Boston Massachusetts

Hello to all wrestling fans, we are just nine days away from WrestleMania XXX and despite the dismay from some fans I am totally excited. WrestleMania is always entertaining. You may not get what you want but it never fails to be entertaining. I suggest surrounding yourself with like minded wrestling fans and make a night of it. It’s the one night of the year where even non wrestling fans jump onboard for four hours let themselves believe in the magic that is pro wrestling. The card may not be the strongest we have seen but I am sure every Superstar will give their all in the ring that night.

Tonight’s episode of Smackdown kicks off with a match that I am sure nobody wanted to see again.

Damien Sandow vs Sin Cara

Damien Sandow gets another jobbers entrance against Sin Cara and this match does not do anything to help Sandow’s reputation any more than the last one. This match is about a minute long before Sin Cara manages to roll up Sandow for the win. Like I said on last week’s review Sandow seems to be in the dog house at the moment. He has lost his robes, his entrance and his voice and not I am not really sure why. I hope this is nothing more than a temporary thing.

Big Show tells Renee Young backstage that he is ready for his match with Bray Wyatt tonight. He tells Renee that Bray has a giant problem on his hands.

Drew Mcintyre and Jinder Mahal 3MB vs The Shield  Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose 

Rollins and Ambrose make light work of 3MB members Jinder Mahal and Drew Mcintyre. Rollins finishes the match by hitting Mcintyre with his front DDT The Dirty Deed. After the match Kane and the New Age Outlaws make their way to the ramp and announce that The Shield have another match. Rybaxel make their way to the ring.

Rybaxel vs Rollins and Ambrose 

The Shield continue their form from the previous match and quickly defeat Rybaxel.  Rollins looked very impressive in this match and manages to pick up the win after delivering the stomp to the back of the head on Axel.  After the match they deliver the three man Powerbomb to Ryback.

Batista makes his way to the ring and tells the WWE Universe that he cannot understand why the fans are booing him when they have been asking him to return to the WWE for years.  Triple H makes his way to the ring and tells Batista that since he has retuned he has not seen the Animal that Batista claims to be. Triple H tells Batista that tonight he will get the chance to show how much of an animal he still is by fighting somebody who is hungry for success the Celtic Warrior Sheamus.

Fandango vs Goldust

Average match nothing really special to talk about. Fandango manages to roll Goldust up for the win after Summer Rae distracts Goldust on the outside.

Batista vs Sheamus 

Batista struggles to compete with the strength and power of Sheamus and resorts to getting disqualified when he attacks Sheamus with a chair on the outside. He then drags Sheamus back to the ring and delivers the Batista Bomb.  Before leaving the ring he grabs the microphone one last time and tells the WWE Universe that he will be leaving Wrestle Mania 30 victorious.

After the match we get another good promo from Bray Wyatt directed at John Cena.

The Bella Twins vs AJ Lee and Tamina w Vickie Guerrero on commentary 

AJ loses to the Bella’s yet again after the split between AJ and Tamina continues to grow. Tamina and AJ have another match of miscommunication that ends in Tamina tossing AJ into the ring and AJ unfortunately receives the Bella Buster from Brie who picks up the win. This was a typical Diva match, nothing special to report back.

Backstage segment: Santino attempts to tell Emma how he feels about her over dinner but cannot manage to get the words out. Instead he ends up vomiting from the nerves.  Emma continues to act like she has no idea that he likes her. Funny little segment but would much prefer to see her in the ring.

Jack Swagger vs Jimmy Uso

Another average match but I was a little surprised at the ending. Swagger counters a charge from Jimmy by taking out one of his legs with a shoulder barge. Jimmy sells the attack to the leg like crazy. Swagger grabs the newly injured leg and slaps on the Patriot Lock. Jimmy taps out and Swagger wins cleanly by submission. I had no problem with the finish in fact I thought it was a good idea  to give Swagger a win as the focus has been too much on Cesaro over the last few months. It’s important to keep him looking strong at least until The Real Americans eventually split and have their match.

Mark Henry vs The Miz 

It was hard to get excited about this match mainly because The Miz was in it. I was thinking that somehow they were going to let The Miz pick up the win to prove he is ready for his battle royal match at WrestleMania. Although he didn’t get the win he did manage to throw Henry over the top rope to prove he is more than capable of doing it. That was as good as it got for The Miz tonight . Mark Henry quickly regains control of the match and delivers The World’s Strongest Slam for the win.

The Big Show vs Bray Wyatt accompanied by Harper and Rowan

The Big Show dominates the majority of the match overpowering Bray at every chance. Bray manages to eventually take The Big Show off of his feet and Harper attacks The Big Show from the outside when the referee is distracted by Rowan on the other side of the ring. Bray then manages to finish of the The Big Show with Sister Abigail’s Kiss for the win. This was a very short five minute match for the main event. I was expecting a little more shenanigans from the Wyatt’s on the outside. The reason for the match was to keep Bray looking strong for his match against Cena. I think it partly achieved this but suffered due to the short length of the match.

This was another average episode in my opinion, which is a surprise considering we are so close to WM30. We have one more episode of Raw and Smackdown before Mania and apart from the Daniel Bryan story and the Cena story I don’t think much effort has been put into building anything else up. Like I said earlier I don’t think this will take anything away from the quality of the matches but it does affect the traditional build up to their biggest event on the calendar. The Undertaker v Brock Lesnar match could be a classic but so far they have not even mentioned the fact that Brock has beaten Undertaker twice before which I feel would add real heat to the match and a potential threat to the streak. I presume the WWE has a lot on their plate at the moment and they are probably more worried about potential server issues for broadcasting WrestleMania over the WWE Network rather than promoting a match for the Tag Team Titles, but I do hope next week they pull their finger out and start tightening up some of these storylines a little bit more so everybody can get excited about these upcoming matches.

– By Sebastian Bowen