torrie defeated Sable…crap match…waste of time…crowd was alive when the ladies came out, then died during the match, then came alive when it was over.

Get this, Charles Robinson and Luther Reigns wrestled to a no-contest when Charlie Haas interfered and the match was stopped. Can you believe that? Well, at the conclusion of the Torrie vs. Sable match, Angle though that Robinson needed more punishment for screwing up on PPV, so he booked him in a match (sounds like RAW 2003 Eric Bischoff stuff to me…I hated that…) against Luther Reigns. Reigns came down, I went to the bathroom and apparently while I was gone Charlie Haas came down and made the save. But wait! Apparently, knowing I chose to take a potty break during this segment, they taped it again later…and the guy next to me said they didn’t change a damn thing from the first time…

Kenzo Suzuki made his way to the ring and cut a promo that was entirely done in Japanese…he got the “WHAT!?” chant after everything he said. Then John Cena came out and proceeded to “translate” everything Suzuki had just said. It was a very fun segment, as even though Cena got a little corny at times, he still managed to make something entertaining of the horrible Kenzo Suzuki. BTW, they kept showing a Cena vs. Booker T match for the US title on the screen…I ASSUME that’s going to happen next week, which is sweet…

Backstage, JBL was making his was toward the arena, shaking hands and acting all political on everyone, when he walked past Eddie Guerrero’s car. After getting conformation that it was indeed Latino Heat’s low-rider, he continued his way to the arena with a far-off look.

JBL defeated Spike Dudley when Layfield connected with a powerbomb to pick up the pinfall victory. The crowd was all over Bradshaw and he received more “Bradshaw sucks” chants than I can recall. Several “Eddie” chants, as well. This was the main-event and it stunk. I teased the two Bradshaw lovers in front of me with comments such as, “this is a five-star match, guys…JBL is great.” Afterward, though, Eddie Guerrero came out (about a split second after the bell signaling the end of JBL’s first title defense was rung) to MASSIVE POP…He brawled with JBL, gave the champ a low blow, and then nailed a DDT before ascending to the top rope for Frog Splash. Unfortunately for us, Layfield slid away at the last second. He got on the microphone and told us that before Angle had become GM, he had managed to secure a re-match clause in his contract. The interesting part was that the re-match clause specifically stated that Latino Heat could choose the type of match in the re-match. So, in two weeks, Eddie will challenge JBL for the title in a STEEL CAGE MATCH! Sweet…

That’s likely where the TV taping ends…Afterward; JBL came back to the ring and did the routine he does after every TV taping with the Undertaker.
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My god this whole show makes no sense.

The dudleys who main event a PPV are on Velocity the next day

Moredai Jobs cleanly to a cruiserweight!

WTF