SmackDown! Hit List (19-08-11)

OKAY! Tuning into Friday Night SmackDown! The first SmackDown! hot off the heels of SummerSlam, Randy Orton is new World Heavyweight Champion and my boy, one of my fave five Cody Rhodes defeated Ezekiel Jackson the week prior to become Intercontinental Champion.

*SmackDown! HITS*

- Cody Rhodes: retained the Intercontinental Championship against Ezekiel Jackson. The good news is that one of my fave five is STILL Champion! Oh YEAH! As I've said before, I see big things in Cody Rhodes future.

- Justin Gabrielle: Pretty sure that Gabrielle is getting a slight push as that's twice now by my count we've seen the footage of him wrestling in South Africa. He defeated Tyson Kidd on SmackDown! with a 450 splash and the match was pretty good. If only there was some story behind it. Tyson Kidd also needs something going for him. The chemistry was good in this bout, Gabrielle seemed in this one a combination of the syles of Rob Van Dam and AJ Styles. I think he might be one to watch.

- Alberto Del Rio vs Daniel Bryan: Despite the lack of charisma shown by Daniel Bryan on the mic before this bout, the match itself was excellent. Two guys that actually know how to wrestle. Alberto seemed to be dominating the first half of the match with various holds and manuevers working on the arm of Daniel Bryan, including a jumping armbreaker off the top rope. Bryan made a comeback with some hard strikes in the latter part of the match and that TIGER KNEE move that he's been doing lately, absolutely love it /-)

Daniel Bryan hits the Tiger Knee on Alberto Del Rio

There was a nice "BOO!"/"YEAH!" spot with the two exchanging blows. Missile dropkick from Bryan off the top rope and a beutiful German Suplex from Alberto. Bryan had a front facelock choke on Alberto, who rammed him into the corner and hit Bryan with a suplex out of the corner, flipped over and locked in his finishing submission hold. Bryan taps out. 5 STAR MATCH! Sin Cara made the save from Bryan as Alberto was about to feast on Bryan for a post-match beatdown.

- Mark Henry: The 20 man battle royale to determine the next contender for Randy Orton's World Heavyweight Championship ended after Mark Henry eliminated Sin Cara. Henry spent a bit of time on the outside after not going over the top rope, decimating opponents through the ringside environment. I think the gradual push that Henry has received has been near perfect. After over a decade of watching Mark Henry, this is probably the first time i'm watching and thinking, "Hmm.. I actually give a shit about what this guy is doing!".  Despite Henry's impressive couple of months, I'm still banking on Randy Orton to retain the World Heavyweight Championship against him in the near future. Atleast for the first match. This kind of makes me beg the question, What's next for Captain Charisma?

*SmackDown! MISSES*

- Daniel Bryan: If I was running SmackDown! I would keep the microphone as far away from Daniel Bryan as possible. After Alberto Del Rio cuts a promo on SmackDown he throws out an open challenge of sorts and I credit Daniel Bryan for showing up and talking. But that doesn't mean what he said was entertaining. He has to be one of the worst guys on the roster to give a microphone, barring The Great Khali (who, even when speaking Punjabi, a language I can grasp, I still don't understand). However, in the ring, Bryan is THE shit. The intensity he has in the ring is lacking on the mic, which isn't a bad thing, but the writers need to recognise & stick him back in the promo oven.

Other News:

- From The Vault featured a match on SmackDown between Dolph Ziggler & R-Truth which I couldn't care less about so i'm going to go for a piss and then a cigarrette.
- WWE are still advertising the media event for SummerSlam and the B a Star initiative.

What did you guys think of this week's SmackDown! Did I miss anything? Leave your thoughts, comments and observations in the comments section below /-)