SmackDown was a pretty entertaining show on Friday night that did what it had to do to lead to its two matches on Sunday’s Backlash PPV from Atlanta. The main event was a tag-team no-DQ match with Undertaker and Batista teaming, and actually playing nice, against Kennedy and Finley. It was a pretty nice long match (not quite Cena vs Michales), but long and effective enough, and in the end, Batista got the pin with a spinebuster on Finley. It came of course after Taker had cleaned house and chokeslammed them both, then Batista snuck in for the pin.
Both men then ran some smack to lead to Sunday’s “Last Man Standing” match, which was well done as well. I always say that them allowing Taker to talk just a bit is a really effective way to get him over, and that is what they did here. I think their match on Sunday could be really good, it just depends if they can get up for it like they did at Mania. The other Backlash match that was previewed was Chris Benoit vs MVP, which was again a good match, but a lame ending as MVP took the countout as he played it like why bother since he has a title match on Sunday. I think it is safe the way they are building MVP that he gets the win on Sunday for the title.
The rest of the show was pretty good, with a decent singles match with Brian Kendrick and Deuce, which was won after a little outside interference from Domino and Cherry. JBL predicts a long title run for the Deuce and Domino team, but for some reason, I think they trade back and forth with London and Kendrick a few times. They had a ugly womens match with Jillian Hall and Michelle McCool, which Jilliam won after a facebuster. The most interesting match of the night was the opener, which saw Kane and Boogeyman team up against Regal and Taylor. Maybe this can actually be a team (Kane and Boogeyman) that can do something, as they seemed to get along well, and it was a fun match to watch.
So this was a decent show that did keep my interest for two hours. Now we have wrapped up the 5 hours of TV for the week, and all we can do is sit and wait for Backlash tomorrow night.
