"WWE Friday Night SmackDown!" Talkback (Spoilers)

[The Penguin]

http://www.wwe.com/content/media/touts/feature/29062/3907528Beat the Clock Sprint
January 5, 2007

Chasing time

SmackDown's 2007 campaign will open with a bang. Per SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long, Friday will witness the first-ever SmackDown Beat the Clock Sprint. The Superstar who wins his match in the shortest amount of time will earn the opportunity to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship at the Royal Rumble.

Some of the names rumored to be included in the random drawing for the right to participate are former World Heavyweight Champion King Booker, Kane, Chris Benoit and the cocky Mr. Kennedy.

Who else will be involved in the Beat the Clock Sprint? Who will win the right to fight for sports-entertainment's richest prize?

MVP speaks

For the first time since his flesh was roasted and burnt to a crisp at Armageddon, Montel Vontavious Porter will appear on SmackDown. What will the arrogant Superstar have to say after his extended absence. What condition will the former highly touted free-agent be in?

Tune in on Friday to the 2007 premiere of Friday Night SmackDown for the answers to all these questions and more.

[New Noise]

MVP was pretty good on the mic, tonight. Seems like he's improving.

[VCXZX]

Maryse, ooh la, la! http://209.85.62.23/html/emoticons/smile.gif http://209.85.62.23/html/emoticons/smile.gif

The Batista history lesson was a bit boring. They skipped over Deacon batista. That was the true beginning of the animal. But since the Dudleys must fall under the "never existed because of TNA" category, we'll never see Deacon Batista again.

So Jillian Hall turned heel out of nowhere. Not a good turn.

Overall, I liked the wrestling approach to the show. But Impact was better because it had more great and funny moments like Joe/Angle and the many Borash segments. Thus making it the show of the week.

[Djm912]

Aside from being a Jillian Hall fan and having to witness the Playboy girl beat her, I enjoyed this episode of Smackdown. Not as much as Impact, but Smackdown is a good 2-hour Wrestling Show, and has been for a while. Can't ask for much more than that.

[New Noise]

Once again, SmackDown! > RAW. I think it's pretty much official, now. RAW is currently the weakest brand (wrestling-wise) of the three shows.

This was, in particular, a great show. It was very enjoyable. I didn't realize how nasty MVP's burn was. At first, I thought it was fake, but obviously, it wasn't.

Does any one else believe that it will be The Undertaker / Mr. Kennedy in the finals of the "Beat-the-Clock"?

[Tapout]

The Batista history lesson was a bit boring. They skipped over Deacon batista. That was the true beginning of the animal. But since the Dudleys must fall under the "never existed because of TNA" category, we'll never see Deacon Batista again.I think that one's more of a "Deacon Batista was such a dumb idea we're going to pretend it never happened" thing than anything to do with Devon being gone.

[SirLemming]

This was, in particular, a great show. It was very enjoyable. I didn't realize how nasty MVP's burn was. At first, I thought it was fake, but obviously, it wasn't.

Why "obviously"? I'm still under the impression that it's makeup. This isn't exactly the first time they've done this kind of thing, so I'd be pretty shocked if he got significantly hurt. It seemed to go according to plan: he rolled under the ring suspiciously close to the end of the match, Kane dragged him out and held him in the fire, one portion of his costume burst into flames, and he was promptly extinguished.

[hobbyfan]

Makeup dept. has to be commended for the work they did on Montel Porter. The "burns" look real, but they're not. He'll have it covered next week when he competes in the Beat-the-Clock sprint.

-1000 credits to Coleslaw for ignoring the fact that this gimmick's been used on Raw prior to the last 2 New Year's Revolution PPVs, which had Elimination Chamber matches.

Not a good night for cruiserweights or reigning champs. Helms & Benoit both lost. BTW, it's the man with the fastest time who advances to the Rumble vs. Batista. It may end up being Finlay, so that UT & Kennedy can finish their program.

Kennedy-Benoit made me think maybe KK can be given another crack at the US title, since it appears Chavo is done chasing the title. Stress appears.

Memo to Vicki. Jenny Craig is calling. So's the police. Lose the neck brace before you get busted for fraud.;)

[Marvin Tikvah]

In contrast to last Monday's awful Raw, SmackDown was excellent again this week. Lots of wrestling tonight rather than backstage segments.

Unfortunate that the good King's chance to regain his title has been crushed by Kennedy beating his time. I don't want to see him back in the U.S. title division. He deserves to carry the show again.

I loved how London/Kendrick ended in a stalemate. The handshake and hug after the match also shows that their break-up won't happen anytime soon (thankfully).

So any guesses as to who the extra 2 contestants next week will be? Long did say there would be 16 contestants and tonight we only had 10, and next week he only named 4. Hopefully Regal or Taylor are put into a match. I wouldn't want to see them disappear after their loss at Armageddon.

[Condiment King]

I was fine with Teddy Long proclaiming the project at the start of the show, but did we really need Batista to come out and say nothing? I guess he did need to get on the show somehow, but still. Also, the Batista history thing was kind of unnecessary. I was surprised how far they went back though. I figured they wouldn't even go back to Evolution.

The "Beat the Clock" challenge was an interesting premise, but somewhat boring as many wrestlers struggled with timing their matches to an exact science. It did put an added emphasis on wrestling though, which is very welcome. In this instance, Smackdown was leagues, leagues above RAW and ECW this week in quality.

Kane and Chavo Guerrero was alright, as to be expected. I didn't really get the finish since it looked like Chavo hit the frogsplash (or most of it) and then Kane grabbed his throat and chokeslammed him.

Paul London and Brian Kendrick kind of infuriated me. First of all, they are telling us its a random drawing and then they throw out this pairing that screams that it isn't. I shrugged that off though because I expected a good match from these two. Then, these guys put on a match that is just completely and utterly illogical for what they are trying to do. I saw more headlocks in a match without Randy Orton here than I've seen in quite a while. Just absolutely nothing happened. A test of strength with 2 and a half minutes left on the clock, are you kidding me?! None of the pins had any offense behind them so of course none of them scored a pinfall. I might be nitpicking on these guys, but I thought this was a deeply disappointing match.

I'm just going to assume that there are more heels than faces in this tournament; otherwise, a matchup like King Booker vs Gregory Helms is just bad booking. As Michael Cole put it, many Smackdown fans probably rooted for neither of them. This would illustrate the randomness of it, if not for London vs Kendrick earlier. It was also pretty awkward that on top of this, the heel Gregory Helms played more or less the face. Gregory not only lost in his attempt to go up to the heavyweights but was also humiliated by the Boogeyman. Not a good outing for "Smackdown's best kept secret".

JBL cuts nice promos and he's doing his darnedest to get MVP over. I hope he appreciates it. I wonder how MVP will sell the injury next week.

Ashley over Jillian Hall. Bleh.

Tatanka vs Jimmy Wang Yang wasn't very good once again because the pacing was off. That and Tatanka isn't good. However, I liked the finish. Yang hitting a good moonsault and then missing the time. That was as well timed as you can expect. Tatanka attacking Yang afterwards put Yang over well.

Nice, nice final match between Ken Kennedy and Chris Benoit with Kennedy surprisingly beating the clock. I really, really hope Ken Kennedy goes on to the Rumble because that would be a great opportunity for him. I'm assuming a heel will win as well and with the Undertaker slated next week, its very likely that Kennedy could screw him. I'm not thinking a face is going to win this.

[SirLemming]

JBL cuts nice promos and he's doing his darnedest to get MVP over. I hope he appreciates it. I wonder how MVP will sell the injury next week.

Indeed, and I also really liked his commentary during Booker T's match. The way he talked about Booker being used to wearing his opponents down over the course of a match (giving him a disadvantage in this competition) really increased my interest in the match.


One thing I didn't like was that they stopped London & Kendrick's match as soon as they didn't beat the clock. It should've kept going, even if it was just a quick thing like one guy looking at the clock and the other guy rolling him up. That's how they did it last time; and as my dad pointed out, what if, due to some unforeseen circumstances, they had to reconsider who had the best time? It'd be good to have times for all the matches in the competition. The way they did it makes it seem more booked.

[PTurkey]

Paul London and Brian Kendrick kind of infuriated me. First of all, they are telling us its a random drawing and then they throw out this pairing that screams that it isn't. I shrugged that off though because I expected a good match from these two. Then, these guys put on a match that is just completely and utterly illogical for what they are trying to do. I saw more headlocks in a match without Randy Orton here than I've seen in quite a while. Just absolutely nothing happened. A test of strength with 2 and a half minutes left on the clock, are you kidding me?! None of the pins had any offense behind them so of course none of them scored a pinfall. I might be nitpicking on these guys, but I thought this was a deeply disappointing match.

I thought this match made complete sense. They're co-Tag Team Champions and buddies. They're not going to try to hurt and possibly injure each other with a strike-based or aerial-based offense. Say London goes for a Shooting Star Press and he Kidmanizes it, their title reign'll get cut short and the team'll definately split, which wouldn't be good. The best way to avoid that would be to have a long series of pinning combinations and hope that the other gets tired enough for a three count.