WWE SMACKDOWN WORKRATE REPORT 5/18/07

TKG: So every so often WWE decides that they need to retrain their audience to some aspect of wrestling. So you'll have a 6 week period where every match will be built around bodypart psychology. Then there will be a new backstage mandate and it will all be forgotten. Apparently this week’s new mandate is "referee's need to be booked stronger" and fuck every ref on this show was all about asserting their authority. It’s nice to book refs as not being weak, but I don't want to see tough guy refs either. Almost every match (including at least one of the squashes) had a wrestler backs down from ref spot. Booking every ref as tough ref is goofy. I don't want MVP to manhandle Charles Robinson, but I don't want MVP to be cowering from him either. I should point out that the timing of this mandate was perfect. As this only works with an injured Undertaker. 

WHAT WORKED 

PAS: Jesus is Matt Hardy on a sick run lately. He seems the defacto guy to lead NOVA generation guys through long TV matches. Smackdown is full of green guys, but at least it is all green guys working stiff. Whoever is the road agent is having everyone lay it in. So instead of daylight punches, you have MVP dropping mounted elbows to the back of peoples necks and kicking them in the face. Hardy's concussion selling was great, I loved the little hesitation on climbing the ropes. I don't know what the weird backstage thing behind basing two 20+ TV matches based around worked concussion selling the week Nowitski is on REAL SPORTS talking up Post-Concussion syndrome, but I can't buy it as a coincidence. 

TKG: The two concussion based matches in a week thing was weird to me, hadn’t thought about the Nowitski interview. This was by far the better of the two concussion based matches as Hardy can sell without scenery chewing. Speaking of selling, it still is really odd that aside from selling a fire spot, I can’t recall MVP ever being put in opportunity to sell which worries me as he may turn out to be the most NOVA’ish of all the Nova generation of workers. I think Phil’s giving MVP too much credit for the stiffness as Hardy was really full on leaning into the Mafia kicks. Of the Nova generation of Smackdown workers, I think Miz is the only guy who actually works consistently snug, Kennedy and MVP will have moments of snugness followed by moments of 80s non-contact WWFishness. 

PAS: Six man tag was fun but Deuce and Domino are pretty stinky. Domino seems able to take bumps to the floor, but can't actually execute anything in the ring. Is he a stuntman or something? What wrestling school teaches out of ring bumps before they teach in ring bumps? I don't get why they have this new thing of bringing in second generation guys and sticking them with corny ass gimmicks. I mean why would you hire a stink bomb like Duece if you weren't going to use him as Jimmy Snuka Jr., he has been wrestling for 7 years, and is completely terrible. Why would you hire tiny ass Ray Gordy, if not to have him wrestle as Terry Gordy's son, you could throw a rock and hit a indy midget just as good to play a hillbilly. Are they going to make Harry Smith a chimney sweep or something? 

TKG: Killer Karl Krupp was a guy who took really great bumps to the floor but couldn’t take in ring bumps particularly well. This match was really all Chavo and built around keeping Deuce and Domino out of the way. Still the best Deuce and Domino match was the Brian Kendrick vs. Deuce one where Brian Kendrick channels Johnny Valentine and works a 14 minute match around keeping Deuce in a headlock. 

PAS: Whatever you think of the WWE, you have to love them for running Finlay v. Benoit every six weeks or so. This wasn't high end for their series, but that still makes it better then pretty much anything else in the world. This was worked around a bodypart way more then most of their matches, and Finlay knows how to rip apart a leg. Finlay does a great job of using Hornswoggle, he is a guy who wrestled for years with an Indian princess seconding him. He has a million nifty ways to work spots around a second. This got about 11 minutes, but at this point you are pissed when these two get less then 20 on TV. 

TKG: I think I liked this much more than Phil did. Most of your Finlay vs. Benoit matches like your Regal v Benoit matches are worked around KO or submission. Here they work a bodypart. Last time these two matched up on Smackdown they also did a bodypart match but that one was almost an extended squash (Finlay worked over Benoit’s leg until distracted by Boogeyman and Benoit gets rollup). This one was a lot more competitive and Finlay is really great at ripping apart Benoit’s leg while Benoit is really great at selling the leg while still making his comebacks. So I’ve been really struck lately by how versatile Benoit is. I mean I guess that’s an obvious thing to say as it’s Benoit and well we all know how versatile he is. But their have been points where felt like he was coasting on formula. The long April Benoit v. MVP was almost completely controlled by Benoit, and MVP got very little in. Benoit controlled 89% of the offence yet it was still worked to make MVP look competitive. Following week I think Benoit had a match with Gregory Helms where Benoit let Helms control about 70% of the offense and yet worked where clear that Benoit was a level above Helms. Following week Benoit works Miz in a Finlay v. Barry Houston stiff guy vs. young stiff guy, where I think Miz got 40% of offense. Miz got to look tough opposite Benoit with again being booked as lower tiered. Here he works tough underdog fighting against the odds. Struck at how good Benoit is at playing multiple in match roles, and how those roles are built around layout and not percentage of offense. 

PAS: We can add Regal to the short list of people who can drag something out of Kane (Daisuke Ikeda and Ricky Morton are the other two). Regal just worked him over, and Kane was pretty much just throwing his uppercut which is the only thing he does well. Regal has such great combos, and he was unloading with them, really fun match. Although having a finish based around a heel attacking a midget, on the same show you have a finish based around a face attacking a midget seems like the kind of lazy booking usually reserved for TNA. 

TKG: Phil dug this more than me. I didn’t I liked this as much as Regal vs. Boogey. Smackdown is weird as they’ve been pushing this big Monster vs. Monster feud on top of card and also have this really undercard monster tag team. I mean when Lawler would get into his silly “Famous Monsters of Filmland” nerd booking, he didn’t have Freddy and Jason on top of the cards while the Mummy and the Wolfman where working openers. Weirdest thing about the new “workrate” WWE is the lack of mic work. Michael Hayes is supposedly the guy behind pushing the new paradigm. MICHAEL HAYES is pushing for less mic work!?? WHAT THE FUCK. I mean Kane isn’t very good on mic so yeah leaving him to do nothing but bemused facial selling makes sense. But Boogeyman is a guy who is great on the stick. Known for not being very good in the ring but great on the stick. When’s the last time he’s been allowed to sing? When’s the last time he’s been given a mic? Would Hayes book the Boogie Woogie Man vs. Les Thorton and not let the Boogie Woogie Man work the mic? This feud has a guy who can work the mic in it, why isn’t he working the mic? 

WHAT DIDN'T WORK 

TKG: The Ozzie thing was odd. I think I first saw a Ramones show in about 87. I remember being pressed up against the front of the stage and looking up at Joey Ramone and thinking he was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen live. I remember there was a point in the early nineties where I was at a Ramones show and noticed that Joey Ramone was starting to look less like a really ugly man and more like a really unattractive woman, he was starting to look like Cher. I think the last time I saw the Ramones may have been in 95. I pushed myself to front, looked up and Joey full on looked like Cher without the surgery. So watching the Ozzie performance I was struck by how much 2007 Ozzy facially looks like Cher. Do all 70s drug casualty rock stars eventually turn into Cher? Has anyone seen recent Bootsy? 

PAS: I have really been enjoying Miz lately, as he has been kind of nicely going toe to toe with Finlay and Benoit in recent weeks. I was kind of looking forward to him potatoing Christian York, but it didn't really happen. I think a Dave Taylor v. Miz series would be a good use of both guys if Regal goes to Smackdown. 

TKG: I didn’t really see the purpose of either of the competitive squashes. Did both of them have jobber transitions to offense after missed elbow drop? Layout of matches felt too similar. Mark Henry has gotten kind of fat since we last saw him. I mean when he was last on TV he had these nasty defined abs which no longer are there. The big collision spot where Henry walks through Funaki’s crossbody was nice but really not a lot to it. Miz using the Matt Sydal clothesline-hang-on-top- ropes-and-mug spot is great. But it requires that the camera film him from the front to show him mugging. Filming it from behind ruins the taunt. 

PAS: Mark Henry's promo was completely awesome, but his sqaush wasn't really violent enough. Great looking clothesline, but not much else. Funaki isn't really a big bumping jobber, this feels like it would have been a nice place for Shannon Moore or hell they were in Baltimore call up Chad Austin. 

TKG: I don’t think it’s that Mark Henry needs a bigger bumping jobber so much as he needs a physically bigger jobber. Henry is huge and being huge standing next to Funaki doesn’t mean anything. There’s a reason you book Luger or Giant to squash RoadBlock. Picking up Roadblock is impressive. There is a reason you book Hogan to bodyslam Rusty Brooks. Does Kelly Bell still work Maryland? 

PAS: The druids carrying the Undertaker is always stupid, but is especially dumb with current Undertaker. With his abs, old face and shooter gloves he is basically working a current Ken Shamrock gimmick. Would druids really come for Ken Shamrock's soul?

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WWE Judgment Day 07

Judgment Day

PAS: I made a shitload of money in Karaoke bribes last night, so on a whim we decide to get this PPV.

TKG: I found a twenty on the street and told Phil, yeah go ahead spend your money.

Ric Flair v. Carlito

PAS: This was shockingly good. I mean no reason for anyone to expect this to do anything but suck, Flair maybe old and semi shot but he can still deliver on PPV. I really liked the kind of story they were telling here as Flair had been trying to inspire Carlito to show some fire, but it took Carlito turning on him to actually do it. Aggressive Carlito was fun, I liked how he kept moving forward, while Flair spent most of the match trying to keep him off of him. Flair doesn't do a lot of things anymore, but everything he does looked great. He landed some beautiful straight right hands, his chops were brutal, and the chop block, stomp on the knee, knee to the knee, figure four combo looked like it should have ended the match. This felt like it went a bit too long, as they seemed to lap themselves a bit. They did the Flair gets armbared, fights through the pain to throw an east coast armdrag, then takes over with chops sequence twice. It is a great sequence, but it really was repeated.

TKG: They intro Carlito as "From the Carribean"...Afraid that there are too many Puerto Rican's in St Louis? So the story on Carlito is he sucks as an X-division babyface especially since he works an X-division babyface who is doing Kevin Nash " I am cool and indifferent" gimmick. He's a lot better off working as heel. He had a couple of questionable looking bits of heel offense. Him saying "ask him ref" for a keylock is goofy. He released the hammerlock before the hammerlock slam but that ended up making it look like it hit the shoulder so that was fine. His lariat was a Pierroth of Puerto Rico style lariat that hits right at the chest (instead of throat) but hits hard enough that it just looks like a nasty strike. But his timing was consistently good and even the questionable stuff ended up looking good, and I liked all his heel dropkick stuff. I think they only did the Flair powers out of keylock with hiptoss sequence twice. So it didn't feel like it lapped itself so much as the second time it was bigger deal. First time it was holy shit “that’s awesome" spot, the second time it was a "now he's in position to mount an offense" spot. Phil covers allot of the Flair stuff but my favorite thing is Flair can no longer do the rolling knee to the face as well as he used to, so he replaced it with just stomping the flat of his boot right on Carlito's face. The end where Flair struggles to raise his own hand was sweet.

Vince McMahon/Shane McMahon/Umaga v. Bobby Lashley

TKG: Did I miss the WON where they explained why vain Vince McMahon is wrestling with a shirt on? I mean it's Vince. Is he dying? Does he have the AIDS? Is he considered talent? Does he participate in the "wellness program"? No way that cokehead gets tested. He's wrestling with a shirt on. Maybe it’s a tribute to ECW authenticity. Guy with title has to wrestle with shirt on. His ill fitting boot cut pants could have passed for Sandman style Tubas. Yeah that makes sense; Vince represents the true spirit of ECW...no wellness testing for him. The fat backyarder in the hockey jersey really is an accurate representation of the true spirit of ECW too. Fat backyarder, druggie and Samoan in a three on one match for ECW title feels like a legit ECW booking. The shitty finish feels authentic too. Lashley is too cut to be authentic ECW and there really wasn't enough horseshit in the match. Where's Linda to dyke out and then go through a table?

PAS: This was a nothing match, but they are doing a nice job of making the matches I don't want to see short, and giving everything else way too much time, so god bless them.

C.M. Punk v. Eljiah Burke

PAS: Inexplicable match. My guess is that C.M. Punk was showing everyone backstage his Samoa Joe series again. Talking up how great he is. Mike Graham must have been backstage taping one of those legends roundtables. "I remember when Pillman was running his mouth like this, give this Brooks kid 30 minutes on PPV with that green black guy who throws punches, we will see how good he really is." Is there any other explanation for this going this long? This is a secondary feud from your tertiary show. It almost felt like an IWA-MS match where it would have been good if it was ten minutes shorter. They did have some cool stuff and your finishing run was pretty good, with some nice near falls. I just watched an Ultraman match followed by a Kelly Pavlik fight, so body shots and combinations wouldn't normally impress me, but Burke's looked really good.

TKG: This was actually saved by going long. Started really mediocre. For smart guy without a ton of physical gifts and taped ribs I'm not sure if the first ten minutes were laid out as well as DDP would. For black guy with good combinations Burke doesn't really impress me as much as OJ did. And watching first ten minutes, I imagine that OJ and DDP have had better matches on Korean Air Force bases. Opening kicker vs. puncher stuff wasn't much. The match gets good for a bit and then for some reason they have the babyface put the heel in a long headlock, then it gets good again. I mean it goes from bad to good to bad to good. You do sense that the length of time was meant as a taunt, but the length is what made it work. The big complaint I had about the Batista vs. Undertaker Mania match was that the big near fall tease of finish finishing run felt really thrown on and artificial. Match wasn't building toward that and felt like a desperate attempt at pops that the match didn't need. With CM Punk v. Burke it really felt like the match was building toward a near fall end run and the crowd responding to it made sense. When CM Punk went to top rope for superplex I did briefly think he was going for Pepsi Plunge...ROH now has contracts, that would be a spectacular way to get yourself fired from WWE. I mean CM Punk is this straight edge indy guy, what's he doing in WWE? Fugazi never signed with Capitol.

Shawn Michaels v. Randy Orton:

TKG: Phil tells me that HBK is supposed to be selling a concussion. It looked to me like he was just trying to recreate one of his 90s era no condition to perform house show performances. I've fallen on my head before and I've snorted lines off past out girls' cooters before. He wasn't selling the former.

PAS: At least we didn't have to watch a long Shawn Michaels match. It seems a little divaish to run your injury angle on PPV. Run it on RAW so I don't have to pay for it. No long Helmsley matches in addition to no long Michaels matches means I am going to be wasting more money on WWE PPV's.

Hardy Boyz v. Lance Cade/Trevor Murdoch

PAS: Them running this match like a lucha Dia de Los Ninos match where the rudos wrestle clean for the kids is hysterical. The three RAW guys are kind of running through their stuff and Matt Hardy who is on stiff ass Smackdown just wastes Cade with a forearm, I mean one of the more brutal forearms I have ever seen. After that Cade and Murdoch sort of wake up and the rest of the match is pretty asskicking. Murdoch is great as sincere babyface, when Matt makes the save, he goes "Hey we're playing by the rules here." I figured this would be the show where Cade and Murdoch get the belts, but I don't mind them running this back in two weeks.

TKG: That Matt Hardy forearm was nasty. I was expecting Cade to end up legit concussed on show where they had a worked concussion angle. At minimum I was expecting him to come up with a busted cheekbone. And when did Matt Hardy get the best back elbow in the biz? I cringed every time he threw it. Cade was wasting folks with lariats and even Jeff Hardys swanton looked like it hit with force. Cade's dropkick was fucking Jindrack beautiful. For a Dia de los Ninos match this was paced well with neat opening section leading to the regroup leading to the big Jeff Hardy bump, etc. Best match on show thus far.

Edge v. Batista

PAS: Ick, this was a total mess. Batista seemed to come in with tuberculosis, as he was hacking and coughing during the opening minutes. In a show, and really a promotion, where everyone is working tight, everything was done really gingerly. It felt like they were killing time to the finish, and outside of the double spear nothing stood out. Worst match on the show, and Edge needs to realize he isn't on RAW anymore and needs to step it up.

TKG: Yikes this was a mess. I remember liking the Christian vs. Batista series...but this uggh.. Why are you booking an undercard face-with-taped- body-part when the title match also involves a face-with-taped-body-part? They also are running this right before MVP v. Chris Benoit where the set up is that Finlay and MVP have injured Benoit's leg. Edge ends up working the arm and his arm work is realy sub Carlito. Edge and Batista do the same spot Carlito and Flair did with armlock reversed into hip toss. It gets no response here. The real chickenshit cheap finish doesn't help anyone ether. The double spear spot was cool but this was worst match on show by a lot.

MVP v. Chris Benoit

PAS: I think I liked this more then Tom. This was really hurt by running the leg injury match before it, but MVP impressed me more then he has before. Benoit clearly led him nicely through this, but all of his semi-goofy stuff was done in context. The leg selling by Benoit was great, and both finishes were niftily set up. It did seem a little one sided which is why I think the crowd was sort of dead. Benoit really got very little offense in, with everything he did getting countered. It would have worked a lot better if you didn't have Flair with an injured shoulder, Punk with taped ribs, Michaels with a concussion and Batista with a taped quad. Too much of the same thing kind of kills the gimmick.

TKG: Montel Vontavious Porter?? Marcus Cor Von? Who's the guy in charge of "Negro Naming"? How hard is it to just call him Toby? Yeah Phil liked this a lot more than I did. MVP had some cool stuff. In first fall, the rolling attack that knocked Benoit down was neat, as was the dragon screw variation, plus the electric chair into Play of the Day reversal was great finish. Second fall he had some neat reversals, nasty leg stuff, and the almost Fuller leg lock style roll up finish was awesome. Still the match was made by the greatness of the Benoit leg selling. But for match built around heel working over Benoit's leg, MVP was never going to come across as violent as Finlay did in the Smackdown match that set this up. Disappointing.

Great Khail v. John Cena

PAS: Wow was that spectacular. I remember when Khali came in, he did this destruction of Undertaker which looked super shitty, as his stuff didn't look violent at all. I think he has improved a bit, but Cena made him look like a total killer. Just taking giant bumps on all of the moves. They weren't Hennig or Micheals style athletic bumps which are all about the bumper, they were the kind of whiplash bumps that make the guy applying the move look like a total monster. Cena is also amazing at timing all of his comebacks, as the crowd went nuts for the catch of the chop, and the shoulderblocks. Khali tapping out seems like a finish of the feud, and I think they could have easily run it back at the next PPV.

TKG: And fuck everything else this was the match of the night. Phil's point about athletic v. whiplash bumps is really made when comparing this to last years Judgement Day. Last years Judgement Day had an Undertaker v. Great Khali match that was worked around Undertaker taking really Michaels style athletic bumps. It was as good of a performance if not better than Michaels vs. Masters. But the match was flat because no matter how much Undertaker flew around, the bumps were about the bumper and at no point did you buy Khali's offense. Cena is a superstar here making all of Khali's stuff look dangerous and hurty. I get the sense that Cena could get Tom Magee a WWE job. Instead of Cena selling everything by flying and doing melodramatic soap actor dying selling, Cena sells each piece of offense like its different from the last. And so instead of remembering athletic bumps you remember Khali's offense: his first lariat, his straight punch, his headbutt, his leg lariat, his elbow in the corner, his leg drop, his second big lariat, etc. What you remember is how devastating it all was. And well Khali is big enough and immobile enough that just having him lift his leg was a surprise. Khali is clearly still delicate as Cena really pulls his stuff more than he has in ages. I also don't know how he's done it but somehow even working delicately Cena has made me like the slingblade. I don't know if it's that Cena has better execution than Tanahashi or if it's that he just has better in ring timing. But I can't stand when Tanahashi pulls that out and I totally popped for it here.

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