It’s our first Smackdown back after WrestleMania 28! We wrapped our Celebration of Professional Wrestling 2012. Be sure to click that link to check out any of the fantastic podcasts and articles we saw during our marathon.

But things changed in some massive ways on RAW to kick off the unofficial start of the new “season” of the WWE. John Laurinitaus took over the reigns of Smackdown from Theodore Long, for example. Jack “The San Jose Shark” Swagger debuted his new look and showed distention with Dolph Ziggler. John Cena questioned his inner being. Brodus finally got elevated. The Rock made allusions to being World Champion one more time. Some oddly familiar, non-Asian looking guy debuted. Oh yeah… and….

I watch, write, suffer, and succumb to this show, yet have to remind myself of what happened only minutes after each episode. That is how G’s Smackdown reviews work. This is not a play-by-play recap, there’s enough of those online. This is a highly-opinionated take of the show in question.

– The show starts with a graphic for Chief Jay Strongbow, who passed away this week.

– Cut to WrestleMania clips/pics telling us the Johnny Ace era begins tonight. Cue David Otunga wearing some bizarre looking red jacket/cape/thing. He introduces our new GM. Micheal Cole swoons over the change. John hits the ring, and says hi to Booker, and talks about his “People Power” buzz word. And goes on asks Teddy Long to come out. People in the crowd are Thuggin’ and Buggin’. Not Theodore though, as the crowd breaks out into a “Teddy… Teddy…” chant. Teddy tells John that “Being out of a job has one benefit. It gives me the freedom to tell you to go to hell!” But what is done, is done, and he will deal with the results. Long notes he could not walk away from Smackdown, the greatest job he has had in his life without thanking the WWE Universe, and hopes they/we have had fun watching… and asks for one more “Holla, holla, holla!” The crowd obliges. Teddy goes to leave, but John cuts the music. John wants to offer him a job, and notes that a college fund in place for Teddy’s Grand-children is in control of whoever holds the title as SD GM. Blackmailed, Teddy is forced to take the job and admit John is better than he. Teddy heads to the back, but we’re not told what this new job is…

WWE Creative: “Ok, here’s what we’re thinking. We squash Bryan at the start of the show and fail to attempt and try and set a new title loss time-wise. See, the crowd will be happy the two just made the PPV this year, and won’t mind a bit. It will put a pleasant taste in every fan’s mouths as we kick off the most significant wrestling event of the year.

– More WM pic clip packages.

– * Handicap Match: Mark Henry and David Otunga vs. R Truth. While this was announced at first as a straight up single match, Otunga “Grima Wormtongue’d” into John’s ear to make it a Handicap Match. Jimmy talks to Little Jimmy, amused as Otunga and Henry argue over who faces Truth first. Booker-T is overtly excited about Truth here… Truth manages to fend off Otunga, but Henry comes in and dominates. A cut to backstage where we see “AW” aka Abraham Washington watching the action. After a quick tag, Otunga comes in to finish off the crushed R Truth. Otunga/Henry win! The red pyro explodes, and The Big Red Welder makes his way out to the ring for his WM rematch…

G @Charles Barkley: “Hey Barks! Did you hear about the big returning wrestler from the UFC?”

Charles Barkley @G: “Ken Shamrock’s back! Sweet! I’M GONNA SNAP!”

– * No DQ Match: Randy Orton vs. Kane. It’s a good thing the WWE listened to the audience and gave the WrestleMania rematch everyone wanted to see. All those people chanting “PUNT! PUNT! PUNT!” and “RANDY ORTON, clap clap, clap, clap, clap” Right? Meh. Already I fall asleep. Most of this match is spent outside the ring, tossing each other into barriers, steps, tables, etc. Nothing too dangerous, but that’s fine. They make their way to the top of the entrance ramp, and both tease falling off the edge… Orton slams Kane into the metal grating floor as we go to commercial break…

YES! YES! YES! About fucking time we got a new simple chant. The crowd on RAW replaced “What?” on Monday. Let’s keep this going folks!

– We return, and it seems that they must be selling referee shirts now… there are tons of them in the audience. Kind of confusing to see… Both men have teleported back into the ring, and Kane is exposing himself to one of the turnbuckles. Kane takes liberties on Orton with the buckle and gets a two count on the pin. We’re shown a fucking awesome DDT on the steel grating that we missed during the break. Orton crotches Kane on a failed top rope spot, three clotheslines to take him down, and attempts his dangling draped DDT. NO! Back to the outside they go…

Wait, gif’s MID MATCH? Yep… Thanks Patman!

…and Kane eats ring barrier fence, and is clotheslined over the barricade afterwards. Big boot to Orton, and Kane takes the time to toss three chairs into the ring, and rolls Orton into it. Bad move, Mr. Welder. Orton recovers, uses one chair on Kane, draped DDT onto another… PIN ATTEMPT? NO! NO! NO! RKO counter, chair shots to Orton… pin? NO! Chokeslam attempt reversal into an RKO. Orton gets the pin, AND THE WIN! Surprisingly a better match than I expected.

G @Charles Barkley: “No man, think a bigger and more muscled returning wrestler…”

Charles Barkley @G: “My buddy Shaq? I heard he was at that WrestleFest, fighting against the Andreas Los Giantous?”

– MORE WM 28 PICTURE CLIP PACKAGES. This one reminds us of the Sheamus burial of Daniel Bryan. Meh… Micheal Cole puts over the fact that Daniel Bryan wasn’t ready, while Booker-T disagrees. Then we cut over to the RAW meeting of Del Rio and Sheamus on the show, including the parts where Del Rio’s microphone cuts out multiple times.

The WWE inadvertently started something epic….

– Some new dude named Barry Stevens? and he gets microphone time. Then they cut to the back where all the NXT people are asking who the fuck that is. Sabin calls the audience the rudest people on Earth… cut to another return. Yup, it’s that dude from Nexus Skip Sheffield. Don’t remember him? He was that guy who got injured very early into that factions run.

– * The Ryback vs. Barry Stevens. It’s a total squash as the NXT people look on enjoying the murder by Ryback. But since his name isn’t Brock, no fucks are given by the crowd as he wins.

– Daniel Bryan and AJ are seen walking backstage, presumably to the ring where… ok, this was spoiled for me. Let’s just say a complete fucktarded move by the WWE if you ask me.

G @Charles Barkley: “Ok, first off, that’s not Spanish. Second it’s called Wrestle…. ahh screw it, Bobby Lashley’s back.”

Charles Barkley @G: “Stupid honkey Lesnar’s back. I knew that, what, just because I play dumb on television, you think I’m stupid? And your YES! Meme is almost a week old… hack! You stole most of these images from Reddit and that Cheeseburger site.”

G @Charles Barkley: “Troll. Say hi to the Krispy Kreme staff for me. How’s the Weight Watcher Diet working out for you?”

– EVEN MORE WM28 CLIP PACKAGES!

– Bryan and AJ walk out as the crowd does the YES! chant. Not as enthusiastic as the RAW crowd, but still impossible to ignore. Bryan says the only good thing about this week was he had time to think. After everything looked so good…. Bryan goes silent. AJ tells him he is a great wrestler, and a great person… and that she’s not the only person who thinks that, the crowd immediately chants YES! YES! YES! and then Daniel Bryan echos through the arena! AJ consoles him, saying we’re all here to support him. Daniel questions being supported…. and they chant more. Bryan thinks they are mocking him, because if they were, why did they chant “YES!” for the Rock? Calls the people sheep, and blames AJ for losing the title. Bryan screams at her about his reign and 18 seconds is all it took to flush it down the toilet because AJ HAD to have that kiss… The crowd begins chanting “18 seconds” as Bryan calls that “The Kiss of Death.” Bryan will not let her rewrite the story and make him the bad guy and it’s her fault. While Bryan cuts a fantastic scene with AJ while dumping her in the ring (and it’s great). It’s over. WAY TOO QUICKLY. I’m going to miss our brief resurgence of the Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. Best thing in wrestling in a while, GONE. OVER. DONE. The crowd is cheering for Brian dumping her too, as they sing the “Na na na, goodbye song.” Ok, that makes me laugh, and my mood is improved. True, it is fucked up that the crowd is booing the heel here, but we know better, don’t we smarks? They just barely tip-toed around that one, huh?

“Please don’t trip, please don’t trip… baby steps, baby steps…”

– Cody Rhodes joins commentary because… Heath Slater is about to die.

– * Non-Title Match: The Big Show {C} vs. Heath Slater. Our new I.C. champ has now held every active title (and a couple retired ones, to boot) in WWE/WCW history. Appropriately, An Embarrassing Cody Rhodes Video airs while Heath Slater makes his way out. Sas-SQUASH, Chokeslam, pin. Show stands tall as Cody goes to enter the ring… Show chases him away. Rhodes walks away all angry… So Show, like a good face, grabs Slater and delivers an unnecessary WMD punch on the perennial jobber.

– RAW clips of Jericho sharing a couple drinks with CM Punk.

A rematch is coming, and Jericho WILL go over in this one. Cage match for the rubber match. I predicted the Rock would win at Mania, and everyone on our official prediction show laughed, and laughed… The G knows things…. and he explained them on our postgame show.

– The Bellas are pandering to Johnny Ace, then Sheamus enters. Johnny wants Sheamus to embrace “People Power.” Sheamus asks, “What does that even mean?” Something tells me, we’ll never know. John wants a professional out of Sheamus. The champ promises that he will only kick off people’s heads who deserve it, like a bully boyfriend, a pompous playboy, or like his cousin back home who bossed around everyone because he owned the local mill, drawing obvious parallels to the new GM of Smackdown. Funny, I guess.

I’ve only just put on my gloating, bitter, angry, and delusional pants. Actually, it’s messed up that one of the dancing things has a shirt, but no pants, while the other is the opposite. I suppose as a team, they have a full set of clothes.

– EVEN MORE WM28 Video packages.

– * Non-Title Match: Beth Phoenix {C} vs. Nikki Bella. Then Kelly Kelly’s music hits as our match begins. She watches at ringside, thankfully not joining the commentary team. Phoenix goes into kill mode on the waste of a contract, Nikki. But because the WWE hates us, Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly distracts Beth, who runs into a steel ring post, then eats X-Pac’s old finisher for the loss. Your winner? No one who likes wrestling and Nikki Bella.

– We get a classy clip package for Chief Jay Strongbow. Excellent and well done. R.I.P.

– Damien Sandow (formerly known as Aaron “The Idol” Stevens in the WWE) cuts an old school intro segment video with his big black crazy homeless man beard. He cites Marshall Marshall McLuhan, Canadian and father of Communication Studies, talking about the use of entertainment sociologically in empires’ history, and takes subtle jabs at Zack Ryder. He is awesome, actually. And his rant is a promise to alleviate the ignorance of the significance of modern culture among the peons and harbringers of the WWE Universe. Nice, I love the educated pompous ass gimmicks!

– We get a bunch of clips from RAW with Cena complaining about losing to the Rock…

Duh. Clever. Little known fact, Ray Charles WOULD have seen him (outside of being dead).

– You know what’s coming… Cena calls out the Rock at the end of the show to be congratulated by a humbled Cena… and the laser sights are placed….

So is this called the “Attitude Modification” now? Just curious. Notice how Cena’s shirt kind of looks like the Boston Celtics logo? Just a wee bit? Hmmm….

– Next week on RAW, we are told we get the three stars of The Three Stooges as guest hosts in another raping by Hollywood of a classic. Why? Because there are no new ideas. (see Marshall McLuhan). If he was around in the Twitter era, the hashtag would be GlobalVillage. Or would the Global Village be the “#”? I think maybe 2 people saw what I did there. Consult the subtitle of this review.

– We get an ad for Smackdown next week, it’s a “Blast From The Past” LIVE next Tuesday! It’s going to be like the Old School RAW, but Smackdown instead. But I will likely not be reviewing this as I will be defending my NHL Playoff Pool Championship from last year where I loaded up with Boston and Vancouver players and completely destroyed all comers and took all their money. Naturally, I have to defend my title.

ThinkSoJoE just told me that he will cover it…

– * Non-Title Match: Sheamus {C} vs. Alberto Del Rio. Things pace slow, to medium, to heavy. Very typical, but enjoyable format for a nice match. I watched much of this forgetting about the keyboard in front of me. Nice spots included Del Rio playing a psychological game with Ricardo Rodriguez cheering him on. Del Rio comes across as methodical, while Sheamus will not die (fuck you Some Internet Guy, hows the continuance treating you?). Del Rio will have none of this, and rolls around, Rodriguez provides a distraction while a chair is placed into the ring. Del Rio hits the Guerrero spot, feigning being out as Sheamus goes to remove the chair, only to be DQ’d! YOUR WINNER, ALBERTO DEL RIO! The two heels emote heavily, and the palest 18-second winning champion decides to kill the referee out of frustration as…

The WWE logo comes up, and I’m out.

I criticize because I care. I did enjoy the show. I wouldn’t watch if I didn’t love this shit.

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This Smackdown Review Appears on Two Sites!

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A break down of various professional wrestling programs and events from the eyes of the smarky fan! I highly recommend checking out the BWF!

The official home of Wonderpod, and an assortment of content ranging from all things wide and far… depending on what the author’s feel like writing about. A home for reviews, commentary, pop culture, and fiction just to start. Always worth a look.

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Shameless Plugs!

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The Cultural Revolution (TCR Comix)
Al Creed’s comics dominate tongue and cheek humour here.

Wonderpod
A weekly podcast about the world of video games, from player experiences to current events in the industry, Bruce McGee, Pat Man, Glasenator, Jonkind and/or Gun Sage provide insight into the medium for any gamer (whether casual or “pro”). Clicking the jump will take you to the iTunes page!

LarG Productions
An online music production project, free tunes spanning many genres… check it out!

Thinksobrain
ThinkSoJoE’s band, who is also the boss over at Bored Wrestling Fan. For those digging some sweet metal influenced, intriguing tunes… you really need to grab yourself an earfull.