Squared Circle Blog 6-27-08

JR comes out to big pop after Vicky introduces him and he seems to be ready to go. I know that on Monday when his picture came up on the titantron , his jaw dropped to the floor like a cartoon anvil. It was widely reported that JR wasn’t happy at all and seriously thought of hanging it up. He wasn’t informed in advance, and in my mind breaking up him and Jerry Lawler may have been a big mistake.

HHH came out to huge pop and told JR that if there was anyone he would have brought over with him it would have been JR. HHH then started talking about the fans and how he was happy to be there when in reality he’s happy because his wife is about to have there second child and then come out on the road with smack down so he’ll be around to help her out.

Edge interrupted the Game and after a few minutes of marking their territory, Batista came out on ramp and while Edge distracted HHH thru him out of the ring and into a runaway spear from the Animal.

The first match of the night was a tag team encounter that pitted three of the wrestlers in Sundays three way dance for the ECW belt that was Kane , The Big Show and Mark Henry going after the title. Tonight has Mark Henry and MVP goes against Kane and Show. MVP has been jawing lately about his contract and has been actively seeking to switch shows. I for one was completely caught off guard when they didn’t move him to raw. During this evenings match, MVP was avoiding the Big Show so much that he tried to leave the ring and his own partner throw him back in the ring and right into a choke slam from Kane.

Finlay and Hornswoggle took on Rider and Hawkins in a tune up for Sundays encounter with the WWE tag team champions The Miz and John Morrison . Finlay himself was dominate over the two EDGE lackeys and it ended with the Tadpole Splash.

Backstage EDGE is whining to his future bride Vicki about Batista taking his belt and she tells him to focus on Matt Hardy and she assures him he will get his belt back.

Matt Hardy and EDGE went toe to toe with Hardy dominating EDGE early on . I for the life of me don’t get moving Matt Hardy to ECW when they moved Jeff To Smack down . You would have to upper card guys that have never been more popular, who could team up and dominate the tag team division , and as an added bonus you could have a sort of Cain and Abel type feud between the two of them. If the goal of this draft was to prop up Smackdown for their network switch , they really dropped the ball on this move. Anyway after a great match that went back and forth for a long time EDGE hit a spear and pinned Hardy.

After a music video type promo of brother Jeff its announced that Jeff’s debut will be next week. A have one great hope in this. Somewhere in the near future Jeff and The Undertaker will have a rematch of one of the greatest matches I have ever seen. The ladder match on Raw between The Under taker and Jeff Hardy was to this day one of the best regular TV matches of all time.

Mayrse , Natalya and Victoria take on Kelly Kelly ,Cherry and Michelle McCool in yet another audition match to find out who’s going to face Natalya for the new Smackdown womans belt. as I have said before , with the completion’s Knockout division getting serious pop , I’m glad to see that they are taking steps to upgrade the Divas. Mayrse caught Cherry for the win so it will be interesting to see who’s the other have of this fight is

Next in the chute , two OVW alumni square of with ones career on the rise , and the others in serious transition . Domino, former one half of the WWE tag tem champions pretty much has split from his partner Deuce and he went up against the Russian Vladimir Kozlov. Its strange that in a world of big entrances , Kozlov coming out to no music at all oddly works. He has a very menacing presence and the silence just adds to it. While Domino is on his own know and heade for some lean times ahead, he gave the big Russian his toughest test to date but in the end Kozlov prevailed.

Rey came out to say goodbye to the Smackdown fans and got his pop in. They have been talking about this move for awhile and while a like the move, I still cant help but think that if your loading up for the switch in networks, why not keep at least some of top tier guys.

The main event has Batista in his last match before he goes to RAW against the Samoan Bulldozer Umaga. The most interesting part of this is the internet story that the WWE is going to turn Umaga Baby face and let him work the mike. Batista had Umaga beat when EDGE and his Goons hit the ring . They wail on the Animal until the Game hit’s the ring and cleans house. The show closes with a Pedigree an a Batista Bomb to Hawkins and Rider.

With the creative problems they have had over the past few months I understand that this draft was necessary but there are thing about it I just don’t get. ECW was screwed losing what little they had and gaining something that I have no idea how they will use in Matt Hardy. Raw has defiantly been weakened losing it number one star and breaking up its number one announcing team. And in all this mess, where does the Undertaker fit.