WWE Smackdown brand house show report
September 25, 2010
New York City at Madison Square Garden
Report by Chris Murrell, PWTorch reader

There were lot of seats still available when the show started. As expected, they went with the usual entrance for MSG shows. No part of the arena was tarped off.

(1) Kofi Kingston beat Intercontinental champion Dolph Ziggler in 13:00 in a non-title match. Very good match and I thought this was the match of the night. Ziggler announced that he was not defending the belt because he has 30 days to defend the title. Kofi won with Trouble in Paradise.

After the match, Tony Chimmel announced that our host for the evening is the "The Fink" Howard Finkel. A lot of the kids didn't know who he was, but he still got a decent applause. He said tonight is Bret Hart Appreciation Night and they would be showing videos to tribute Hart throughout the night.

(2) WWE tag champions Drew McIntyre & Cody Rhodes beat Chris Masters & MVP in 12:00 to retain the WWE Tag Titles. Lots of stalling at the beginning, but they still managed to put on a decent match. Rhodes won with the Cross Rhodes on . MVP got a strong pop, as did Masters, during ring intros.

- Bret Hart video highlighting his match against Mr. Perfect at Summerslam '91 at the Garden.

(3) Alberto Del Rio beat Chavo Guerrero via submission with the armbar. Before the match, Del Rio cut a promo about how New York and the Garden are garbage compared to where he's from. Chavo got a pretty good pop and I am guessing he is a full-on face now because he was playing to the crowd throughout. Del Rio is fastly becoming a heat magnet. There were a couple of "boring" chants at the beginning, but the match picked up later with Chavo hitting a crossbody to the outside and a flying crossbody in the ring. Chavo hit a frog splash, but Del Rio had his hand on the rope before the ref counted to three. This led to Del Rio throwing Chavo into the steel post. Del Rio then applied the cross-arm breaker for the win.

- Bret Hart video highlighting a match against his brother, Owen.

(4) Melina & Kelly Kelly beat Unified Divas champion Michelle McCool & Layla. A standard Diva match with Hornswoggle interfering and costing Laycool the match. Say what you will about Hornswoggle, but the kids love him.

(5) Mark Henry beat Jack Swagger in a Raw vs. Smackdown match with the World's Strongest Slam. Henry came out to a decent pop. Swagger got major heat and he was playing to the crowd by taunting the little kids. Henry won when Swagger tried to do a crossbody and Henry caught him for the World's Strongest Slam to win.

[Intermission with former NXT host Ashley Valence doing a t-shirt toss.]

Back from intermission, Hart Dynasty were in the ring with The Fink and Jerry Lawler. From there, Bret Hart came out to one of the loudest pops I've ever heard. NYC definitely loved the Hitman. Fink and Lawler give him three pictures with Hart Famly members and gave him a special New York Rangers hockey jersey with his name on it and the #10 marking his return to the Garden. This led to Nexus coming out minus Wade Barrett and David Otunga (on the Raw tour in Europe). They delivered the usual "you're either Nexus or against us" speech.

(6) Bret Hart & Hart Dynasty (Tyson Kidd & D.H. Smith) beat Nexus (Michael Tarver & Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel) in a six-man tag match with Jerry Lawler as special referee. Bret actually held his own in this one by hitting a couple of suplexes. The place went nuts for the finish when Hart applied a sharpshooter on Gabriel after Hart Dynasty hit the Hart Attack.

Post-match: Nexus jumped the Hart Dynasty and Jerry Lawler to try to get to Bret, but the faces fought back. This led to Lawler hitting his second rope fist drop on Slater, followed by another Sharpshooter by Bret. It was a really great moment, as Bret had MSG in the palm of his hands.

(7) Big Show beat C.M. Punk. Punk got into some type of altercation with a fan at ringside. Punk just shook it off and gave the guy a long stare down. Punk got the "Edge reaction" where you're supposed to be the heel, but you still get a face reaction. That all changed when he cut a great promo on New York and how everyone should be ashamed of themselves. He sang a song about Chicago, leading to Big Show coming out to a huge pop. The match was what you would expect from these two, plus a little bit of comedy from Punk. Show won when he gave Punk a chokeslam and KO punch.

(8) World Hvt. champion Kane beat The Undertaker to retain the World Hvt. Title in a No DQ New York Street Fight. Undertaker didn't do his usual entrance. I don't even think he wore his regular ring gear. He came out to the ring and went right after Kane. He still got one of the loudest reactions of the night. The only weapons used were a steel chair and the microphone, but there was lots of brawling in and out the ring. It was a basic big-man match. But, the shock of the night was Kane beating Taker clean with a chokeslam.

After the match, Kane tried to hit Undertaker with a chair, but Taker dodged it and hit Kane with a chokeslam to send the crowd home happy.

Overall thoughts: As expected there were lots of kids and I don't think any of them were without a John Cena t-shirt. A lot of them were disappointed Cena wasn't on the show, but they should have known he wouldn't be there since it was a Smackdown show. All in all, a very good show. I didn't think it would be, but I was very entertained.

Loudest cheers
(1) Undertaker and Bret Hart (tied) and by far.
(2) Big Show
(3) Kofi Kingston

Most heat
(1) C.M. Punk (after his promo)
(2) Nexus
(3) Kane

[Torch art credit Cory Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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