WWE Smackdown house show results
July 10, 2011
Johannesburg, South Africa
Report by Neels Ehlers, PWTorch reader

This was the final show of WWE's World Tour of South Africa at the Dome in Johannesburg.

(1) Intercontinental champion Ezekiel Jackson beat Wade Barrett to retain the IC Title. Jackson won with a Rock Bottom/Book-end/Zeke-slam/whatever it's called these days. A decent opening match that wasn't spectacular, but got the crowd excited, nonetheless. The crowd was pretty hot for big Zeke, but there were also a few older fans cheering for Barrett.

(2) Ted DiBiase beat Cody Rhodes with a small package. Rhodes, accompanied by his bag-man, cut a good promo before the match explaining how he was going to teach DiBiase some discipline after they lost a match to Justin Gabriel and Sin Cara the previous night. That got the crowd behind DiBiase. It was a very well-paced match with both men getting in a fair amount of offense before DiBiase got the win to a reasonable pop. After the match, Cody attacked his former partner and "bagged" him, which got great heat.

(3) Jinder Mahal beat Daniel Bryan. Good reaction for Bryan, who was cheered right through a match that he carried in typical Bryan-fashion. It was obvious the crowd had no idea how to react to Mahal.

(4) Kane beat Sheamus with a Tombstone! Best match on the card in terms of all-round entertainment-value. Both men got strong reactions from the crowd with Sheamus getting booed and, like with all Attitude-era Superstars, the crowd popped for Kane. This match was near-PPV-quality with two false finishes and, yes, Kane clinching it with the Tombstone, which really set the crowd off.

[Intermission]

(5) Natalya beat Alicia Fox with a roll-up in a DIvas match. Typical Divas match, which is perhaps not the best match to go on after intermission. Natalya hit a few good moves and Alicia played the role of the heel Diva pretty well, but the crowd was just never into it.

(6) Sin Cara beat Yoshi Tatsu with a Swanton bomb. Sin Cara got a great reaction, even though he didn't do his regular leaping ring-entrance. A good wrestling match between two crowd-favorites with enough highspots to get the crowd excited. At the end of the match, the men shook hands to a loud cheer by the crowd.

(7) World Hvt. champion Randy Orton & Big Show & Justin Gabriel beat Christian & Alberto Del Rio & Mark Henry in a six-man tag match with Bret Hart as special enforcer. Orton pinned Christian after a great-looking RKO to win the main event. This match was a bit of a letdown knowing that the other shows on this leg of the tour featured Orton vs. Christian in a singles match. The crowd wasn't all that into the match after ring entrances were over. Gabriel got a good pop, Show got a huge one, and the crowd went nuts for Orton. Some people were still cheering Christian, but even without the luxury of a promo, his and Del Rio's mannerisms really helped put the face team over. The match itself was a run-of-the-mill house show six-man with all of the Superstars getting a chance to posture to the crowd, and to face off against one another during the match. Bret only got involved once, when Henry tried to take a chair into the ring, and the finish seemed to come out of nowhere, but the crowd popped big-time nonetheless. After the match, Big Show hit a chokeslam on Del Rio. The faces posed in the ring and walked off one by one with Gabriel staying last. No 450 splash and, sadly, no Sharpshooter.

I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that Bret didn't get more involved and that the home-town boy, Gabriel, didn't hit his signature move. Christian and Alberto's heel-mannerisms were so entertaining, though, that I didn't really care.

Random observation: There were more people in John Cena and The Rock merchandise, which was sold at the event, than for all of the Superstars who were on the card combined.

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

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