WWE Friday Night SmackDown! 5/25/12

WWE Friday Night SmackDown
May 25th, 2012
Mohegan Sun Arena, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Attendance: Unknown at this time

Welcome back everyone to another edition of 411mania's Friday Night Smackdown coverage. I'll be your guide to the world of the blue brand as usual as we're less than a week removed from the Over the Limit PPV which saw Sheamus retain his World Heavyweight title in a four-way match among others. The build to the next PPV, No Way Out, should begin for the brand tonight so let's see what's in store for us.


Your hosts are Michael Cole, Booker T, and Josh Matthews


We open the show tonight with the assistant GM Eve coming out to gloat a bit about John Laurinaitis' victory over John Cena at Over the Limit, despite the fact that Johnny isn't here tonight (again), so Eve is in charge. She promises that tonight Sheamus will apologize for tackling Ace on RAW this week, and that we'll also decide who the new number one contender is. Alberto Del Rio promptly comes out as soon as she says this to suck up and try to get the title shot. Since this is the opening segment of Smackdown and that means we need atleast 3-4 interruptions, out comes Randy Orton to try and lay claim to the shot. And now here comes Kane, who---yep, you guessed it, wants the title shot for himself, but atleast he's got a clever reason---tonight is the 666th episode of Smackdown. Eve decides to just book them all into a triple threat match for our main event tonight, with the winner becoming number one contender.


Christian (17-13-1) vs. Hunico (7-5)
This is apparently Christian's first Smackdown match in 8 months, though that seems a bit long. Non-title too. Christian quickly sends Hunico to the floor with a back body drop but misses the baseball slide dropkick to follow up. He takes his eye off Hunico for a second to keep his eye on Camacho when Hunico sends him into the steel post, returns to the ring, and then wipes him out with a nice tope. Hunico misses a springboard senton but manages to catch Christian off the second rope into a jackknife cover. Flying elbow from the second rope by Christian and he sets up for the Killswitch, but Camacho distracts him briefly. Christian shrugs it off and gives Hunico the Killswitch anyways though and then finishes him with the frog splash at 3:04. Just a quick TV return match for Christian here, but both guys looked good in the short time they got. Still not sure how I feel about Christian being knocked back to the midcard, but he could bring some respect back to the IC title I suppose. **


After the match Cody Rhodes comes out with a mic to brag about how epic his IC title run was, comparing himself to Razor Ramon, Randy Savage, and Shawn Michaels. Cody claims no one cares about Christian and that when he gets his contractual rematch, it's only going to take him 3 seconds to win the title back. Give those two atleast ten minutes and I'm confident they could have a darn good match.


Titus O'Neill/Darren Young vs. The Uso's (Jimmy Uso/Jey Uso)
We see a backstage confrontation between the two teams from before the show went on the air tonight as Titus and Jimmy start us off while Michael Cole refers to O'Neill and Young as the future of the WWE tag team division. Shudder. The Uso's trade quick tags and try isolating Titus in their corner but he breaks free and tags Young in, suplexing his own partner onto Jey. The heels trade quick tags in their corner now until Jey fires off an elbow and tags Jimmy back in. Jimmy hits the running ass slam on Young in the corner but Titus breaks it up. Huge superkick on Young from Jimmy, but Titus distracts him when he goes for the Superfly splash and the heels finish Jimmy off with the double team elbow drop at 3:12. Nice to see them give O'Neill and Young another win after they got squashed by the champs last week, but frankly I don't think I'm alone in thinking I'd rather see the Uso's getting the push. *1/2


Advertisement for Sin Cara to return on next week's show. Finally.


Ryback (6-0) vs. Brian Edwards/Kevin Bendl
Back to squashing no-name jobbers for Ryback. Bendl looks alot like former ROH tag champ Ricky Reyes. Ryback seems to have a black eye and a busted eye vessel for some reason. Typical Ryback squash, a few power moves and then he finishes both guys off by giving them both the marching Samoan drop SIMULTANEOUSLY for the win at 1:29. Starting to tire of these Ryback squashes, but man that finish was awesome. 3/4*


Santino Marella (7-5) vs. Ricardo Rodriguez (0-0)
I can't help but notice how much more over Ricardo is then Del Rio. This match came out of an announcing dispute on RAW, if you missed it. Nice leap-frog from Ricardo in the tux to start and they go into a rope-running sequence, but Santino just stops and let Ricardo tire himself out. Airplane spin from Santino but he trips and falls out of the ring himself. He tries hiding under the ring apron and then pops back into the ring behind Ricardo to nail him with The Cobra for the win at 1:52. A comedy match that was actually funny, that's a rarity these days. I really have no idea why they put the US title on Santino though if they're just going to continue to use him as a comedy act. *


Sheamus comes out next for his apology to John Laurinaitis. Sheamus claims it was an accident though and can't quite get the apology out. Finally he apologizes...for John Laurinaitis being a massive arse. He apologizes for Eve, Otunga, and Big Show all being his personal ass kissers as well. Sheamus moves onto No Way Out, saying if it were up to him he'd be facing Randy Orton. Vickie Guerrero comes out to interrupt though and informs Sheamus that Eve just booked him into a match right now, against Jack Swagger.


Sheamus (33-16-1) vs. Jack Swagger (9-12)
Intense lock-up to start before Swagger takes the champ down with a waistlock takedown. Sheamus elbows out of it and hits a flying shoulder-block off the top. The action spills to the floor briefly and Vickie distracts Sheamus long enough on his way back into the ring for Swagger to tackle his knee, sending him flying to the floor as we take a commercial break. When we return Swagger has begun working over the same knee, wrapping it around the steel post and working an old school stepover toe hold. Sheamus manages to break up the limb work with a neckbreaker out of the corner. Sheamus gives him the hammer-fists on the apron and suplexes him back in for a two count. Sheamus blocks the ankle lock and then goes for the Brogue Kick, but misses and Swagger takes his knee out again with a chop block. He follows with a Swagger bomb in the corner but Sheamus kicks out. Sheamus flips out of the Gut Wrench powerbomb attempt and hits the Brogue Kick out of nowhere for the win at 7:04 (shown). Pretty solid little match here, but man that finish makes no sense. Swagger spends the entire match working over the knee only for Sheamus to totally no sell it in the finish with the Brogue Kick. Would have been better had Sheamus remembered to sell in the last two minutes. **1/4


Damien Sandow (0-0) vs. Yoshi Tatsu (0-4)
Sandow cuts his usual pre-match promo about how we're all not worthy, especially Yoshi. He freaks out at the bell when Yoshi tries to attack him while he's in the ropes, demanding the ref do his job. Sandow delivers a series of knees and a Russian legsweep before quickly putting Yoshi away with his neckbreaker at 0:45 seconds. Just to add to his whole throwback heel shtick, Sandow does a celebratory cartwheel after the match. I love this freaking guy, his promo work is great, he's solid in the ring, and how can you not love the Rick Martel-esque tights? Squash city for Yoshi though. 1/2*


Big Show, in work clothes with a tie, comes out next. Show sits down in the middle of the ring for a lengthy promo to explain again why he did what he did. Long story short, Big Show lives for wrestling and is apparently incapable of doing anything else, and when no one came to his defense, he had no choice but to help Johnny. This promo just drags on and on and on until finally Show takes off as Kane makes his way out to the ring for our main event.


Before the main event can actually start though, Daniel Bryan jumps Kane from behind in the dark with a steel chair and waffles the everloving hell out of him while the crowd chants "YES! YES! YES!" in appreciation. Well that was...random.


World Heavyweight Title Number One Contender's Match
Alberto Del Rio (11-10) vs. Kane (18-13) vs. Randy Orton (31-11-1)
Orton sends Del Rio out of the ring quickly but turns around into a big boot and dropkick from Kane. Del Rio returns to the ring only to be clotheslined out by Orton, who is then clotheslined out by Kane. Orton drags Kane back to the apron and tries for the second rope DDT, but Del Rio hits a spin kick to Orton to break it up as we take our last commercial break. When we return Kane is back in control. Orton dropkicks Del Rio out of the ring but walks right into a sideslam from the Big Red Machine. Kane heads to the top rope but Del Rio hits his step-up enziguri, sending him crashing out to the floor. Kane quickly returns to the ring and Orton hands out powerslams to both him and Alberto. Second-rope DDT on Del Rio from Orton out of the corner and he sets up for the RKO, but Del Rio blocks it and Kane sends Orton crashing into the steel steps outside the ring. Kane blocks the cross armbar attempt from Del Rio and hits him with the chokeslam, but Daniel Bryan runs back down to the apron to distract him and Kane takes off to chase him. He returns to the ring and walks right into the RKO from Orton, but before Orton can cover him Del Rio kicks Orton right in the head and steals the pin and the title shot at 7:20 (shown). Meh, this was decent enough but there was just zero flow whatsoever here, this just felt like a few spots strung together in the loosest of ways. Just chaos, and not the good kind. **


Del Rio celebrates on the ramp after the match when Sheamus comes out to jump him from behind as we go off the air.

Bottom Line: Okay show this week, Swagger/Sheamus was pretty solid apart from some shoddy selling but really there wasn't much else to see here. Big Show cuts basically the same promo from RAW, and Del Rio once again is the number one contender, even though people just flat out don't want to see him in that position right now, atleast not against Sheamus. Really just not much to say here tonight, run-of-the-mill show and for Smackdown that just isn't very exciting these days. Not a bad show by any means, just a boring one, so a very minor Thumbs Down tonight, though not by much.


Score: 5.0/10