Smackdown Workrate Report May 25,2007

PAS: All good matches this week, although nothing particularly blow away great.

WHAT WORKED:

PAS: Regal and Taylor v. Kendrick and London was perfectly fine, but a little disappointing. I really enjoyed all of Taylor’s press slam variations, but this never really got going the way it should have.

TKG: I don’t care how many times I saw it Dave Taylor press slamming Finlay was one of the biggest wrestling watching HOLY SHIT moments. Dave Taylor press slamming Kendrick is less physically impressive. Still Finlay never took the press slam to the floor. This was fun and I wish they had run the Regal/Taylor v Kendrick/London match at Armageddon instead of adding the Hardys, MNM and the ladder.

PAS: Man alive was Miz v. Matt Hardy great, I think it was better then Hardy v. MVP from last week for your long stiff Matt Hardy singles match. I think the first Hardy v. Kennedy long TV singles was the best of your Hardy long TV singles match with NOVA generation guy based around body part selling. That was really a one man Hardy show, this was the second best and Miz was much more then just a passive bystander. Stiff offense, good bumping, a couple of good looking signature spots, really Miz is pretty much all you could ask for guy in his position.

TKG: Yeah this was awesome. Miz has the best cravate of all of your NOVA generation workers(Punk, Kennedy, MVP, Miz). They all use it but Miz makes it look like a sugar hold, and the rolling through stuff while holding onto the cravate was choice. Commentators were harping on how Miz is developing and is no longer obnoxious guy taunting and teasing but instead has become “tough”and serious. Miz does the Matt Sydal lariat taunt in the corner but instead of making his usual smug face tries to make an “ARRGGHH” tough face. Miz has some great obnoxious frat boy heel charisma and trying to make him drop that is stupid. Get the sense that Michael Hayes thinks you can either be Gino or Ole. If you’re going to be working obnoxious pretty boy you have to be chicken shit, if you are working tough style you have to be mean and angry. Miz works stiff/tough but he can’t pull off snarling Ole. It’s stupid to try to force him to. The world isn’t split between Ginos and Oles.

PAS: The four way was both better and worse then it should have been. The opening sections were pretty bad, but they built to a nice “Please don’t stop finish.” Kane seemed way more energetic then usual, maybe house show matches with Regal have actually taught him how to wrestle. I loved the spot where Finlay shillieghliegh shotted Henry and he didn’t fall, also Henry took an amazing bump on Batista’s spear. Still Batista didn’t look like much, even with everyone bumping huge for him (Finlay took a ganzo bomb bump on the Batista bomb) and I have no desire to ever seen another Edge v. Batista match

TKG: I dug Chavo vs. Jimmy Wang Yang a bunch. For some reason this was a non-title match. In the world of combined PPVs, I assume there won’t be PPV cruiser title matches. No idea why you run this non-title.I also don’t understand why Yang is working this gimmick without mic time. I mean the gimmick makes no sense unless you listen to him on the mic. This was built around the mat which was pretty awesome as Chavo manhandles Yang and Yang ekes out neat escapes. Is the WWE now editing out “Eddy”chants? It felt like they turned off the crowd mic during the three amigos.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:

TKG: The Hives still exist? Who knew? Did they replace their bassist with the bassist from the Exploited? Or did their bassist just get fat? The Hives still exist? And they’re doing Timbaland tracks? Man that was bad. I mean I imagine if Teddy Riley produced Thee Milkshakes, it might be a mess but it would be so much better than this. I mean “Give it To Me”is awful but “Throw it On Me”may be worse. The Jazzy Phe tune with the stars of the IFL so smokes this. Which is ridiculous as Jazze Pha should not smoke Timbaland and Igor Zinoviev should not be a better musical front man than Pelle Almqvist.So the song itself stank. The actual video was embarrassing. I don’t know if I could say that the IFL one was better, but at least IFL was kind of a self aware lark. I assume the reason for using WWE Divas is so you’d have women who would do stunts. But it looked like the wrestling scenes were all done by stunt doubles. If you’re not going to have them do stunts, whats the point? These women can’t pull off walking sexy. The scenes of the Baby Faces and Extreme Expose walking provocatively were ridiculous. Is Layla the only one without busted up knees? Or is she just the only one with actual modeling/stripper/dancer experience. They looked like they were struggling to walk. If you’re going to use stunt doubles for the fights, why not hire actual dancers. Did they want WWE Divas just for their haggard man faces to play Frank Miller style haggard whores? I saw Sin City. Mickey Rourke played Marv. He didn’t play Gail or Nancy.

TKG: Phil is being generous with the main. Mark Henry’s spear eat was spectacular, Finlay’s Batista bomb eat was spectacular, the what will it take to knock down Henry stuff was nice and Kane was running around working hard. Still it was a mess for large chunks. Kane looked like he cared when matched up with Batista or Henry but really looked like he was resting opposite Finlay. They did the TNA commercial break after a minute thing. The “Please don’t stop” section wasn’t really a finish so much as just something tossed in, in the middle. It’s Smackdown, I expect better.