Original Airdate: Friday, July 21st, 2006
American Bank Center
Corpus Christie, Texas
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Teddy Long is in the ring to let us know that Mark Henry is hurt and has had knee surgery. As a result, he's about to name Batista the #1 contender, but is interrupted by Mr. Kennedy. He challenges Batista to a match at Great American Bash. I guess that's one positive of waiting until the week before to make matches. Out comes Batista and his attire is definitely a choice. Batista says to make the match because he has 6 months worth of anger and no one to take it out on. Kennedy asks for a handshake, but lifts his hand up like he's in 3rd grade.
Brian Kendrick vs. Kid Kash
Kash works on the leg of Kendrick ahead of their championship match at Great American Bash. JBL actually is a good announcer during this era. He does a really nice job of making both teams feel important. As I typed that, he goes on to call the APA the greatest tag team ever. Kendrick makes a comeback until Noble gets on the apron. He avoids a charging Kash and almost gets a win with a roll up. London comes in to help, but it distracts the ref and Noble catches Kash on the Sliced Bread #2 attempt. This allows Kash to hit the brainbuster and pick up the victory. That was a good finish to a solid match.
Match Rating: **1/2
Teddy is with Chavo Guerrero and talking about retirement. In comes King Booker and Queen Sharmell. He wants Mysterio in a match, but Teddy says he gets him Sunday. Booker wants him tonight to show him respect tonight. Chavo says that he's sick of Mysterio not getting respect. He gives him his match tonight for some reason.
After the commercial, Teddy is with Chavo and Mysterio. Chavo tries to talk him out of his match, but Rey accepts the challenge.
Michelle McCool & Kristal vs. Ashley & Jillian Hall
These are four women that never really did much for me as wrestlers or characters. This is all just a set up for the Bra & Panties match on Sunday, with Jillian ripping off Kristal's shirt, her getting embarrassed and Ashley pinning her.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Great Khali and Daivari are in the ring to talk about the Punjabi Prison Match that he won't be wrestling in. They show a highlight package and that's it.
Lashley is with Miz for an interview. They show highlights of Finlay beating him for the United States Championship and Lashley says that Finlay isn't the only one who loves to fight.
United States Championship Match
Finlay vs. Bobby Lashley
After some stalling to start, Finlay fakes an injury to get an advantage early on. Finlay uses his physical offense to slow things down. Even though he never got super over with the fans, he really was a breath of fresh air to the roster. As you would expect, Finlay dominates and slows it down. If you didn't know Finlay was unorthodox before this match, please allow Michael Cole to inform you of that about 30 times in this match. Finlay worked on the injured knee for a couple of minutes, but Lashley seems to forget about it right at the start of his comeback. William Regal is out and it allows for Hornswoggle to interfere. Finlay goes back to the injured knee. Lashley again makes a comeback and doesn't sell the knee. He does the delayed vertical suplex with ease and sets up for the Spear. Regal grabs him by the leg and starts beating on him while the ref is distracted by Finlay. Finlay takes off a turnbuckle pad, but the ref catches him. Finlay gets a chair while the referee puts it back on, but Lashley kicks it back in his face. Regal comes in and attacks Lashley with another chair and the bell rings. Hornswoggle comes in from behind and gives him a low blow. Lashley picks up the victory, but gets destroyed as a result. The match was pretty good, but again this whole feud is derailed by Lashley missing some time.
Match Rating: **1/2
Miz is out for the Diva Search. It's a Diva Dance Contest and it's pretty obvious that Layla is the star here. Erica is embarrassingly bad. Maryse isn't much better. Somehow Milena wins with the crowd and I can't believe I've had to watch this twice in my life now.
Matt Hardy, Funaki and Tatanka are hanging out as one would expect and Sylvan comes in to talk about Quebec.
Gregory Helms joins the announce team for the next match.
Super Crazy vs. Psicosis
Psicosis has new music for his heel turn. Helms announces that he has agreed to a match at the Great American Bash, but he doesn't know who his opponent is. I'm not really sure I understood them breaking these guys up because no one cares about it and they were a good tag team. Super Crazy explodes for a springboard dropkick and then a moonsault to the outside. Psicosis hits a spin kick for a 2 count and then a face-first suplex. Super Crazy hits a springboard arm drag into a pinfall and picks up the victory kind of out of nowhere. The psychology of this match didn't really make much sense and then they just hit a few nice moves to end it. Like I said, I just don't understand what the point of this was.
Match Rating: *1/4
More videos of Vito shopping for dresses and getting made fun of.
They run down the card for Great American Bash, which feels semi-thrown together.
King Booker vs. Rey Mysterio
Again, I can't find the logic of having the main event of your show in 2 days facing each other on free TV. Rey tries to leap over Booker in the corner, but he gets caught and thrown like a lawn dart. Booker hits a suplex after bouncing him off the top rope and then slows things down. Mysterio makes his comeback and JBL compares him to herpes. Mysterio then cheats and hits a baseball slide to the crotch of Booker behind the referee's back. Rey sets up Booker for the 619, but Sharmell trips him up. You can't really argue with that. Booker goes for the Scissors Kick, but Chavo trips him up. Rey hits the 619 and springboard leg drop for the victory. I thought for sure that they were just going to have Regal and Finlay attack Rey here, so I guess this is a little bit surprising. The match was good for the time allotted, but it still just makes no sense.
Match Rating: **3/4
This was an entertaining in ring show this week, but with all of the other pay-per-views, ECW, Raw and Saturday Night's Main Event, this just feels like an afterthought. However, SmackDown does still tend to be the best weekly show and this week it was by quite a bit.
Overall Rating: 58%
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