WWE Smackdown house show report
March 14, 2010
San Francisco, Calif. at the Cow Palace
Report by Alexander Coleman, Torch reader

The show began at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Unlike the Stockton Arena show on Saturday night, there were a lot of empty seats at the Cow Palace, but the floor was completely full and there were a couple sections of people in the seats above the floor.

It should be noted that the San Francisco Cow Palace and Stockton Arena shows were practically identical (in terms of the card, they actually were identical).

(1) R-Truth & John Morrison beat The Hart Dynasty (Tyson Kidd & D.H. Smith). As with the Stockton opener, this was a fun match. The first-half was exactly the same as the Stockton match, but the finish was different; whereas Morrison played babyface-in-peril in Stockton before the hot tag to the victorious R-Truth (and his dubious finisher on Smith), here Morrison was given the triumphant pinfall via a well-executed Starship Pain. The match lasted about twelve minutes. R-Truth is the perfect guy to be the first one through the curtain for the average crowd.

Tiffany came out to ask a kid in the audience a trivia question - where is WrestleMania being held this year? The kid said, "Arizona," and was rewarded by being the bell-ringer for the next match.

(2) Goldust beat Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler cut promos before the Saturday night and Sunday evening matches, to rather significant heat. Good back-and-forth action. Goldust brings out the best in some of the younger guys. Goldust finished off Ziggler with the Final Cut/Curtain Call (vertical suplex into a swinging neckbreaker).

Immediately afterwards, Goldust was attacked by Ezekiel Jackson. Since they did the same thing in Stockton, I guess Jackson just really hates Goldust. (I kid.) And, just like in Stockton, Matt Hardy ran down to rescue The Bizarre One. And thus they began the next match.

(3) Ezekiel Jackson beat Matt Hardy. Solid match that went about the right length (just shy of ten minutes), with Hardy giving Jackson a run for his money before taking the loss via Jackson's Urange. Television doesn't do Jackson's frightening frame justice. Matt Hardy remains one of the more beloved guys on the roster despite his lesser role these days.

(4) Jimmy Wang Yang beat Tyler Reks. Reks has adapted to being a heel rather well. I was standing next to the entranceway and when a young kid yelled at him that he sucked, Reks barked back, "You need a tan!" Anyway, the match was almost a carbon copy of their Stockton match, and it was perfectly acceptable with Yang hitting Reks with high-flying moves culminating in his finishing moonsault.

Tiffany came out to throw some T-shirts to the crowd.

(5) Kane and Intercontinental champion Drew McIntyre wrestled to a double count-out. In Stockton, McIntyre spoke of Forbes Magazine calling Stockton the second-most miserable city in the United States. In San Francisco, McIntyre berated the city for being a den of hippies who didn't deserve to see him wrestle. McIntyre once again tried to leave before the action started and Kane once again marched down to the ring before he could escape. Lots of stalling by McIntyre, finally summoning the courage to battle Kane. Funny, classic heel stuff. Generally fun match. McIntyre sells extremely well for a man his size, and in his matches with Kane he surely gets thrown around and out to the floor a great deal. The psychology of the match was McIntyre working on Kane's left arm to prevent the veteran from executing some of his power moves on the Intercontinental champion. The match once again resulted in a double count-out. Kane threw McIntyre back into the ring afterwards but McIntyre gained the advantage with an armbar takedown. When McIntyre whined to the ring announcer about the count-out decision, he lost sight of Kane, who arose and delivered a thunderous chokeslam to McIntyre to make nearly everyone happy before intermission.

[Intermission]

(6) Shad Gaspard (w/JTG) beat Mike Knox. Just like their Stockton match, the story was Shad trying to powerslam Knox but one the first two occasions failing, only to prevail the third try. Match concluded with Shad hitting Knox with his STO finisher. Not much heat for the match, but the fans like Cryme Tyme.

Tiffany came out to throw some more t-shirts. But before she could, Michelle McCool's music hit and she came down to the ring berating Tiffany for being someone you could see on any street corner anywhere. She asked Tiffany if she knew what the barricades around the ring were. "It's not a trick question," McCool explained. McCool said that Tiffany belongs on the other side of the barricade. She then shoved Tiffany around and things were looking bad until Beth Phoenix's music hit and she ran down to the ring to start up the next match.

(7) Women's champion Michelle McCool beat Beth Phoenix. The match finished in the same fashion as the Stockton show: Beth was temporarily distracted by the ref, then she was caught by a kick from Michelle standing on the ring apron. Short match, perhaps less than five minutes long. Fans are clearly hungry for the Beth Phoenix face turn, and she's receiving great reactions now.

It was time for the weekend all-star tag team main event match. Note to Chris Jericho: I was the guy in the C.M. Punk shirt cheering you; I wasn't the guy who threw that cup at you! The heels received immense heat, with fans throwing all kinds of assorted items into the ring. For a while it seemed like it would never end. The fans had been really giving Punk and his stable a ton of heat, throwing things at all of them, and Punk was just soaking it in. As in Stockton, Gallows wanted everyone to be quiet to listen to his savior. Punk gave a great little promo talking about how not only is he drug-free and alcohol-free, he is--though it doesn't take much--better than all of us, and he could physically beat up every single person in the arena. Funny moment where someone threw a little tinfoil ball at Punk and he caught it mid-promo just as he was saying he was better than all of us. Jericho hit the ring and people threw only more things. Jericho got on the house mic and said that he would leave if one more item hit the ring. And with that, more things were thrown at him, so he immediately bolted. Edge came down to the ring first for the babyfaces and told the crowd to settle down and save their drinks and whatnot, because he, Mysterio and Taker were going to "kick their asses," pointing to the heels. Edge assured everyone that they had it under control. Mysterio then entered to his usual enormous pop. Jericho then returned, and that only left Undertaker to arrive.

Chris Jericho commented on Twitter: "List of items I was pelted with in the ring tonight: ice, water bottles, beer, popcorn, quarters, assorted garbage and a D size battery...which left an awesome welt. Seems like the fine people of San Francisco went shopping before the show."

(8) The Undertaker & Edge & Rey Mysterio beat C.M. Punk & Luke Gallows & Chris Jericho (w/Serena) in a six-man tag main event. The match was, like the Stockton match, mostly fast-paced. In each six-man main event, Mysterio did a lot of the heavy lifting for the faces. Punk and Jericho were having tons of fun on the ring apron playing to the crowd as Luke Gallows struggled with Mysterio. The finishing sequence remained exactly the same: Mysterio finally gets the last hot tag to Undertaker, who utterly destroys Punk with punches, Snake Eyes leads to a big boot, followed by Taker going for a chokeslam on Punk. Gallows enters, Taker nearly chokeslams both men until Jericho runs in and hits a Codebreaker on Taker just before he can raise them up. Edge runs in, hits the Spear on Jericho. Punk throws Edge out of the ring. Mysterio enters and sets both Punk and then Gallows up for a double 619. Punk tries to shake the cobwebs from that, but he turns right around into a Taker chokeslam for the one, two, three.

In Stockton, Serena and Gallows dragged Punk away from the ring and carried him out. At the Cow Palace, the heels simply walked away with a phalanx of security, as it appeared they were getting nervous about the crowd.

Afterwards, Taker walked away to his music. Mysterio and Edge then played to the crowd. Mysterio told the fans that he had been teaching Edge some Spanish. Edge was then given a Mysterio mask to wear, which he did. Edge then went through some Bay Area sports teams, finally settling on the Giants as the most popular among the fans in attendance. Edge and Mysterio played around with the fans (in Stockton, Edge ran around holding Mysterio up, which was a cool visual) to close out the show.

Biggest Pops:

(1) The Undertaker
(2) Rey Mysterio (he was #1 in Stockton, though)
(3) Edge

Most Heat:

(1) C.M. Punk and the Straight Edge Society
(2) Chris Jericho
(3) Drew McIntyre

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