Smackdown Spoilers
 

Off-Air Notes:
- According to our correspondent the arena is approximately 90% full. Only half of the top section is tarped off.

- I'm not too sure what is up with this (if anything), but I am told a bunch of Gatorade and water was stashed underneath the ring.

- A WrestleMania XXIV video package is shown.

Dark Match:

* Jamie Noble b. Ted Dibiase Jr. with roll up for the pin.

WWE SmackDown (Airing This Friday At 9:00 PM EDT):

* A segment was taped with Mark Henry coming out to the ring and saying if Big Show sticks his nose in his business then he's going to do something about it.

* Mick Foley and Michael Cole make there way out to the announce table.

* SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero comes out. She makes the announcement that at Judgment Day The Undertaker will be able to compete for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship title against an opponent that will be determined tonight.

* It is announced that there will be a "Champion Chase" tournament. The winners of the tournament will compete in an over the top battle royal as this week's SmackDown main event. The winner of that match will face The Undertaker at Jugment Day.

* Matt Hardy b. CM Punk in a qualifying match. Punk tried to roll up Hardy but he reversed it to advance to the Battle Royal later tonight!

* MVP vs. Fit Finlay ends in a countout. The match was described to me as slow and boring.

* Natalya Neidhart b. Kelly Kelly with a sharpshooter!

* It is announced that both MVP and Fit Finlay will be included in tonight's main event battle royal.

* Batista b. John Morrison to qualify for the Battle Royal later tonight!

* Big Show b. Tommy Dreamer in a short match with a chokeslam.

* Kane b. Chavo Guerrero to advance to tonight's Battle Royal main event!

* Vladimir Kozlov b. Local Jobber in a complete squash match.

* The Chase the Championship Battle Royal main event is next. Big Show vs. Kane vs. Batista vs. Matt Hardy vs. Fit Finlay vs. MVP
Matt Hardy is eliminated first by MVP. Finlay is eliminated next by Kane. MVP eliminates himself. Big Show eliminates Kane. Batista eliminates Big Show for the win!

Vickie Guerrero comes out and says Edge has been cleared to wrestle. Edge spears Batista off the ring apron.

* SmackDown ends with Edge celebrating on the entrance stage beside a podium that contains the World Heavyweight Championship belt (it had been there all night). The podium suddenly blows up and the lights go out. Undertaker's music hits. No Taker.
---------------

Just to clarify, Edge ended up winning the battle royal so it's going to be Edge vs. Taker and not Batista vs. Taker.

O....k?

Sounds pretty boring.

i havent watched smackdown in forever, but is finlay being called fit finlay again? i always preferred that name anyways. actually in nwo wcw revenge i think it was Fit Finley.

90% full is very generous. 2/3 of the top tier was tarped. And there were quite a few empty spots from what I could see.

Was a decent show. I never quite realized how much I dug John Morrison. Worth noting that he gone a ton of offense on Batista, to the point where he mostly controlled the match.

And the local jobber who Kozlov beat was Phil Atlas. No one cares, but I gotta support my hometown talent :mad:

I personally would have preferred it if they had Kane win the Championship Chase (seeing as he is a World Champion, and deserves that credibility), and had Kane vs. The Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Title at Judgment Day, with Kane winning and just having one Champion between those two brands (seeing as how they are sort of unified these days, anyway).

Yeah, a disappointing battle royal result.

Sounds shit tbh.

Man, Im not usually one of the ones that bitch about Punk getting "Buried" but honestly, hes not getting pushed at MITB winner. He is in no feuds in no storylines and wins a few but loses more. Just makes you wonder what the plan is?

WWE? Plan? *Tim Allen confused grunt*

Some thoughts.

You can afford for Punk to lose a few right now, as he's always going to have that briefcase, if anything they are looking for an Orton/Punk set up, based on the backstage segments from Backlash, so potentially Orton beats HHH then have Punk come out and challenge on the night, that would be cool. Basically what I'm saying is, Punk is one of the guys who can take a few loses right now.

Unless Edge gets the title back, I'm not a fan of this scenario, as it seems totally pointless, this could hopefully lead to an Edge/Matt Hardy feud down the road, that I think we all want to see. Then Taker can do whatever he wants to do, that's my best case scenario here

Yeah, when I read that we were heading for another Edge v Taker match I thought "What was the point of stripping the Undertaker only to have him automatically qualify for the title match!?"

I'm all for this "shock and awe" approach but they need to back it up with just a little bit of logic. No point shocking for shockings sake.

If it's going to be an Edge champs, MVP stands no chance of a main event slot, unless he turns face, which isn't a good idea for him, as he's a great heel and I don't feel a turn is needed.

Now if Edge wins, a MVP/Taker feud could be very good, and if MVP gets the rub, then I'd except him as a main event, but recently he's been losing mid card title matches, he can't just jump up to the main events like that.

I agree that a Jericho smackdown run would be cool, very cool, I can imagine a feud with him and Batista right off the bat, and Jericho is playing a tweener right now to perfection, so they could feud without Jericho turning, although Batista could do with a heel run, he's been a face for what, 3 years straight now> They could try pushing Punk, or let Hardy elevate the US title by being on the uppercard. There's alot of options, but with Hayes no longer booking, I have no idea what direction they will go in.

I'm really hoping they build toward Edge (world Champ) V Matt Hardy (US), along with an MVP V Batista V Chris Jericho fued, and a Big Show V Undertaker fued. That would make Smackdown pretty solid. Especially if they can continue the old Noble V Palumbo fued in the midcard.

Wait, Taker isn't champ anymore?

Didn't you watch last weeks smackdown?

Sigh.

So it turns out the "stripping Undertaker of the title" was just a way to book Edge vs. Undertaker for the belt, again. In retrospect its a pretty lame way to mold a World Title storyline. Why not have a short tournament that culminates at Judgment Day, and build to Taker vs. Edge through the tourney? Or maybe do something dynamic and have Edge try for some gain of extreme revenge on Taker after losing at Backlash, and more importantly, SUCCEED? That way Taker has a reason to fight him for a 3rd time.

It just comes off as lazy, thrown together booking.

They wanted Batista in there again to though not just edge/taker. Its still been done to death though and is showing what damage the roster split does when this sort of thing starts to happen.

The problem is SD really only has a few Main Event DRAWS. So until they build up some more guys, or give guys like MVP, Matt Hardy, Finlay, and CM Punk a chance at ME'ing a PPV they're going to be stuck with the same old Batista, Undertaker, and Edge Main Events. Possibly with Big Show thrown into the mix, along with Kane.

And thats due to there being a roster split and raw getting all the wrestlers they manage to build up.

I can really see Edge winning the title at Judgment day, but Taker turns around and gets a rematch of his choosing. I then basically see Taker calling for Hell in a Cell at one night stand (they want all matches to be hardcore variety) and Taker uses the Choke on Edge to win back the title.

Remember, the choke cannot be used in a sanctioned WWE match. Hell in a cell has no rules.

On the bright side, I can fastforward Taker vs. Edge when I watch Judgment Day, cause I couldn't give a fuck about seeing them feud for the 20th time.

Wasn't that bad a show from what i saw last night.

Yeah, Smackdown is usually quite decent.

I really just don't like Taker and Edge getting easy roads back to title shots. Taker should've been pissed at being screwed over by Vickie and shown a bit of attitude, taking out everyone with his submission, i.e. doing whatever he had to to get a title shot. Makes no sense for Vickie to give him his title shot immediately. Since when did she do something to be fair?