By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

KELLER'S WWE SMACKDOWN TAKE
MAY 19, 2012
AIRED ON SYFY

-Quotebook - John Laurinaitis: “I know I asked for this match with John Cena, but... this Sunday it's like leading a lamb to slaughter. That's not fair. I'm approaching 40 years old and I'm not as flexible as I used to be. I mean, I can still bench press 250 pounds and I can also run a mile in six minutes, and I'm still as tough as I used to be, but that does not qualify me to compete against John Cena.”

-John Laurinaitis selling the strict stipulations was sorta funny. It accentuated the idea that Cena is going to destroy him on Sunday, which seemed to be the feeling they wanted viewers to have at the conclusion of Monday's show.

-Booker said that it was stupid to put himself in a match against Cena in the first place. Thankfully Josh Mathews was there to explain the obvious to him – that Laurinaitis had different plans for him until the Board eliminated his avenues to cheat. Did Booker really not grasp that?

-Quotebook – C.M. Punk to John Laurinaitis: “When it comes to Kane, I respect him, which is more than I can say for you.” (After all the awful things Kane has done, including to Paul Bearer recently, Punk says he respects him? I guess there's a maximum of a three-week memory we're supposed to have as viewers, or else “respect” in WWE means something very different than in the non-WWE world.)

-We're ten minutes into the show and Laurinaitis is still talking. The infatuation with Laurinaitis at this point is going overboard, even with his being in the main event on Sunday.

-Michael Cole's character remains a completely contradictory mess. He passionately defended Laurinaitis after Laurinaitis's meltdown at the end of the 12 minute segment. I don't say it every single week because it just feels redundant, but Cole being a heel commentator while also being the lead announcer for Raw is a stunningly bad decision by Vince McMahon. Pro wrestling absolutely needs a strong trusted moral straight man as the voice of the show setting the tone for how fans are expected to react to various personalities and angles, while also hard-selling viewers to buy PPVs. They need to pivot away from Cole's current character and slot, either by getting a new lead announcer or having Cole somehow shift back to what he used to be. I remain shocked at some of the decisions Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn, and Co. have made in recent years, decisions that if WCW had done them in the mid 1990s he would have laughed at their self-destructive consequences.

-Speaking of which, WWE aired the charity appearance by Alberto Del Rio and Mark Henry getting cheered by kids after their inspirational speeches at a B.A. Star rally. I cannot express in words how counter-productive this is to the bottom line and how utterly unnecessary. WWE works so hard to make us believe certain things – including Brock Lesnar punching Cena in the face and drawing hard-way blood – yet they are flippant about this, showing two opponents two days before a PPV smiling for a photo opp together. I am vehemently against this on so many levels, but if this airs, what WWE should do is go back to Josh at ringside and have him say this: “It may look like Del Rio was a good corporate citizen, but we have obtained footage from a parent's cell phone that shows he was anything but a chariable good guy once he thought the cameras were off.” Then air footage of a kid after the event approaching Del Rio for an autograph and Del Rio brushing him off rudely and ordering a body guard to get the kid and the parent out of his space. This would turn a huge negative for WWE – showing top heel Del Rio in a circumstance of his being a good guy being nice to kids – and flip it into a positive for selling tickets by portraying him as a jerk. How hard is that? The sad part is the corporate types who don't get wrestling wouldn't even think for a second this is necessary because, after all, “everyone knows it's fake,” but how do you explain Triple H, Vince, Dunn, Laurinaitis, and anyone else with a long history in this industry who should “get it” from allowing this to air? This video would be the equivalent of WWE showing Cena being a jerk to fans at some charity event. In other words, it would so against how they portray him and market him that it would hurt ticket sales. It works both ways. Heels should be marketed as being actual pricks, not just nice people who play arrogant jerks on TV.

-You gotta love Damien Sandow dressing in hot pink drunks and purple kneepads. His putting Yoshi Tatsu in a full nelson and slamming his head into the turnbuckle was vicious looking.

-Quotebook – Randy Orton to Sheamus: “I can win the World Championship without even beating the current World Champion. At the same time, I can't think of anyone in that match I'd like to beat more.” (How ridiculous does that sound? Orton saying he can become champion without beating the champion is just ludicrous sounding, yet WWE touts it like it's a selling point for the match as opposed to overwhelmingly being bad for the prestige of the title itself.)

-Quotebook – Randy Orton to Sheamus: “Unlike me, you are a nice guy, and we all know where nice guys finish.”

-When Punk put a figure-four leglock on Kane (as loosely applied as it was), it made me instantly nostalgic for when that was a move used as a finisher. Obviously Ric Flair is best known for it, but others used it over the years, and now it's fallen out of favor for the most part in the big companies. It seems like someone could incorporate it into their signature move set and have it seem fresh again.

-There were some good believable near falls in those closing minutes of the Punk-Kane match. It was good to see some extra mic time and an angle given to the Punk-Bryan match, which got short-changed on Raw on Monday. Bryan setting up Punk for a post-match attack with a chair by Kane, then cheering on from a safe distance the beatdown and chokeslam was good basic Booking 101 to give fans a reason to want to see Punk get revenge against Bryan on Sunday.

-I haven't seen anyone talk affectionately to a title belt like Santino did here since early-ECW's “Jason – The World's Sexiest Man” practically did it with his ECW TV Title belt.

-What's with the U.S. Champion and IC Champion battling twice this week? Has the brand split ever been less apparent than it is now? At least Josh called it “a rare match” between the two champions. It was nice to hear Josh bring up the history of the IC Title, too, dating back to 1979. These titles should be an asset headed into the three-hour Raw format.

-WWE Fact: Smackdown last Friday was the most watched regularly scheduled program for the 85th week in a row.

-Given how much attention they gave to the extended replay of the Big Show being fired by Laurinaitis, clearly he has to be involved in the PPV main event finish. Why should we take seriously Big Show's reaction to being fired when it's fake? I mean, if Del Rio and Henry are really good guys who hang out at charity events for kids with “on-air rival” Sheamus, why should we even take what happened to Big Show the least bit seriously? This type of inconsistent narrative really undercuts a wrestling viewer's ability to get fully absorbed and lost in the universe WWE creates.

-Booker T cliche watch: “They've both been going toe to toe and they have a lot left in the tank.”

-I question the decision to feature a long singles match between Orton and Sheamus. After the angle on Raw, I think one of the key selling points of the PPV was how those two would coexist or settle their score during the four-way. Now, they had a (good) long back and forth match, but the intrigue of seeing these two babyfaces who usually don't cross paths battle on Sunday has been removed, and if anything the novelty is gone and they've been overexposed against one another 48 hours before the match.

-If anyone thought Orton wasn't going to give Sheamus an RKO after their handshake, they should lose their status as a WWE fan.

-Are there any heels involved in that fatal four-way on Sunday? How could they do PPV hype and not have either heel in the four-way match on the show in any way? They barely talked about them. This was among the worst jobs hyping a World Title match for PPV I've ever seen. They overexpose Orton and Sheamus – the two babyfaces – and do zero to give fans any reason to believe Del Rio or Jericho are even in the hunt, much less put any heel on them. It's just astounding how off his game or distracted Vince McMahon seems sometimes, and how puzzling the writing team's booking is. I mean, this contradicts everything you'd learn on Day One of how to sell a wrestling match and make money in this industry. A token, predictable RKO by Orton on Sheamus at the end hardly makes up for everything else missing from hyping this match.

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