Wade Keller, Torch Editor (6.0)

The Edge promo and the Matt Hardy promo were the highpoints of the show. The matches weren't anything special, but at least each had some meaning as qualifying matches for the Elimination Chamber matches. I still argue that WWE is giving away too many intriguing matches that don't last very long between marquee wrestlers - usually one established as a main eventer and another built up with main event potential - and the established main eventer beats them quickly and decisively, thus defining down these emerging wrestlers before they've had a chance to make money on the intrigue of how good they really are. In other words, I think they could have gotten a lot more out of Festus's first match against Big Show, but they treated him no differently than Jimmy Wang Yang's loss to Umaga. It's just needlessly inefficient to throw away these potentially intriguing matches by destroying the equity of months of building up someone new.

The MVP streak ending has been handled about as flat as a pancake so far. Even he indicated in interviews that something more was going to be made of the transition from loser to winner that make it all worthwhile, but a brief promo with Tazz after beating Kendrick doesn't qualify.

Jon Mezzera, PWTorch.com Contributor (2.0)

An abysmal Smackdown capped off an abysmal week of WWE TV, a week where TNA Impact was the best of the four prime time wrestling shows (when can you say that?). Matt Hardy’s delivery during his show opening promo was the only positive thing on the show. He delivered the promo very well. I didn’t like some of the scripting, and the videos that kept playing while he was talking were very annoying and unnecessary. But the promo on the whole was strong and Matt did a good job with it.

I got really tired of the multiple videos that we’ve seen multiple times already. There was the WrestleMania video, an Umaga video that we've seen on Smackdown several weeks in a row, the Elimination Chamber video, another Vladimir Kozlov video like the ones we've seen several weeks in a row on Smackdown, there was the WrestleMania 21 video for the third time this week, the "12 Rounds" Trailer, and the Raw Rebound. It was very annoying. I was also annoyed with the presence of Mark Henry on Smackdown. WWE expects us to take the brand split seriously on Tuesday when Matt Hardy asks for his release from ECW, but then totally ignores it on Friday when Henry wrestled Undertaker. Also, why would Vickie Guerrero put an ECW wrestler in a position to win a chance to win her show’s WWE Title and take it back to ECW? It makes no sense.

The other really bad part of the show was the main event, Triple H vs. Khali vs. Kozlov. It was a terrible match. It was slow and boring. Triple H can’t carry either of these two to a good match, and certainly not both at the same time. His Pedigree on Khali was the ugliest Pedigree in history. I can’t believe they showed a replay of it.

There were some decent matches (R-Truth vs. Kendrick, Undertaker vs. Henry, Guerrero vs. MVP), but none of them were particularly good. They didn’t take away from the quality of the show, but they certainly didn’t add to it either. I was glad to see MVP get another win and to get some mic time, but it just didn’t do much to resurrect his character after the long losing streak. In the end, after that opening promo, the show totally sucked.

Greg Parks, PWTorch.com Contributor (6.0)

Matt Hardy did about as well as could be expected. The story isn't strong but it's not bad. It was a bit over-dramatic at time with the music in the background (not sure why that was necessary....we don't see that any other time) and the only other thing I didn't like was him blaming the fans; it seemed like a throw-in attempt to turn the fans in case they didn't go for Matt as a heel. But for a guy who is notoriously below-average on promos, Matt delivered here.

R-Truth vs. Kendrick was fine, and at least it looks like they're building to something between these two, but something tells me it'll end in Truth vs. Ezekiel. Chavo vs. MVP didn't click for me and was a sub-part match from two usually good hands. Umaga looked good in his return, but I think Jimmy Wang Yang could even make me look good.

Taker vs. Mark Henry was fine, and I'm becoming more and more a fan of The World's Strongest Man. Edge's promo was fine and I feel the writers even stuck with a part they would've included had Christian returned at the Rumble and done his promo with Edge tonight....the five-second pose. Big Show vs. Festus wasn't much, neither was the main event. Not a banner night for in-ring action, but they had enough for a decent show.

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