WWE Smackdown house show results
April 20, 2013
Birmingham, U.K. at LG Arena
Report by Matt Wyatt, PWTorch correspondent

The arena was nowhere near sold-out with empty seats all around the floor area and up in the stands. The crowd was mostly kids with their parents, and Cena and Ryback t-shirts were everywhere. There were a couple of merch stands, but they were pretty poor. Hardly anything on offer, but they were packed all night.

(1) Santino & 3MB (Drew McIntyre & Jinder Mahal) & Ted DiBiase beat The Colons & Prime Time Players. Huge pop for the faces as the first ones out. Lots of love for Titus O'Neil, too. Santino won the match with The Cobra.

Shield immediately attacked following the match, taking everyone out and hitting the triple bomb on DiBiase. Huge pop / heat for The Shield.

Fandango was out next. Not a whole lot of love for him. Some of the older fans tried to start people humming along to his music, but it didn't work.

(2) Fandango beat Alex Riley with the Cross Rhodes finisher. I missed most of this due to a bathroom break.

Mark Henry cut a short promo on The Great Khali from the big screens.

(3) Natalya beat Alicia Fox via submission. Hornswoggle introduced the match. Sadly, the crowd was dead, but the women tried hard. They had a decent match, which Natalya won with The Sharpshooter (huge pop for the finish).

Sheamus cut a promo on the big screens to set up the last match later in the night.

Mark Henry was out next and the crowd loved him, but the kids loved Khali.

(4) Mark Henry beat Great Khali. I feel bad for Khali, as he can barely move and looks so bad in-person. Henry won with World's Strongest Slam. Nothing match, but Henry is just awesome in every way.

Next was a No DQ match between Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger. Dutch Mantell (Zeb Colter) came out with Swagger, but he was sent to the back due to a Twitter Poll following a fun little promo, getting the city name wrong, etc. Del Rio played Matador with Swagger and his flag, which the kids loved. Huge pop for Ricardo and everyone "spoke along" with him for Del Rio's entrance. Swagger is huge in-person!

(5) Alberto Del Rio beat Jack Swagger via submission in a No DQ match. This was great. Better than their matches on TV, that's for sure, and the crowd loved Del Rio throughout. There were lots of kendo shots, etc. Del Rio went through a table in the corner, but took the win with the Cross Arm-breaker.

[Intermission]

Wade Barrett vs. Justin Gabriel for the IC Belt brought us back from the intermission. Most people were still not back in their seats, but Barrett still got a huge pop for his entrance. Not a lot of love for Gabriel, but some liked him.

(6) IC champion Wade Barrett beat Justin Gabriel to retain the Intercontinental Title. Barrett won with the Bullhammer. I don't remember anything more than that, but it wasn't insulting to the eyeballs or anything.

(7) Randy Orton beat Big Show. Huge pop for Show; HUGE pop for Orton. He was loved. Lots of stalling from Show at the start, which drew good heat. They had a good, basic match. Good finishing sequence: draping DDT off the top rope, kick out, chokeslam, kick out, RKO, pin for Orton. Lot of heat for this. Orton went around ringside following the match to massive cheers.

The Main Event was next. New Age Outlaws were just fantastic live. All of the older fans were chanting along, while the kids were just waiting for Sheamus. Huge pop for the Big Fella. The Shield came out to huge heat from the kids, but big love from everyone else. They were the only reason we went after seeing the announced line-up. But, it was an extremely disappointing "match" that lasted about five minutes...

(8) Sheamus & The New Age Outlaws beat The Shield via DQ in a six-man tag match. Billy Gunn did not tag in at all, and Road Dogg got beat down. Hot tag to Sheamus, then Shield used a chair for the DQ. The end. We left immediately to beat the crowd, but I understand Sheamus hit Brogue Kicks on everyone to make the kids happy.

Overall, it wasn't a bad show, but I'm not sure we would go to a Smackdown show again. They announced a return date for November. Hopefully that will be Raw.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to contact me at my e-mail address - matthew_wyatt2002@yahoo.co.uk - for more information.

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

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