WWE Smackdown Blog
March 15, 2013
Report by Michael Cupach, PWTorch contributor

Tonight’s commentary team is Michael Cole, Josh Mathews, and Brad Maddox. I don’t get it...

1 - SHEAMUS & RANDY ORTON vs. RHODES SCHOLARS

Damien Sandow cuts a promo calling out Vickie Guerrero’s managerial skills. Sandow starts to relate a story about an uncle of his, but Cody says that they don’t deserve to hear a great story like this. Cole made an offhand remark how Cody Rhodes had a crush on Kaitlyn, but now that the Bella Twins are back, it seems that he fancies them now. Sheamus played face in peril throughout the match, and Sandow and Cody looked impressive keeping Sheamus down. Orton got hot-tagged and surprised me by busting out a T-Bone suplex.

The finish came when Rhodes Scholars went two-on-one on Orton, Sheamus Brogue-Kicked Sandow out of the ring, and a RKO finished off Rhodes. Solid opener; Sheamus no-sold Rhodes Scholars's offense, which was a reminder of Undertaker circa 2000-2001. On commentary, Brad Maddox seemed to drop his inept gimmick as he made points that made sense and was passable on commentary. He did seem a little nervous when speaking, though, in my opinion.

Post-match, The Shield cut a promo on the Titantron listing their triumphs over Cena, The Rock, Miz, Ryback, Jericho, Sheamus, and every other big name in the WWE. The Shield then challenged Orton and Sheamus to a match at WrestleMania and told them to find a third man. The Shield continues to be fabulous when doing these shaky cam promos. They know their voice and character and it shows when they are on screen.

-Halle Berry and Kane shared a tete-a-tete over the phone. Usually I cringe when these little skits take place, but this was actually decent. I mean, it doesn’t make me want to see "The Call," but I enjoyed this.

-A vignette aired for the third straight week telling the audience that Fan-Don-Go is debuting tonight.

-Last Monday, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman challenged Triple H to a match at WrestleMania, but only if they get to name the stipulations. Rumor has it that it will be a Lion's Den Match or a Reverse Casket Match where both men start in a casket and the last man to get out of his casket wins (that’s a Michael Cupach original, please credit me when booking said match).

-Big Show wants to be the third man, but Sheamus and Orton have already chosen Ryback. Why does Ryback always look like he just got done at Fight Club? Aw man, I just broke the first rule of Fight Club... Anyways, he always has a black eye, a bruise on his face, or pink eye.

2 - Divas champion KAITLYN & LAYLA vs. TAMINA SNUKA & AKSANA

Kaitlyn and Layla are becoming quite the BFFs lately, but Layla has been costing Kaitlyn matches lately. The Funkadactyls are shown backstage watching the match on a monitor, and Cole calls them players in the Divas division. Aksana is very sloppy in the ring; I question if she should be in the ring. Kaitlyn was about to put Aksana away, but Layla tagged herself in and pinned Aksana after a springboard cross-body. Kaitlyn looked miffed.

-Backstage, The Funkadactyls and The Bellas get catty with each other. The Bellas end up jumping Brodus’s girls and leave them unconscious.

-Raw Rebound featuring The Undertaker’s tribute to Paul Bearer and Punk’s disrespectful interruption. They also show highlights of Punk’s match against Kane and the ending of Raw. I think WWE did a good job of showing restraint by not having Punk go too far when interrupting Taker’s tribute. They could have made things uncomfortable to watch, but I think what they did wasn’t in bad taste and I didn’t have a problem with this like I had a problem with what Punk did after Lawler came back.

3 - KANE vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER

Dolph’s briefcase has seen better days! It is dented, dinged, has paint chipped off of it, and Steve “Mongo” McMichael must be going nuts seeing how a Haliburton briefcase is being treated on national TV! Dolph controlled the majority of the match, A.J. looked good all of the match, and Daniel Bryan needs a haircut in the worst way. Outside the ring, Langston absolutely destroyed Daniel Bryan, Kane came to his aid, and Kane knocked Langston on his butt after a big boot. When Kane got back in the ring, Dolph put him away with a Zig-Zag.

Very good match between these two, Kane is another example of a guy who gets better with age. After the match, Big E. came in delivered his finisher to Kane. It just looks so lame.

-A new parody video by Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez was shown. This week's topic is borders. They pick on Canadians and this didn’t seem like a parody; if I never saw a Zeb Colter/Jack Swagger propaganda video, I would think that ADR and Rodriguez were serious.

-Backstage, Chris Jericho and R-Truth laugh at the video until Zeb and Jack interrupt and call Jericho a border-jumper. Jericho points out that he was born in America. Jericho also lets Jack know that he shouldn’t be worried about where he grew up and start worrying about WrestleMania and, more importantly, his match with Y2J tonight!

-Great Khali and Natalya are in the ring. They dance to Fandango’s music as it plays. Fandango then asks Khali to say his name, Khali butchers it, so Fandango won’t compete tonight and won’t compete until someone gets his name right.

-Rock vs. John Cena at WrestleMania is previewed. Every bad thing that happened in Cena’s life was a direct result of losing to The Rock last year, apparently. Am I the only one who thinks it would have been more effective if Cena lost more matches since last year? A loss to Lesnar, losing Money in the Bank, and losing to Punk would have made great talking points for Cena leading up to this match.

-Backstage, Sheamus and Orton tell Striker to watch the next match closely because he will see why they picked Ryback to help them beat The Shield and WrestleMania. The Shield then jump both men and destroy them. Awesome beat down from The Shield! They cut to a break and Booker T tells Ryback to focus on his match with Henry, as he will take care of his boys. That was an odd exchange.

4 - RYBACK vs. MARK HENRY

Both men have a test of strength, then The Shield runs in. Ryback disposes of The Shield and then goes back to facing off with Henry, but The Shield come back in and jump Ryback to finish him off. Henry re-enters the ring when they are done to pick up the pieces of Ryback, and he delivers the World’s Strong Slam to Ryback three times to officially induct him into the Hall of Pain!

5 - JACK SWAGGER vs. CHRIS JERICHO

Pretty intense match from these two and Swagger ended up getting a big win here. Swagger hasn’t exactly been taking on top-level talent and getting wins, so Jericho was the right opponent and a guy who can give Swagger a good match to look good in. I do feel bad for Jericho that he came back to WWE and isn’t doing much, as he doesn’t even have a match for WrestleMania and will probably be put in the YouTube match or a 10-man tag match. I thought he would be taking on Ziggler, but it looks like Dolph might be busy with the tag champions.

The finish came when Zeb got on the apron while Swagger was in the Walls of Jericho and distracted the referee and Jericho. Jericho almost put Jack away with a top rope crossbody, but Jack kicked out at 2.999999! Swagger got an opening after Y2J missed a Codebreaker, then Jack won with a gutwrench powerbomb to send Smackdown off the air until next week.

Thank you for reading. Make sure to check out my reviews of Main Event each and every week. Also follow me on Twitter @MJCupach where I tweet live during Raw and WWE PPVs. I am also a frequent guest on the FTWPodcast, go to FTWPodcast.com for more details!

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