We’re in Boston, MA home of Sasha Banks, A-Train and that John Cena guy.
CM Punk & Kane vs. Deuce & Domino
We get a recap of Big Daddy V & Mark Henry destroying CM Punk last week and Kane coming to his rescue. This is a warm-up for the just-announced tag match at Armageddon.
Tazz: ”You could never hang with cool guys like Deuce & Domino.”
Joey: ”What if I was their parole officer?”
Domino takes a monkey flip from Punk and some punches from Kane. Punk connects with the running clothesline/bulldog combo but lands on Domino’s knees after a springboard attempt. Deuce tags in and very excitedly beats up Punk until Domino stretches Punk for a while. No ”CM PUNK” chant though because no-one cares. Punk tags to Kane who cleans house with the big book of Kane moves. Chokeslam and GTS on both guys ends it.
Winners: CM Punk & Kane (So generic it could have rolled off an assembly line. Crowd barely made a peep because no-one was buying two greasers as credible opponents.)
Shelton Benjamin wants to talk about gold. So he does. Shelton was better than Nyquil here.
John Morrison & The Miz vs. Shannon Moore & Jimmy Wang Yang
Styles brags about the ECW/Smackdown talent exchange when we get a tag team that the show advertised as ”Morrison & Miz in action next!” Miz & Moore start off with Miz taking arm drags and a swinging neckbreaker. Wang tags in and connects with a beautiful dropkick. Miz doesn’t like that so he tags in to Morrison who takes a standing moonsault for two. Moore tags in with a sunset flip and Wang works over him by throwing armdrags and shouting ”YEEEEHAHH!!” Moore & Wang keep Morrison isolated with quick tags until they get thrown to the outside and connect with stereo moonsaults as we go to break.
When we return, Morrison has Wang in a chinlock but realising he’s back on air powers him enough to backdrop out of it. Miz and Moore tag in and Shannon gets launched off the second rope as he tries a springboard. This results in him getting pounded away by Miz’s token offence as crowd chants ”MIZ SUCKS.” This lasts a long time until Moore lands on his feet after a backdrop suplex and tags in Wang who destroys Morrison with a monkey flip which shakes up the crowd.
Moore and Wang go to fly outside but Morrison grabs Wang and nearly gets the win after a dirty pin. Ref gets distracted as Miz bops Wang and Morrison finishes with the Corkscrew Neckbreaker.
Winners: John Morrison & The Miz (Some slight bits of sloppiness from Moore couldn’t bring this down, the M & M formula continues to produce exciting, action-filled long tag matches even from thrown-together tag teams like this. Crowd made more noise for Wang Yang than for CM Punk or Kane.)
”THIS IS JAMAICA, THIS IS MY HOME!” Kofi’s debut promo on a beach, saving a dude getting harassed on the beach like Charles Atlas. No wait, Atlas was selling ways to bulk up so you could fuck with guys like that, so actually Kingston isn’t helping things as that nerd will remain nerd-y and expect Kofi to show up and save him when he’s in trouble. Er I mean SOMETIMES DERS TROUBLE IN PARADISE.
Kelly Kelly vs. Layla & Victoria
Oh fuck, quick someone get Kofi to save us nerds from this. Victoria tries to grab Kelly but she mashes the pad and escapes while I rev up the GIF machine. Victoria & Layla (two of the longest-serving female wrestlers in WWE with ten years each) work over Kelly who takes a clothesline worse than a IWA-MS trainee.
Layla & Vic do a nice-double wheelbarrow suplex into a leg-drop combo to show that THEY can wrestle and Kelly makes her comeback with all the fineness of Bambi on ice. Kelly gets kicked in the head and the match ends with a fizzle.
Winners: Layla & Victoria (Kelly’s matches continue to amaze as she’s so limited and inexperienced yet someone must be watching backstage applauding like Charles Foster Kane, as she’s wrestling every week now.)
Kelly gets attacked post-match so Michelle McCool makes the save immediately after the win. No wonder Manami Toyota retired.
Raw Rebound: It was the 15th Anniversary! I remember this being a daft, fun show. Hogan returned to WWE as he needed the money after his divorce, RVD returned to beat Santino, Holly & Cody won the tag titles and Steph snogged Triple H.
Big Daddy V, Mark Henry and Matt Striker threaten Kane & CM Punk. This was very 80s and it worked, Striker even threw in a Bible quote because he’s smart and wants you to know.
Batista vs. Elijah Burke
Burke lets us know he showed up on Smackdown and did stuff. We don’t get any hype videos so I assume what he did was too extreme EVEN FOR ECW. Maybe it’ll get released on home video along with THE NIGHT KIMONA WANALAYA STRIPPED and THE BATTLE OF THE BAMM BAMMS and HEY MAAAAN NIICCEEE SHOOOT.
Styles & Tazz keep on saying it’s Batista’s first time in ECW as they try to forget the last time.
Styles & Tazz are so into this they start talking about Led Zeppelin re-uniting. Burke gets a quick shot in so Dave chases him around the ring. Burke throws him into the ring-post to get the advantage and use the ropes to stomp him. Short DDT gets two and we get a cobra clutch chinlock. Burke lands a STO for two as he’s getting a lot more offence than logic dictates. Maybe they’re waiting for the crowd to cheer for Batista, in which case good luck, Hurricane Irma couldn’t move this audience. Dave has enough and gives Burke a spinebuster. Burke sets up the Elijah Express and we get an ugly-arse collision.
Batista quickly bombs him for the pin and clutches his head afterwards.
Winner: Batista (Nice of WWE to upload house show matches onto the Network.)
Overall: Smackdown’s talent exchange continues to siphon off what little excuse there was to watch this show every week. They’ve replaced the mid-card feuds with jobbers who are to be treated seriously and a random appearance from Batista. Yeah OK great, so? Miz & Morrison are already the highlight of the show and they’ve only been teaming for a month, watch their match and move on.
I’ve been Maffew and here’s the latest Botchamania (nothing new this week, waiting on super-secret footage from some guy.)