Last time out we took a look at the Monday Night Raw part of WWE’s Live in the UK November 2012 release. Now we’re going to continue our mini-series by taking a look at Raw’s sister programme, Smackdown.
As with Raw we’ll be breaking this down into sections, beginning with…..
THE MATCHES
Match #1 saw the Miz challenging Kofi Kingston for the Intercontinental title.
Kingston began with his usual fast-paced offence, but when he suffered an apparent knee injury Miz slowed the pace down with a series of wear down holds. Kingston made a brief comeback, but he was clearly hampered by the bad wheel, especially when he went for the Trouble in Paradise kick. A few moments later Miz synched in a half Boston, but that didn’t get the job done.
Eventually Kingston managed to beat the pain when he climbed to the to the top rope and took his challenger down with a cross body block for the title retaining pin.
Afterwards a frustrated Miz sat in the corner as Kingston celebrated his win. He then offered his hand as a token of respect, only for the champion to dropkick him in the face.
Match #2 saw Sin Cara and Rey Mysterio renewing their rivalry with the Prime Time Players, Darren Young and Titus O’Neil.
This quickie saw the PTPs doubling up on Cara early on before he managed to get back to his corner for the hot tag. Mysterio came in and promptly took big O’Neil down with a variety of quick moves.
But when he went for the 619 Young distracted him momentarily, and even though Cara took Young out with a suicide dive O’Neil came back to take Mysterio down with a powerbomb for the winning pin.
Match #3 featured more tag action as Wade Barrett and World Champion the Big Show went up against William Regal and Sheamus.
There were a few mind games at the beginning of this one. They were going to start off with Regal against show, but when Sheamus tagged in the big man tagged out. The Englishman and the Irishman proceeded to beat down on the opposing Englishman until Regal found himself being used for target practice, with Barrett and Show looking pretty effective as a unit.
Eventually Regal managed to get the hot tag. Sheamus began to clean house until a spear from Show stopped him in his tracks. It was then that Regal tagged himself back in, and despite delivering a series of knees to the big man’s head Show connected with his knockout punch for the winning pin.
Match #4, the main event, saw Randy Orton taking on Alberto Del Rio, accompanied by Ricardo Rodriguez, in a falls count anywhere match.
Even though they began in the ring it wasn’t long before they left that particular environment with a brawl that took them through the crowd and eventually into the corridors outside of the arena. Cuts for commercial breaks meant that the action seemed a little disjointed until they made their way back inside.
The action was turned up a notch when they made it back to ringside and up to the ramp. Ricardo tried to help his man by jumping onto Orton’s back, but the announcer soon found himself being pummelled in a good old fashioned read phone box.
Back at ringside Del Rio took control when his enziguri kick sent Orton crashing through a table. Moments later he went for his cross arm breaker, which Orton managed to escape from when he clobbered ADR in the head with a microphone.
Moments later ADR brought the ring steps into the equation, but it was Orton who used them when he took Del Rio down with an RKO onto them for the winning pin.
THE SEGMENTS
There was really only one major segment to speak of here, and that was the revelation that the Big Show had attacked Sheamus and Regal during their pub crawl in Birmingham after Raw. While the Irishman was in the ring addressing this situation Barrett came out and taunted him before walking away from his challenge. Later on General Manager Booker T booked the tag match.
In conclusion - all I can say is wow, Smackdown sure has changed since I last watched it on a regular basis.
Now I don’t know if it was because the show was held over here in good old Blighty with a smaller crew, but this certainly had a “B” show vibe about it. The action itself was okay and the matches were well presented, but this kind of felt like an afterthought when compared to Raw.
As for my match of the night no-prize that award goes to the Sheamus/Regal/Show/Barrett tag match. It was a pretty good match, and it definitely had the most thought put into it.
So, on the strength of the matches alone, I’m going to give this edition of Smackdown the thumbs up. But as for my overall conclusion, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer, because disc two of this collection contains two more shows, Main Event and Superstars, which we’ll be reviewing in the final part of this mini-series. So as the old saying goes, to be continued…..
With thanks to Fremantle Media and Fetch Publicity for supplying a copy of this release. WWE Live in the UK November 2012 is available to buy online at www.wwedvd.co.uk.
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