No orbital bones were broken during the writing of this report. And I am not in a vegetative state. In case you missed it on my blog, here’s my look at NXT season 1 & 2 as well as a NBA Finals Preview that I wrote during the week.
Taped from Dallas , Texas let’s talk some smack…
The show opened with Teddy Long saying Undertaker was attacked over Memorial Day weekend and that he was left in a vegetative state. I’ll get to what really happened later. So the druids come out with a casket. Kane comes out, opens the casket and there’s nothing in there. Then Kane gets on the microphone, cuts a promo about getting revenge and also: “THERE WILL BE VENGEANCE!” He yelled it over and over. I cackled each time. Yeah, I know that if I was 9 years old instead of 29 I’d be crying that the Undertaker is in a vegetative state (“Mom, Undertaker’s a vegetable now?”), but part of me thinks this is just a really bad idea for an angle. Who knows? It’s just that I look at the history of Kane angles and there’s a lot of reason to think it might end poorly. I just hope it doesn’t result in Undertaker vs. Kane, version 73. Never need to see that again. I don’t want to say I hate this. I didn’t. Just didn’t love it.
What really happened was last week during the Undertaker/Rey match, Rey landed on Undertaker with a splash off the ropes and it broke the orbital bone on Undertaker’s face. He’s out for a couple months. The funny thing is Rey was supposed to get the month off for a family vacation, yet now he was brought back to TV and put in the battle royal main event. Since they had him booked for the World Title match they had to come up with an excuse to get him out. With the character being supernatural, they can’t just say the guy is injured. I guess this was what they felt was the best option. We’ll see how it goes. See ya in a few months, Undertaker. Summerslam, perhaps?
Jack Swagger d. MVP (**1/4)
This was a typical, 15 minute Smackdown match where they were able to tell a story because the match got time. It was pretty good for the most part. I think Swagger’s continuing to impress as a World Champion that can have quality matches in the ring. They’re playing up his athleticism a lot, so for him to show that he is in fact a natural athlete is a good thing for him. The match was good for MVP. He was in it the whole way and Swagger didn’t even pin him with his finish. It was a rollup after a missed kick. It was a solid showing by both guys.
After the match, MVP was attacked by Curt Hawkins and Vance Archer, who are trying to impress management to earn a contract. I assume they’ll get it. They’d actually work as a nice stable with Swagger, but I doubt that happens. Just saying that it could work.
Backstage, Teddy & Vickie mentioned the battle royal to come later to fill Undertaker’s spot. Vickie wanted to give the spot to her favorite, Dolph Ziggler.
NXT video package with footage of Wade Barrett’s win. I wrote about it, as well as season two, right here.
Backstage, Kane thought Punk attacked Undertaker. Punk said SES is like a family and that he would help Kane fine the culprit if he wanted. Oh the intrigue.
IC Title: Kofi Kingston d. Drew McIntyre (**1/2)
Much like the Swagger/MVP match, they got time (14 minutes) and told a nice story in the ring. McIntyre’s push ended a couple months of ago when he fell out of favor with management, so you knew who was going over here. Personally, I still like Drew and I’m not sure what happened to make management sour on him. I think his work is fine. Kofi’s one of the better workers on the show, the fans are into him and he consistently has good matches. Matt Hardy, who is suspended, showed up in the crowd with a ticket. He ended up distracting Drew enough to allow Kofi to finish with the SOS. That’s another match where a guy won without his main finisher, Trouble in Paradise. Running theme on this show, I guess. Post match, Hardy went after McIntyre. Worst security guards ever.
Backstage, Kane talked with Rey. Basically said he won’t assume anybody is innocent. Where’s Magnum P.I. when you need him? That’s an 80s reference for the kids out there.
Great segment with Jack Swagger singing the Oklahoma fight song (“Boomer Sooner” over and over) in a very annoying way until Kane showed up to stare at him. And then it ended. I loved it, though. See, funny Swagger works for me.
Kelly Kelly d. Rosa Mendes (DUD)
Well, they look nice. Kelly won in about two minutes. Should point out here that they taped a segment with Laycool talking about how they took out Beth Phoenix and Piggie James and now they were going to take out the rest. Didn’t air. I wonder why? Free promotion for Mickie would have been good.
Backstage, Kane walked in on Show & Hornswoggle playing cards. Quite the visual. Show told him he had nothing to do with Undertaker’s vegetable like state.
Rey Mysterio won a Battle Royal (**3/4)
It was a pretty good battle royal that got 20 minutes of TV time with two commercial spots. Of note, Finlay was back after not being on TV for many months. The word was that Vince didn’t want him in the ring anymore because he looks too old, but I guess they changed their mind at least for one night. He went from barely being on TV to being in the top five here. Mysterio was the story here with his ability to keep hanging on and using his legs to eliminate people in ways that others can’t. It really did a good job of showcasing him. I don’t think he broke any orbital bones with his plancha this week, so that’s an accomplishment to be proud of. We don’t want more than one person in a vegetative state after all. The final two were Kane and Mysterio. Rey won with the help of the masked SES guy that attacked Kane while Gallows was still out there. Pretty good finish.
Now the Fatal Fourway main event is Swagger vs. Punk vs. Show vs. Mysterio. I’d expect Swagger to retain. I also expect Swagger to be the one that took out Undertaker as their way of saying he’s scared of him. Then Undertaker comes back for Summerslam to get his revenge while also getting a title shot.
Three Stars of the Show
1. Jack Swagger
2. Rey Mysterio
3. “THERE WILL BE VENGEANCE”
7 out of 10
Last week: 6
I liked it. Three long matches and the “THERE WILL BE VENGEANCE” was a 9 out of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale.
This show’s word of the week: vegetative.
————
Keep checking out the blog at thejohnreport.net for other random shit throughout the week.
Thanks for reading.
John Canton – [email protected]
Visit the blog: thejohnreport.net
Add me on Facebook at Facebook.com/thejohnreportnet
and Twitter at Twitter.com/johnreport
AOLIM: OratorJC YahooIM: thejohnreportnet
Visit My Archives to view ten years of The John Report columns.