Smackdown kicks off this week with further reminder that its Edge’s show, as the video package focuses on his brilliant Cutting Edge segment with Mick Foley that closed last week’s show, interspersed with clips of The Undertaker doling out beatings in Hell in a Cell matches.

There was one moment here that illustrated perfectly the kind of thing that the WWE do which shows just how brilliant their video packages are. At the end, as Edge was shown going nuts, they closed in on his eye and they’d superimposed an image of Taker looking deadly and evil in there. Just a fantastic little touch that illustrates the huge effect that going into Hell in a Cell has on a wrestlers psyche.

The opening match is the WWE’s half-hearted nod to the Beijing Olympics, as the WWE Divas come out in costume for a six-woman tag of Maryse, Natalya and Victoria v. Michelle McCool, Cherry and Maria.

Of course Maria is shown to be dumb, dressing for the winter Olympics as a skier, and Victoria is shown to be a klutz, falling over doing gymnastics. I wonder how many Olympic gymnasts will be wearing giant knee braces by the way.

Michelle McCool’s entrance was met with piped in crowd noise that the WWE television department probably recorded when The Rock was at his height of fame, it was ridiculous to hear this giant pop to no reaction whatsoever, and even funnier when she tagged in later in that match and hit a dropkick to another huge reaction meanwhile in the background you can see people are sat in the stands not moving or reacting in any way at all.

Natalya gets the win in a short match, making Maria submit to the sharpshooter.

Backstage, Bam Neely is found laid out, with a black rose beside him, which we’re supposed to think is The Undertaker. You see, because Undertaker’s colour is black, and he’s actually been feuding with Edge and La Familia, and black roses are hard to come by. It’s not like he’s randomly leaving a common item you could buy anywhere, such as a black baseball bat, and getting involved with people you have no issue with whatsoever for no reason. Just as an example off the top of my head there.

Edge’s Two Edge Guys v. Jimmy Wang Yang & Shannon Moore. If the news of Moore leaving the WWE hadn’t broken before I watched this show, I would’ve thought for sure he was gone anyway with how the match went. Here’s the entire match: Yang dominates early, the heels cheapshot Yang and dominate him, then he finally makes the tag, Moore gets in and is double DDT’d immediately for the pin.

Interview Girl interviews MVP, who cuts a great promo about how he doesn’t have to worry about Jeff Hardy beating him at SummerSlam, because Hardy is so reckless in the ring that he’ll beat himself.

Shelton Benjamin v. Jeff Hardy. This is non-title, which means Jeff Hardy is winning, if the fact that the match is Shelton Benjamin v. Jeff Hardy wasn’t enough of a clue. This match fucking SUCKED. I guess Shelton must have been watching some more Butch Reed tapes lately, because not only has he done the ridiculous blonde dyejob, he’s also taken Reed’s penchant for ridiculously long and boring headlocks that just kill the momentum of a match completely.

To be fair to the WWE, I did completely buy into one near fall in this match, and it’s totally down to the “Jeff crashes and burns” angle that MVP is pushing. Jeff went for a swanton and missed, so Shelton went for the cover, but it was only 2. They really should’ve saved that spot for the MVP match where it would’ve meant something, and they certainly should’ve saved the two other “Jeff takes risks that don’t pay off” spots for that match as well. The ending came when Jeff hit a swanton, but MVP ran in to kick him in the head for the DQ.

Next up was the arm-wrestling contest with Triple H and The Great Khali. Here’s the thing with monsters in wrestling. They get over if you act scared of them and put them over as a threat who can take you out at any time - and even though Khali “can’t wrestle” that theory was proven true last year when he’d lay out John Cena on TV, Cena would cut promos about what a monster Khali was, and they popped a good buyrate for Judgement Day.

They don’t get over if you make jokes about them, and they have to cut a promo talking (through a translator, mind you) about all the guys you’ve beaten and how great you are. Guess which way this went? Then in the arm wrestling, HHH was on the verge of winning, when Khali grabbed him, laid him out with the head butt, the Khali Chop (which HHH didn’t even stay down for more than half a second from, nice way to get your opponent’s big move over), and the Head Vice.

Backstage again and Kurt Hawkins is laid out with a black rose left at the scene. JR mentions that the same thing happened to Zack Ryder earlier, but I don’t remember seeing that so maybe it was taped but cut in post production or I missed it when skipping through commercials.

Another R-Truth vignette airs, and I have to say I like the fact they are giving his character some back-story and build, rather than just randomly bringing him back in and hoping people don’t remember he used to get rowdy.

Chavo Guerrero is backstage with Vicki, and he suggests that the only person who can help defend them against The Undertaker is Edge. Vickie doesn’t like this, but Chavo promises to talk to Edge for her.

Vladimir Kozlov v. Jesse is next, in response to Kozlov’s promo (first in Russian, then English afterwards) saying that he wants better competition. When the bell rings, Festus of course goes mental, so Jesse has to calm him down and get him outside, but that leaves him prey to Kozlov’s running kick, and then goes on to dominate with a quick squash. One thing I didn’t like was that he won with the “opponent jumps off the second rope to be met with a head butt” deal that I thought was stupid a few weeks ago because it makes Kozlov’s opponents look weak.

After the bell, when Festus went retarded again, Kozlov looked at him strangely before walking off. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO A MONTH BUILD TO KOZLOV v. FESTUS BECAUSE THAT WOULD FUCKING RULE.

The Brian Kendrick cuts a pre-match promo where he informs us that his man Zeke’s full name is Ezekiel Jackson. Then he wins a match against Super Crazy when Ezekiel walks up the steps and that distracts Crazy enough to be hit with The Kendrick. This was just by the numbers stuff that didn’t do anything more to add to what Kendrick had shown in the last two weeks, but if they have nothing for him it’s good to keep him on TV so the new character is fresh in the minds of the fans.

Edge goes into Vickie’s office, and after some prompting from Chavo, Vickie stops screaming long enough to reluctantly agree.

Then its final segment time as Edge brings the greatness once more. He and Chavo both have chairs and Edge screams at Taker to come out and face them like a man instead of turning the lights out or shooting lightening bolts. But when Chavo turns his back, Edge lays him out with a chairshot, and then a one-man conchairto as Vickie is screaming. Edge looks over at Vickie; teases dumping her out of the wheelchair, and then seems to have second thoughts before actually doing it.

Deranged Edge is fantastic, and so much better at this than he was as the paranoid guy from his first singles heel turn in 2004. Edge gets in a crying Vickie’s face and says if she wants to put him in Hell In A Cell with The Undertaker then she has to worry about what Edge will do to himself, to Taker, to La Familia and also to her, because they’re all going to hell. Again, my words can’t do this segment justice, but Edge was magnificent once more, and is far and away the best all-round performer in the WWE right now. It’s also great how they played off last week’s angle, where Mick Foley tried to bring out the driven, angry, psychotic Edge, and now that he has, shit is on and everybody better watch out.

Hell in a Cell is going to be fantastic, I can’t wait.

Mark Bright
mark@wwepreview.com