Report by Dan Graulich, Ed Simpson & F4WOnline.com:
WWE Smackdown at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland Maine 6/26/10
1. Christian beat Dolph Ziggler with the Killswitch
2. JTG beat Tyler Reks in less than a minute
Tiffany came out and asked a trivia question & the winner would get to be the guest bell ringer for the next match she asked what the next PPV was and the kid correctly answered Money In The Bank
3. Alberto Del Rios beat Finlay with his feet on the ropes
4. The Hart Dynasty w/Natalya beat Curt Hawkins & Vance Archer- DH Smith made Hawkins tapout to the Sharpshooter after the match the Straight Edge Society laid out the Dynasty & Natalya Kane came out for the save & hit a double chokeslam on Gallows & the masked man
5. Layla beat Kelly Kelly- strange finish Kelly apparently got hurt taking a bump the ref called for the bell declared Layla the winner & threw up the X sign as a couple of trainers were checking Kelly, Hornswoggle came out & gave Layla a stunner. Kelly seemed to be holding her shoulder as she was helped to the back
6. Kofi Kingston beat Cody Rhodes & Matt Hardy- Kofi pinned Cody with the trouble in paradise
7. Rey Misterio beat Jack Swagger with the 619 & springboard splash
The show lasted exactly 2 hours including a 15 minute intermission
Ed Simpson
Tonight’s show had about 3500 in attendance. Crowd was decent, lots of noise at times, but quiet at others.
Show opened with Christian over Dolph Ziggler with the killswitch in an excellent match of about 6 minutes. Ziggler did some good mic work before the match, thanking all of his Dolph fans (which he pronounced Dol-fins, like the football team, which got some heat since this is Patriot country and the Dolphins are rivals) and there must not be any peeps in the house, which got a big cheer for Christian. They traded near falls and finisher attempts. Christian tried the killswitch a couple of times. Dolph tried a sleeper, but Christian got to the ropes. Dolph tried the zig-zag, but Christian held on to the ropes, then hit Ziggler with the European uppercut from the second rope. Then he hit the killswitch for the win.
JTG beat Tyler Reks in about 30 seconds. Not even sure why they bothered. Reks attacked JTG at the bell for about 20 seconds, then JTG hit Reks with that spinning clothesline finisher he has for the pin.
Dos Caras Jr. aka Alberto Del Rios pinned Finlay with some assistance from the ropes in about 5 minutes. Decent for what it was. Del Rios did his promo in Spanish, then made fun of the Americans not understanding them and then ripped on the US Soccer team that lost today to Ghana in the World Cup (too bad Kofi wasn’t a heel, he could have gotten some good heat out of that one). Pay no attention to the fact that Mexico couldn’t get out of the first round of the same tournament. Del Rios has some decent size and ok charisma. His in ring is okay as well. Finlay is a good choice to work with him.
Hart Dynasty beat The Dueling Black Holes of Charisma, Vance Archer and Curt Hawkins in about 10 minutes. Natalya slapped Hawkins in the face before the match started. Early on Smith almost lost Hawkins right at the beginning of the long vertical suplex spot before Hawkins kicked his legs up to get him over and to the mat. They were beating down Kidd for a while and did a great job of teasing the hot tag a couple of times, but were unsuccessful and Kidd was beat down for a couple more minutes each time (instead of going right back to the hot tag as they usually do on TV). Finally Kidd got the hot tag to Smith and he cleaned house. Finish was Smith putting Hawkins in the sharpshooter for the submission.
After the match, the Straight Edge Society of Gallows, Serena and Joey Mercury run in and beat down the Hart Dynasty, complete with a full nelson tree slam on Kidd by Gallows. Gallows gets on the mic and swears revenge on Kane for what happened "last night". Kane’s music plays and he gets a big pop. Hawkins tried to attack him and got a Kane punch for his trouble. Then Mercury and Gallows start to beat Kane down, but Kane makes a comeback and is about to choke slam Gallows when Mercury comes off the top rope and is goozled as well. Double choke slam and Kane leaves the ring.
Intermission
Continued on page two …
Layla defends Women’s title vs Kelly Kelly. Layla sprays the ring with some sort of disinfectant (smelled like Lysol) before the match started. By the way, it sure makes sense to have the two worst women’s wrestlers work with each other. This was 87 shades of awful. Until the end. Layla did a drop kick to Kelly’s back while she was sitting on the mat and Kelly crumbled. The ref got down on his knees and talked to Kelly and even Layla stopped working the match while this happened. Ref gives the dreaded X symbol and people are coming out to ringside to help her. The ref has the bell rung and they announce Kelly can’t continue and Layla is the winner. Kelly did a solid job of selling and we bought it as a legitimate injury at this point. Until Kelly is taken out of the ring and Hornswoggle comes in to argue with Layla and Hornswoggle ends up laying her out.
Three way for the IC title, Kofi Kingston (champ) vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Matt Hardy. Before the match, Rhodes gets on the mic and talks about some fictitious poll on WWE.com that had the Divas vote him the handsomest man in the WWE, so now he wants to be known as "Dashing" Cody Rhodes. Um, yeah, that’s a winner gimmick. You could hear crickets chirp in the arena after that one. Match starts off with Rhodes trying to cut deals with both Hardy and Kofi to take out the other. Both attempts fail, but Hardy and Kofi agree to work together on Rhodes. They get Rhodes up for a double suplex and I’m not really sure what went wrong, but they seemed to be too close to the ropes to do it and they couldn’t get on the same page about what to do and they all collapsed in a heap in the ropes with Cody landing on his head. Cody rolled out of the ring and talked with the ref and everything seemed to be okay. In the meantime, Hardy, thinking fast, schoolboyed Kofi for a near fall. After that it was the typical three way where one guy ends up out of the ring and the other two work. Finish was Rhodes turning around and getting hit with the Trouble in Paradise and pinned after Rhodes low bridged Hardy and let him fly over the top rope.
World Heavyweight Championship match, Rey Mysterio defeated Jack Swagger with his 4th attempt at a 619 and the springboard splash in a mediocre match. A lot of back and forth with Rey climbing the ropes early and Swagger knocking his legs out and Rey was hung in the tree of woe. Swagger took over and tried the running Vader splash out of the corner, but Rey got his knees up. Rey with multiple 619 attempts, which got pops every time, but Swagger would either roll out of the ring or get up and shoulderblock
We were disappointed with no Show, Punk or McIntyre (yeah, we were probably the only ones missing McIntyre, but one of his first house shows was last year’s event here in Portland).
Top Pops: Mysterio, Kane, Kofi, Hart Dynasty
Top Heels: SES, Ziggler, Del Rios
Dan Graulich
Shapleigh, ME
