SmackDown Report – October 26, 2007 from Kansas City, Missouri (taped October 23)

SmackDown opens with the “VIP Lounge,” MVP’s SmackDown talk segment. Not wrestling, of course. He’s interviewing Matt Hardy, Finlay and Rey Mysterio, four men who are slated to be part of the main event later in the evening. The conversation, led by MVP’s blustering bragging, soon turns to insults and Mysterio hits Finlay with the microphone. A fight erupts with MVP and Hardy each taking bets. As expected, Mysterio walks away with Finlay lying on the outside floor.

Backstage interview with Batista. Recap of last week’s Batista/JBL interview where JBL calls Batista a coward and he gets speared. Batista tells us again that he’s not afraid of the Undertaker, that he’s never beaten him, “but there’s a first time for everything.” Hopefully Batista will never get injured because he can lend a spark of fireworks to anything that happens on this show.

Kane vs Mark Henry
A short match, and an unexpected one, since most of the SmackDown matches are between the same people over and over. Here, the two men end up blocking each other’s signature moves – several times – until Kane gets a chokeslam and actually pins Mark Henry.
Winner: Kane

JBL’s attempts to make himself the star of Cyber Sunday continue throughout the show. His campaign for the fans to vote for him is everywhere to be seen – a banner on the announcers’ table, buttons, and, we find out later, t-shirts. Mick Foley video. Plus the Diva Search recap from RAW before we move on to our next match.

MVP & Matt Hardy vs Finlay & Rey Mysterio
The two unlikely tag teams play off each other as MVP and Hardy, supposedly enemies, but slowly being thrust upon us as friends, actually work as a team and Finlay and Mysterio are at complete odds with each other. Besides the standard Mysterio high-flying move and Finlay brawling, we get Hardy and MVP actually doing a legitimate tag match until Hardy is bloodied by Mysterio’s reversal of a finishing move by Hardy. Hardy continues to fight though, and he almost pins Mysterio, but is clearly shown not covering Mysterio completely. Finlay takes over at the sight of Hardy’s injury and works on him, tagging Mysterio back in, but Mysterio doesn’t want any part of the “bad” image of attacking the injured Hardy’s face as Finlay had done. A dropkick by Mysterio puts Hardy on the ropes and MVP tags Hardy finding himself also put on the ropes by Mysterio. Mysterio gets the 619 on both, but the camera shows that only Hardy was hit, even though both men react. Mysterio goes for the frogsplash but meets Finlay’s shillelagh and MVP gets the Playmaker for the pin.
Winner: MVP & Matt Hardy

A fairly good segment of video footage summarizing the rivalry between Batista and the Undertaker. Then we go backstage with Jamie Noble and Vickie Guerrero in another interview that lands Noble in a lopsided match.

Batista vs Jamie Noble
The weekly squash of a cruiserweight by one of the bigger men on SmackDown. Noble, a talented wrestler, is being wasted.
Winner: Batista

John Morrison vs The Miz vs Big Daddy V – ECW Triple Threat Match
Big Daddy V wins with a pin on The Miz. Big Daddy V’s has a weight advantage – that’s it. The crowd isn’t interested at all.
Winner: Big Daddy V

Recap of the Umaga vs Triple H vendetta that will end on Cyber Sunday. We go right into the next tag match without the benefit of introductions, so the two jobbers remain unnamed as they take on Jesse & Festus.

Jesse & Festus vs Two Anonymous Jobbers
It’s the “Festus Gimmick” where he’s a stooge until the bell rings and somehow that changes his demeanor and he becomes a fighting machine. Astoundingly short match with Festus tossing Jesse on top of the downed jobber for the win. Bell rings and Festus morphs back into his “stooge” routine.
Winners: Jesse & Festus

An interminably long segment with JBL preparing for his interview with the Undertaker. The self-proclaimed “wrestling god” tries to convince the fans that his role as the referee at Cyber Sunday is the main attraction and hands out t-shirts, making demands that ringside staff wear them. He’s got one for the Undertaker, too, who comes out and chokeslams him, ending his appearance. Batista appears, spears the Undertaker and heads out to wild applause. As expected, the Undertaker sits up as the show closes.

What was it all about this week?
No highlights this week. Going into PPV weekends, the WWE always seems to fail at providing shows that really spark in interest in the PPV. Except for Batista and the Undertaker, the interest just wasn’t there for the upcoming card. Actually, this week they pulled off something that is really difficult to do – they made Batista look bad as he reveled in beating the cruiserweight Jamie Noble. Do fans really want to see squash matches like this? There’s no suspense – are they just interested in a beatdown? The winner is obvious, it looks bad, for once, to see Batista celebrating what is an easy victory – all around not the best thing to offer. Jesse and Festus are sinking fast – their schtick is already old. Guerrero’s and Noble’s weekly segment is uneven at best – Noble can probably make a success of any backstage skit, but he’s dragged down by the wooden and flat Vickie Guerrero. And the JBL segment? Well, the less seen of him, the better. This sort of thing makes you not want to tune in.