"WWE SmackDown!" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Kippy]

SmackDown! just ended a few minutes ago. Did The Undertaker accept Randy Orton's challenge for a match at WrestleMania? Are there new WWE Tag Team Champions? Does the Cruiserweight Championship still count as a title?

CABINET CRUISING
MARCH 10, 2005

WrestleMania 21 is less than a month away as SmackDown! comes to Roanoke, Virginia.

And after RAW's Randy Orton, a.k.a "The Legend Killer," issued his personal challenge to face Undertaker on WWE's grandest stage, will the Dead Man have an answer? Of course, at 12-0, Undertaker has never lost at WrestleMania.

Orton's challenge: WATCH: 56k | 300k

Meanwhile, now that Orlando Jordan and JBL both have a championship, WWE has announced that JBL & Jordan will take on WWE Tag Team Champions Rey Mysterio & Eddie Guerrero this week.

A victory by JBL and his Chief of Staff would put the Cabinet in possession of all the major SmackDown! gold.

Also, Kurt Angle made a video appearance this past Monday on RAW and announced he would accomplish everything HBK has done in his career in a mere four weeks. So what does the Olympic Champ have in store for this week?

Plus, now that he has lost his United States Championship, how will John Cena respond?

And Booker T faces Heidenreich and Mark Jindrak and Luther Reigns try and settle their differences in one-on-one action.

And what will GM Teddy Long have in store for Carlito this week? Last week he got stuck shoveling snow in the Pepsi Arena parking lot.

Don’t miss SmackDown! on UPN (8/7 CT).

[VCXZX]

Another awesome promo by JBL. I'm starting to look forward to his promos every week.

Not much in terms of wrestling this week. Most of the matches were short, sans the main event.

John Cena cut a pretty awesome promo himself. This is how his promos should be, intense, and fiery, without pandering to vulgarities, and gay jokes. Interesting end to the segment as he F-U'd Theodore Long. Either this means Cena is going to have a Stone Cold type gimmick (anti-authority). Or, and this is the most likely one, have Theodore Long slowly turn heel. With Bischoff becoming more of a face, the WWE legally has to have an evil G.M. Perhaps Long could be Carlito's mentor in a tough luv type deal.

Once again, the Angle segment was the best one of the night. He had a very good promo in which he challenged Marty Friggin Jannetty (!!) for next week. That could be a greate expeirence for all the viewers. Angle/Michaels continues to smoke all the other angles for Mania.

Main event was alright. It should be itneresting to see if Cena gets punished for violating G.M. Long for his after main-event actions.

I have to say, despite the lack of wrestling, Smackdown was pretty solid.

[The Dork Knight]

I can't believe that Marty is coming back. I'd love to see him come out to his old Rocker's theme song.

TDK

[Tapout]

I haven't seen Marty Jannetty since he was in WCW before it died. Thanks to Survivor being on Wednesday next week I'm going to record Smackdown just because I wanna see this. The whole Angle doing everything Shawn's done gimmick kinda stinks however. The "ladder match" last night was a total joke and I hope it'll take some effort next week. But if it gets Bret Hart back on WWE TV (ha ha ha) I think I can tolerate Angle squashing a few more "hometown heroes" over the next couple weeks.

[hobbyfan]

I haven't seen Marty Jannetty since he was in WCW before it died. Thanks to Survivor being on Wednesday next week I'm going to record Smackdown just because I wanna see this. The whole Angle doing everything Shawn's done gimmick kinda stinks however. The "ladder match" last night was a total joke and I hope it'll take some effort next week. But if it gets Bret Hart back on WWE TV (ha ha ha) I think I can tolerate Angle squashing a few more "hometown heroes" over the next couple weeks.

I'm actually tired of that gimmick. It cheapens Angle's overall character, IMPO. The "ladder match" was a farce, but they've already shot their wad having HBK appear on Smackdown. A better move would've been for Angle to cut his promo before there was any retaliation from HBK, and then, on the 3rd week, Shawn would make a surprise appearance.

Amazingly, this is an avenue where HBK protege Paul London could be plugged in, but they haven't thought of that yet, have they?

[Zero Signal]

I'm not a fan of JBL's ringwork, but he can cut some good promos. Awesome work to start the show (or maybe I liked it because about 90% of what he said was true). And I cannot even begin to express how happy I am that WWE finally got rid of that stupid, spinning belt. That was easily the best part of the show.

Everything else was just bleh. Four matches in two hours? Come on. Let's waste 20 minutes of screentime looking for the Undertaker, then have him walk for 5 minutes to the ring and give a 2 minute speech, only to take 5 more minutes for him to leave. Kill the bookers. Because, you know, God forbid we use that time for a cruiserweight match or anything (speaking of, WATCH VELOCITY this week).

[Kippy]

I thought this week's SmackDown! was really weak, especially when compared to RAW. I know it's tough to build up their WrestleMania feuds since outside of one they're all inter-promotional matches, but they should still be able to do better than this. Next week I expect to see at least one more match announced and a whole lot more wrestling.

Well I missed the first half hour of the show. It looks like I didn't miss anything. I know they had to get rid of it, but I liked Cena's spinner belt a lot better than the old United States Championship belt. Booker T versus Heidenreich again? Well at least Booker won and hopefully this mini-feud is over.

I tuned in just in time to see the match between Jindrak and Reigns. Jindrak's left hook is a horrible finisher. I wonder why he's not just using the Mark of Excellence. I still don't understand why they had these guys break up. Now the Bashams are the only heel tag team left on the roster.

I actually liked Cena's promo this week. I don't quite get what was the point of him giving Long the FU, but at least it made more sense than Orton giving Bischoff the RKO.

Angle's ladder match was pointless, but his promo was awesome. I know I say this every week, but I love this feud. His challenge to Jannetty really came out of left field. I'm not expecting anything more than a squash, but I'm still looking forward to seeing that match next week.

Well Undertaker accepted Orton's challenge. I wonder what they're going to do now to build this feud up.

The main event tag match was okay but not very interesting. I'm just glad that JBL and Jordan didn't win. There are now only three SmackDown!'s left before WrestleMania and Eddie and Mysterio still don't have a match scheduled. That's some excellent planning by the writers and bookers.

Because, you know, God forbid we use that time for a cruiserweight match or anything (speaking of, WATCH VELOCITY this week).

It's absolutely ridiculous that they aren't showing that match on SmackDown!