The Dope on Smackdown 06.13.08

We were LIVE from Fresno, CA with Mickey and Mikey and has the light gone out for you, because the light’s gone out for me. Oh, but now they’re on and Vickie Guerrero is in the ring, to the absolute delight of the audience. Vickie welcomes us all to the official contract signing for the Night of Champions title fight between Batista and Edge as Big Dave makes his way down to the ring.

I’m no homo, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how great Batista looks in his skintight shirt tonight.

Edge has already signed earlier today, so all Dave has to is add his John Hancock. Isn’t the point of an in-ring contract signing to have both men face off? Anyways, Vickie has amended the contract so that Batista can’t legally compete for the belt until he wins one more match…against the Great Khali, tonight. An additional amendment sees to it that if Batista doesn’t win tonight, he will banished forever from “the E” and, presumably, go off to help Undertaker fight Rhodan on Monster Island or whatever.

Did you know?
WWE is watched by more than 15 million people every week in the U.S. So now you know!

I hope this becomes a fixture of WWE programming. Some “did you knows” that I’d like to see:

-Did you know that Vince McMahon was sexually abused by his stepfather?

-Did you know that once, while in Japan together, Andre the Giant called Hulk Hogan into his bathroom to witness him receive a blumpkin?

-Did you know the infamous night Shawn Michaels was beaten up outside that club in ’95, he was so high on pills he couldn’t defend himself?

Finlay w/Hornswoggle vs. John Morrison w/The Miz

Based on the remarks of the commentary team, I think this could be setting up for a tag title match at Night of Champions. Are they going to retire the tag straps after Hornswoggle wins them too?

Lock up to start. Finlay slaps John in the face and puts him down with a clothesline and gets 2 after a body slam. Morrison leaves to confer with The Miz, and takes over after tripping Finlay and doing that cool dropkick between the ropes deal. John launches himself over the top rope, but Finlay pulls the ring curtain out, ensuring a crotch first landing for Morrison.

Finlay tosses his son into Miz before tossing Morrison back in the ring and dropping the elbow. John sends Finlay to the corner and charges, running face first into a boot. Finlay goes up, but a fancy pants kick sends him tumbling to the outside. Morrison brings him back in and kicks him around a little. Finlay fights out of a chinlock, but a neck breaker gets two for John. Morrison misses a clothesline and gets nailed with a pair of them from Fit. Finlay roll gets 2. Miz is fucking around with Hornswoggle and this is enough to distract Finlay and allow Morrison to roll him up for the win. Fun, short match.

John Morrison pinned Finlay

Some chick is in the back with Edge and asks him for his thoughts on Batista’s career threatening match against officer Khali.

Edge acts like a jerk until C.M. Punk shows up and offers his congrats on the upcoming wedding. Punk also offers up intrigue in the form of potentially cashing in his briefcase on the big day.

Mark Henry vs. Tommy Dreamer

Yay! It’s like a RAW match from 2003 nobody would’ve given a fuck about. Dreamer starts off with rights and lefts until running into Mizark and going down hard. Mark begins to slowly decimate Dreamer with body slams and head butts. Are you lot going to be pissed off if I just fast-forward to the end of this? Cool!
Several seconds later Henry ends it with the world’s strongest slam.

Mark Henry pinned Tommy Dreamer

Edge, in the back with Vickie, is frenetic over Punk’s remarks. MVP shows up with some concerns of his own, mainly over his contract, but Vickie isn’t interested. Maybe he should take his concerns to a Chilean press conference.

Maryse the Terrible vs. Cherry

Why bother featuring Victoria or Natalya when we can have another epic encounter between these two not-ready-for-primetime players? Cherry won with what I shall call the “Double D-DT”. It’s like a regular DDT, but with big huge boobs. Get it?
I wish this match had the “loser is banished from the WWE” stipulation.

Cherry pinned Maryse

MVP vs. CM Punk

Lock up to start, with Punk taking him down with a backside slam, which he does not let go of until Porter kicks out of a roll up attempt. Punk grabs a side headlock, which MVP reverses into a headlock of his own. Punk head scissors his way out of that, but MVP gets his headlock back (Oh, that would be a FUCKIN’ SWEET movie title). Punk fights it off and hits a heel kick for 2 before laying some knees and kicks into Montel’s back. MVP takes charge with forearms to the back and delivers a back suplex before settling on an arm lock that Punk reverses. Both men jockey for arm control, with Punk coming out on top until MVP puts him down with a clothesline and a head kick. MVP grabs an arm bar, which Punk fights out of only to be punched for his troubles. MVP continues to punish the arm with stomps and elbows. Punk manages to arm drag himself out of harm’s way and gets a pair of near falls, from a roll-up and a dropkick, respectively. Punk hip tosses MVP out of the corner and starts kicking the crap out of him before getting 2 off a neck breaker.

Porter sends Punk to the corner and follows it with a big elbow. A second attempt at this fails, but MVP grabs Punk and begins repeatedly throwing him shoulder first into the corner. Break time!

Back from, with MVP hammering Punk with fists and a big knee to the arm before settling in with yet another arm lock. Punk battles back with knees and gets Montel into the corner, but his arm hurts to much to effectively ram his shoulder into MVP’s tummy. A kick to the arm puts Punk back down. MVP charges, but Punk nearly beheads him with a clothesline. CM (by the way, that doesn’t happen to stand for C. Montgomery does it?) backspin kicks MVP and knees him for 2. Punk gets another 2 count after a series of big fuckin’ kicks to the head, before hitting the corner knee and hurracanrana-ing Montel for yet another 2 count.

Punk goes up, but Porter dropkicks the ropes, causing CM to fall crotch first on the turnbuckle, wounding his little punk. MVP goes for the superplex, but Punk fights him off. CM drops the elbow from the top, but MVP puts his knees up. That looked like it hurt both of them, a lot. MVP takes the opportunity to free a turnbuckle from the oppression of it’s pad but the ref totally saw what happened. While Robinson tends to the turnbuckle, MVP goes for Punk’s briefcase, but this time Punk sees what’s happening and knees it right into Porter’s face. The ref turns around in time to see a fallen MVP with Punk holding the case and that’s enough to get him dis-fuckin-qualified.

Great match. More please.

MVP beat CM Punk by DQ

Chavo Guerrero and Bam Kneely are in the ring, as Chavo informs us that his name is in fact Chavo Guerrero and he will be Edge’s best man. Chavo then brings out Matt Hardy, who he will apparently be facing for the US title at Night of Champions.
Bam and Chavo hightail it and Chuck Palumbo comes out. Oh, I guess a match is about to happen. Silly me, I thought this was an interview segment.

US Champion Matt Hardy vs. Chuck Palumbo (non title)

Michael Cole states that the WWE’s number of fans is growing week after week. On behalf of, well, reality, Mick Foley asks him if that’s true. He said yes, by the way.

Matt grabs a headlock to start but Chuck gets out of that and hammers Hardy with big fists in the corner. Palumbo eats elbow on a corner charge, but sends Matt to the floor with a big kick. Chuck brings him back in and hits a back suplex for 2, before getting in some kicks and a chinlock. Not satisfied with that, Palumbo breaks up his own hold to deliver a clothesline.

Hardy fights his way out of a front facelock, but Chuck puts him down and goes up top for a leg drop, which he misses.

Hardy goes knee and elbow crazy, before nailing a side effect for 2. Matt goes up and hits an elbow to Palumbo’s dome before ending it with the twist of fate. Chavo announces Matt as the winner for tonight, but the loser at Night of Champions. What an asshole. The match was a lot like Woody Allen: short, awkward and possibly hot for young Asian ‘tang.

Matt Hardy pinned Chuck Palumbo

The same chick who interviewed Edge earlier is now in the back with Vladimir Koslov and she wants to know what he thinks about taking on some tougher competition in the upcoming weeks. He says a bunch of stuff in Russian and leaves. Fascinating.

Jesse & Festus vs. Deuce & Domino

Isn’t this the same match I was too bored to recap a few weeks ago? Sorry, but I could not care less about either team.

The bell rings and Festus goes crazy, ’til Jesse calms him down. Jesse and Deuce begin the match, wrestling and doing moves and stuff. Domino comes in to assist, but Jesse fights him back to the apron before walking into a fancy kick from Deuce. Domino tags in and throws his shirt at Festus, while Jesse begins to get his face-in-peril on. Once Jesse makes the tag, Festus and his retard strength clean house. Festus finishes with his big retarded splash. Deuce and Domino get into a fight and evidently break up after the match in a moment, much like Michaels and Jannetty in ’92, that I’m sure we’ll all remember for years to come.

Festus pinned Domino

Batista vs. Great Khali (if Batista loses, he is banished from the WWE)

Edge wheels Vickie out to the top of the ramp to watch the action. Batista punches Khali and tries to grab the arm, but Khali sends him to the corner. Batista, like a goof, tries to knock Khali down with shoulder blocks but runs into the big boot and goes flying to the outside. ‘Tista tries to get back in, but Khali head butts him back down before rolling him back into the ring and covering him with a foot for a pinfall attempt. Officer Khali body slams Batista and leg drops him for two. It’s funny to think that if the fifty five year old Hulk Hogan was his opponent, that combination of moves likely would’ve been enough for a clean victory.

Khali takes him to the corner and makes with the elbows but misses a big swing causing Dave to take over with shoulders to the mid-section. ‘Tista comes flying off the top rope but the Great one catches him with the Khali bomb, which Dave kicks out of.

Khali goes after him with a devastating nerve hold and sets up for the brain chop, but Batista is strong and thus able to prevent the chop from being completed. Batista hits the spear and that’s all. Geez, does Khali have a glass stomach or what? The match was wisely kept short.

Batista pinned The Great Khali

Talk about your “one match” show. Punk/MVP was terrific and at nearly twenty minutes, it was nice to see two top hands given the time to do something great. As for the everything else, ahhh…let’s see here. No time for Natalya, McCool or Victoria but we did manage to get yet another awful Cherry/Maryse outing. Nobody has time to care about Matt Hardy and his US title, so I guess we have him facing Chavo in a match with no build. We had time for a Mark Henry/Tommy Dreamer squash, which I guess is slightly preferable to our usual weekly serving of Koslov squash. We didn’t have time to make Finlay/Morrison into the mini-classic it could’ve been, but we did have time for a tag team match nobody cares about and the meaningless dissolution of a team that is cared less about than the one that just broke up on RAW a few weeks ago.