Wednesday, June 19, 2024

SmackDown 5-4-07 Review

Original Airdate: Friday, May 4th, 2007
BJCC Arena
Birmingham, Alabama

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Boogeyman vs. William Regal

As this match stumbles on, all I can think about is how much longer of Boogeyman do I have left? Regal hits him with a boot to the face and then throws him into the ring post. Boogeyman makes a comeback and hits his finisher, but Dave Taylor comes in and breaks up the pin. That's against the rules. They beat up little Boogeyman, so Kane comes out because he's a moron and chases them out of the ring. Why was any of this booked for television?

Match Rating: 1/4*

After a recap of the bad ECW Championship match, Teddy Long is backstage with Dusty Rhodes. He asks if he'll be his assistant, but Dusty thought he'd be offering him his GM. MVP walks in and Long thinks he's there to apply to be his assistant. MVP says that he has assistants who have assistants. MVP says that if he doesn't get a rematch for the US Championship, he's going to sit out the rest of his contract and collect his paycheck. Teddy says that he'll get one if he wins his match tonight against Kane. MVP isn't happy, but walks out of the room and Sgt. Slaughter, Brooklyn Brawler and Miz are waiting outside his office. Miz jokes that MVP must not have gotten the job. 

Brian Kendrick vs. Domino

Kendrick clotheslines Domino over the top and hits the dive through the ropes. Back in the ring, Domino hits a leaping reverse elbow drop. He goes up to the top rope, but Kendrick gets his boot up. He then avoids a splash in the corner. Deuce gets up on the apron, but London gets up there. He knees London in the injured ribs and knocks him off the apron. Kendrick uses Deuce for the Sliced Bread #2 and picks up the victory. This was a pretty standard match with Kendrick trying his best here. 

Match Rating: *

Mr. Kennedy vs. Matt Hardy

SmackDown typically likes to put a competitive, longer match in the middle of the show, so my guess is that this is it. We get a pretty 50/50 start that leads to Mr. Kennedy being dumped out of the ring for the expected commercial break. When we come back, Kennedy finds his opening as Michael Cole loves to say. Now JBL is telling us that SmackDown is the "premiere jewel" of the CW Network. Can you name one other show that was ever on CW Network? I'm not sure that's much of a compliment. The action spills outside and Kennedy is able to kick Hardy into the steel steps. That was well executed, as they got about as loud of a sound out of the steps as you could possibly get. The action picks up a little bit, with Kennedy hitting a rolling senton and Hardy kicking out at 2. Kennedy goes for the Kenton Bomb, but Hardy gets his knees up and Kennedy kicks out at 2. Hardy goes for the Twist Of Fate, but Kennedy pushes him out of the way. They battle back again and Hardy hits the Twist Of Fate and picks up the semi-surprising victory. They love having the Money In The Bank winner lose matches. This was a solid match, just nowhere near as good as JBL was trying to tell us it was. 

Match Rating: **3/4

They show highlights of the Batista/Undertaker match at Backlash. Teddy Long then announces that next week we will get a decisive rematch in a steel cage. 

Maryse welcomes us back to SmackDown. 

Jimmy Wang Yang vs. Gregory Helms

Hey, it's two guys they no longer care about. Neither guy is really doing anything here to change that either. Yang blocks a superplex and hits a moonsault for the victory. Extremely disappointing match from two guys that are capable of much better here. However, I can't really blame them for doing nothing since the company clearly doesn't care that they are on the roster. 

Match Rating: 1/2*

Batista is out with some bandages on his head. Batista wonders if the World Heavyweight Championship is worth all this destruction. He then says he should have stepped out his body and beat himself up for thinking of such a stupid question because of course it's worth it. That one probably sounded better in his head. 

Mark Henry is coming back to unintentionally hurt more people. 

Finlay vs. Miz

It doesn't take long for Hornswoggle to come out and he pokes Miz in the eyes. Back in the ring, Finlay takes off the top turnbuckle pad. This distracts the referee and Hornswoggle is thrown into Miz in the corner. Miz gets an opening and hits his signature clothesline in the corner. He goes under the ring to look for Hornswoggle, but he sneak attacks him from behind and hits him with the shillelagh. That leads to Miz chasing him and getting hit with a Finlay clothesline. Finlay goes off the second rope, but runs into a boot from the Miz. Miz gets tripped up from behind and dragged under the ring by Hornswoggle. Finlay rolls in the ring and wins by countout. They did their best to try to make Miz look legit here and it semi-worked. The match was fine.

Match Rating: *

Undertaker says that next week, Batista is stepping into the devil's playground and he will rest in peace. 

They show still photos of Vince McMahon vs. Bobby Lashley and hype up the Rob Van Dam vs. Vince match.

MVP vs. Kane

Every time I have to watch Kane wrestle, I question my sanity. Just watching him here makes me wonder how he lasted another decade. He gets gassed within the first 45 seconds of the match. He ducks his head about 30 seconds early like an idiot and then sits there waiting to be kicked. He has a stupid gimmick, so he gets to pretend like nothing hurts him and throws MVP out of the ring into the commercial break. Here's hoping we just see the end of the match when we come back. MVP gets in his 45 seconds of offense and Kane makes his comeback. Kane hits a side suplex just like another crappy wrestler, Dino Bravo and gets a 2 count. Out come William Regal and Dave Taylor for the distraction. Regal sneaks in some brass knuckles and hits Kane with him. MVP hits the Playmaker and picks up the victory. This stunk as you would expect, but at least Kane lost. 

Match Rating: 1/2*

The Hardy/Kennedy match was good, but hardly enough to save the show or anything like that. No Kane match ever needs to be over 10 minutes long and absolutely no one cared about it. The other matches were a whole lot of nothing as well. This was a complete throwaway show. 

Overall Rating: 41%

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