Post by Head Booker on Dec 20, 2006 7:35:53 GMT -6
credit: 411mania.com
All of the action from the tapings!
Hampton, VA
Hampton Coliseum
The show started with a cool new video package on WWE as a whole. It started off with interviews from famous people that liked wrestling including Bob Costas and Fred Durst among others. It then went into the popularity of PPV buys, WWE.com hits, WWE Magazine subscription, and live events. Then mass media press, with superstars on various TV shows and such. It then moved into the WWE public service stuff with Make a Wish, the Tribute to the Troops and the SmackDown your vote. Clips of celebs enjoying wrestling and various musical performances and celebrity involvement followed (including Jay Leno in WCW which I found funny). They wrapped it up with the great clips of live crowds enjoying shows, especially WrestleMania. It was a really nice, if long, video package, one I hope they show on TV (perhaps on the year end show).
A) Dark Match: Jimmy Wang Yang defeated "The Pitbull" Jamie Noble via Yang Time.
Tony Chimmel lets us know that Mr. Kennedy & MVP will not be here due to their injuries and Teddy Long will soon announce a new main event (not sure if Kennedy & MVP were booked in a Dark Main Event or not).
SmackDown opens backstage with King Booker and Finlay asking for a rematch with Batista & John Cena. Teddy declines that idea, but says that the main event will be King Booker & Finlay vs. Undertaker & Kane!
Batista comes to the ring and is happy about how things have turned out. He got his World Heavyweight Title back and teamed with Cena to beat Booker and Finlay at Armageddon. He is soon interrupted by Santa Claus who comes to the ring tossing out presents. He gives Batista a box of candy canes to throw out to the crowd, and when Batista has his back turned, Santa attacks him with a lead pipe. Santa tries to leave but Teddy Long comes out and forces Santa into a match with Batista.
1) Batista defeated Santa Claus (Sylvan) after the Batista Bomb.
Our next match is a United States Title rematch from Armageddon.
2) Chris Benoit retains the United States Title over Chavo Guerrero (w/ Vicky Guerrero) by Disqualification. Chavo fights off the Sharpshooter twice and kicks out of the Diving Headbutt. Chavo eventually goes for the Frog Splash but Benoit gets his knees up and locks Chavo in the Crossface. Vicky comes into the ring with the United States Title belt and hits Benoit with it, causing the DQ. The match was better than their Survivor Series match, but not as good as their Armageddon match, in my opinion.
Benoit stares down Vicky but just walks away. Chavo yells at Vicky for costing him the match and pokes her in her injured neck until she falls down. Benoit comes back to check on Vicky and Chavo nails him with the title belt.
- Next out is Gregory Helms. Helms says that all he wants for Christmas is some competition since he's beaten all the Cruiserweights. He says that he should move up to the heavyweight division in the New Year. This prompts the Boogeyman to come out and threaten worms on Helms. Helms runs away through the crowd, worm free. Tony Chimmel reminds us all that he is the Boogeyman and he's coming to get us, which apparently didn't set too well with Boogey. Boogeyman choked Chimmel on the announce table and placed worms in his mouth. Chimmel then ran off to the back. ECW ring announcer Justin Roberts came out to replace him.
- The next segment saw Joey Mercury come to the ring. We see the footage of his Armageddon injury. Mercury says that there are only two people to blame: Matt and Jeff Hardy. Matt Hardy comes out to answer Mercury, and says that anybody could have been injured because it was a dangerous match, and that nobody maimed him on purpose. Mercury tries to get Matt to fight him, but Matt won't. Mercury then says that if Matt won't fight him, maybe he would fight his tag team partner, Johnny Nitro.
3) Johnny Nitro (w/ Joey Mercury & Melina) defeated Matt Hardy in an Interpromotional Match following a backslide with his feet on the ropes. Decent match, saw Nitro kick out of the Side Effect and the Yodeling leg drop. Nitro blocked the Twist of Fate twice and ended up getting a backslide on Matt, putting his feet on the ropes for leverage.
- We come back from commercial and JBL is in the ring. He calls out Teddy Long to apologize for what he did to MVP by putting him in an Inferno Match. When Teddy doesn't come out JBL turns his attention to the fans and blames them for being bloodthirsty, even calling us all "sons of bitches."
- We come back from another break and Michael Cole interviews Vladmir Koslov. Unfortunately, Vladmir gets booed for no reason yet again. Somebody has been watching Iron Sheik promos, by the way.
4) Ashley Massaro & Leyla defeated Krystal & Jillian Hall in a Divas Tag Team Match after Ashley hit a Flying Elbow on Jillian. So I guess Jillian is a heel now that Michelle McCool is gone. She even tried to win with her feet on the ropes. Leyla also came out during an ECW commercial break, which meant I had to see this ugly, useless bimbo twice. Everyone sans Leyla looked pretty decent in there, and Ashley's flying elbow wasn't half bad.
5) Undertaker & Kane defeated King Booker & Finlay. No "All Hail King Booker" and no Little Bastard(!). This match was fun, but there were many, MANY big boots. I counted seven that I noticed. Booker and Finlay isolated Kane for most of the match. Finlay got Undertaker down on the outside, then hit him with the shillelagh and Booker hit him with a chair, all outside of the ref's view. Needless to say Taker still made it back to his corner for the hot tag. Taker & Kane hit stereo chokeslams and Undertaker got the Tombstone on Finlay for the win.
I would imagine this is where the cameras ended, although there was a funny moment afterwards. Taker walked over to ringside and Cole and JBL were scrambling over each other to get away. JBL pushed Cole down on all four and then got on Cole's back to hide. Funnier than it sounds writing it.
The crowd was pretty good, better than the Richmond crowds I'd say. About a fourth of the crowd left after SmackDown, and those that stayed were pretty dead for ECW outside of Bobby Lashley and RVD. SmackDown was a pretty good show I felt, especially for one that just killed time until the New Year.
All of the action from the tapings!
Hampton, VA
Hampton Coliseum
The show started with a cool new video package on WWE as a whole. It started off with interviews from famous people that liked wrestling including Bob Costas and Fred Durst among others. It then went into the popularity of PPV buys, WWE.com hits, WWE Magazine subscription, and live events. Then mass media press, with superstars on various TV shows and such. It then moved into the WWE public service stuff with Make a Wish, the Tribute to the Troops and the SmackDown your vote. Clips of celebs enjoying wrestling and various musical performances and celebrity involvement followed (including Jay Leno in WCW which I found funny). They wrapped it up with the great clips of live crowds enjoying shows, especially WrestleMania. It was a really nice, if long, video package, one I hope they show on TV (perhaps on the year end show).
A) Dark Match: Jimmy Wang Yang defeated "The Pitbull" Jamie Noble via Yang Time.
Tony Chimmel lets us know that Mr. Kennedy & MVP will not be here due to their injuries and Teddy Long will soon announce a new main event (not sure if Kennedy & MVP were booked in a Dark Main Event or not).
SmackDown opens backstage with King Booker and Finlay asking for a rematch with Batista & John Cena. Teddy declines that idea, but says that the main event will be King Booker & Finlay vs. Undertaker & Kane!
Batista comes to the ring and is happy about how things have turned out. He got his World Heavyweight Title back and teamed with Cena to beat Booker and Finlay at Armageddon. He is soon interrupted by Santa Claus who comes to the ring tossing out presents. He gives Batista a box of candy canes to throw out to the crowd, and when Batista has his back turned, Santa attacks him with a lead pipe. Santa tries to leave but Teddy Long comes out and forces Santa into a match with Batista.
1) Batista defeated Santa Claus (Sylvan) after the Batista Bomb.
Our next match is a United States Title rematch from Armageddon.
2) Chris Benoit retains the United States Title over Chavo Guerrero (w/ Vicky Guerrero) by Disqualification. Chavo fights off the Sharpshooter twice and kicks out of the Diving Headbutt. Chavo eventually goes for the Frog Splash but Benoit gets his knees up and locks Chavo in the Crossface. Vicky comes into the ring with the United States Title belt and hits Benoit with it, causing the DQ. The match was better than their Survivor Series match, but not as good as their Armageddon match, in my opinion.
Benoit stares down Vicky but just walks away. Chavo yells at Vicky for costing him the match and pokes her in her injured neck until she falls down. Benoit comes back to check on Vicky and Chavo nails him with the title belt.
- Next out is Gregory Helms. Helms says that all he wants for Christmas is some competition since he's beaten all the Cruiserweights. He says that he should move up to the heavyweight division in the New Year. This prompts the Boogeyman to come out and threaten worms on Helms. Helms runs away through the crowd, worm free. Tony Chimmel reminds us all that he is the Boogeyman and he's coming to get us, which apparently didn't set too well with Boogey. Boogeyman choked Chimmel on the announce table and placed worms in his mouth. Chimmel then ran off to the back. ECW ring announcer Justin Roberts came out to replace him.
- The next segment saw Joey Mercury come to the ring. We see the footage of his Armageddon injury. Mercury says that there are only two people to blame: Matt and Jeff Hardy. Matt Hardy comes out to answer Mercury, and says that anybody could have been injured because it was a dangerous match, and that nobody maimed him on purpose. Mercury tries to get Matt to fight him, but Matt won't. Mercury then says that if Matt won't fight him, maybe he would fight his tag team partner, Johnny Nitro.
3) Johnny Nitro (w/ Joey Mercury & Melina) defeated Matt Hardy in an Interpromotional Match following a backslide with his feet on the ropes. Decent match, saw Nitro kick out of the Side Effect and the Yodeling leg drop. Nitro blocked the Twist of Fate twice and ended up getting a backslide on Matt, putting his feet on the ropes for leverage.
- We come back from commercial and JBL is in the ring. He calls out Teddy Long to apologize for what he did to MVP by putting him in an Inferno Match. When Teddy doesn't come out JBL turns his attention to the fans and blames them for being bloodthirsty, even calling us all "sons of bitches."
- We come back from another break and Michael Cole interviews Vladmir Koslov. Unfortunately, Vladmir gets booed for no reason yet again. Somebody has been watching Iron Sheik promos, by the way.
4) Ashley Massaro & Leyla defeated Krystal & Jillian Hall in a Divas Tag Team Match after Ashley hit a Flying Elbow on Jillian. So I guess Jillian is a heel now that Michelle McCool is gone. She even tried to win with her feet on the ropes. Leyla also came out during an ECW commercial break, which meant I had to see this ugly, useless bimbo twice. Everyone sans Leyla looked pretty decent in there, and Ashley's flying elbow wasn't half bad.
5) Undertaker & Kane defeated King Booker & Finlay. No "All Hail King Booker" and no Little Bastard(!). This match was fun, but there were many, MANY big boots. I counted seven that I noticed. Booker and Finlay isolated Kane for most of the match. Finlay got Undertaker down on the outside, then hit him with the shillelagh and Booker hit him with a chair, all outside of the ref's view. Needless to say Taker still made it back to his corner for the hot tag. Taker & Kane hit stereo chokeslams and Undertaker got the Tombstone on Finlay for the win.
I would imagine this is where the cameras ended, although there was a funny moment afterwards. Taker walked over to ringside and Cole and JBL were scrambling over each other to get away. JBL pushed Cole down on all four and then got on Cole's back to hide. Funnier than it sounds writing it.
The crowd was pretty good, better than the Richmond crowds I'd say. About a fourth of the crowd left after SmackDown, and those that stayed were pretty dead for ECW outside of Bobby Lashley and RVD. SmackDown was a pretty good show I felt, especially for one that just killed time until the New Year.
