By Chris Newth, PWTorch contributor

WWE Friday Night Smackdown
February 15, 2008
Upcoming PPV: No Way Out (last episode before PPV)

SMACKDOWN STORYLINES AND FEUDS

Welcome to the twenty-fourth edition of Smackdown Storylines and Feuds.

For those wondering about the Intrigue Level system that I employ, you can refer to the numbers as follows:

10 (excellent), 9 (great), 8-6 (very good, good, pretty good), 5 (decent; has its good and bad qualities), 4-3 (needs work, poor), 2 (bad), 1 (terrible)


World Heavyweight Champion EDGE & Smackdown GM VICKIE GUERRERO vs. REY MYSTERIO (7 weeks)

This feud analysis is going to include a pretty lengthy summary section because of the heavy narrative development in this week's episode. Although Mysterio is likely out of the picture entirely after his No Way Out loss last Sunday, WWE spent a lot of time expanding the Vickie-Edge relationship.

Things started out backstage when Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder approached Edge for some tips on their upcoming match. The World Heavyweight Champion responded by explaining that although he's always there for his Edge Heads, he needed some time to himself. The segment ended with a pensive Edge looking particularly nervous. Later in the show, Jan the make-up lady was beautifying Vickie, who seemed to be anticipating a potential proposal from Edge.

As Teddy Long wheeled Vickie in the back, the GM of Smackdown emotionally said, "I want to enjoy this moment forever. I mean, today's my special day." The segment began with violinists creating a romantic ambiance as the TitanTron set depicted red heart graphics. The ring was heavily decorated in red carpet, flowers, and balloons, while rose pedals littered the entrance ramp. "For the first time in my life, I'm actually nervous," Edge began. He said that he was the Rated-R Superstar, but that on this particular night, the "R" stood for "really really in love." When he called Vickie to the ring, she arrived with Teddy Long and a fully decorated wheelchair.

As soon as they got Vickie into the ring, Edge motioned for Long to take a hike. Joy overwhelmed Vickie as she awaited Edge's announcement. He began with a song, which touched Vickie's heart. He then said, "I thought that World Heavyweight Championship was the most important thing in the world to me, but I've found something that's more important." And with that, Edge fell to one knee and proposed. Vickie, who shifted her hands from her heart to her mouth, looked ecstatic. She immediately accepted, and the two lovebirds shared a passionate kiss. Someone should tell them that Smackdown GM weddings don't usually turn out so hot (all WWE weddings for that matter).

Then Mysterio crashed the party, much to the chagrin of Edge and his new fiancée. Rey described the segment as the most disgusting thing he's ever seen in his life. When he hoped that Vickie changes her name because she's a disgrace to the Guerrero family, Edge demanded that he get in the ring and apologize. Things quickly blew up, and Mysterio gave Edge a 619. As The Rated-R Superstar was getting up, Rey launched himself toward Edge using the top rope, but Edge moved out of the way, causing Mysterio to crash into Vickie. Her bright, feathery wheelchair tipped backward as she flew out of it. Edge checked on his soon-to-be bride, while Mysterio shrugged off the incident like he couldn't care less about Vickie's potential injuries.

It is clear that Mysterio isn't going to play any type of role in this feud heading into WrestleMania. Even if he were still injury-free, his participation would be shifted to the Mayweather-Show rivalry. So the focus here belongs on Vickie and Edge. Both of them did a great job last week. Vickie's disposition was convincingly joyous. She looked absolutely elated throughout the night. It was also impressive for her to involve herself in that concluding stunt.

Vickie's character is actually becoming humorously tragic; every time she expects something good to occur, something terrible happens. She's now found herself on the wrong end of Undertaker's Tombstone, Rey Mysterio's 619, and now a wheelchair topple. It's still pretty shocking to see these things happen, so as long as she's relatively safe, this can become an entertaining aspect of her character. At this rate, she's never going to be out of that wheelchair. She deserves a lot of credit for agreeing to some of these stunts.

As for Edge, he also played his role well. Some controversy may arise out of last week's events, especially if Michael Cole begins to speculate about how Edge knew Vickie was behind him when he decided to jump out of the way. His love for Vickie seems believable, yet there's still some remnant of doubt inherent in his actions and words that provokes suspicion. Their relationship has been the most developed storyline on Smackdown, and it does have a positive effect on Edge's future feuds.

What should you look for? Some reorganization between Vickie and Edge in their relationship and a shift in Edge's opponent from Rey Mysterio to The Undertaker

Intrigue Level (out of 10): n/a [his feud with Mysterio is likely over]

Previous Feuds
Edge: Kane, Batista
Vickie Guerrero: Undertaker, Batista
Rey Mysterio: Chavo Guerrero, Finlay, MVP

THE ROAD TO THE ELIMINATION CHAMBER (3 weeks)

Batista kicked off the show with a match against Montel Vontavious Porter. In the end The Animal was able to pick up the victory when he hit the Batista Bomb on MVP. After the match had ended, Porter approached Justin Roberts. He told Roberts to announce him as the man who is still United States Champion.

Also on the show, Undertaker once again faced Big Daddy V in singles competition. The match came to a close when Taker hit a legdrop, followed by a DDT for the clean win. As The Deadman left the ring, he turned around to see Matt Striker arguing with the still prone Big Daddy V. Taker grabbed Striker's leg and yanked him to ringside. He smashed Matt's head into the steel steps, threw him back into the ring, delivered a chokeslam, and applied his new submission finisher until Striker tapped and bled from the mouth.

The final match that featured Elimination Chamber combatants was Finlay versus The Great Khali. The Punjabi Nightmare nailed a double-armed chokeslam on Finlay, but Hornswoggle then entered the ring with shillelagh in hand. Hornswoggle swung the stick, hitting Khali in the back of the knee, which did little more than anger the giant. Khali took Hornswoggle by the clothes and shoved him to the mat, but The Fighting Irishman found the time to grab his own shillelagh and swing away. The shillelagh shots felled Khali, and Finlay made the cover for the 1-2-3.

Again, Elimination Chamber hype isn't meant to be effective for storylines. WWE and the announcers must focus on how all six men are going to vie for a chance at the World Heavyweight Title in a barbaric gimmick match. With that in mind, they did a great job using this time to conclude past feuds. The six participants in the Chamber were each set in one-on-one matches throughout the night.

Finlay got some revenge on Khali, which hopefully puts an end to that overextended rivalry. Also, Undertaker beat Big Daddy V, which likely concluded that particular storyline. And Batista, who has been opponent-less for a long time, was paired with MVP. This match was effective in that it propped Porter up in viewer perception; it's never a bad idea to show MVP in a competitive matchup against an inveterate main-eventer.

What should you look for? New opponents for Batista and MVP (or perhaps a feud between the two), something to reestablish Big Daddy V's heat, and a lot of new focus on Undertaker's feud with Edge

Intrigue Level (out of 10): 8 [up 1.5 since last week]

Previous Feuds
Batista: Edge, The Great Khali, Undertaker
MVP: Rey Mysterio, Ric Flair
Big Daddy V: Tommy Dreamer, Kane, The Undertaker
The Great Khali: Batista, Finlay, Hornswoggle
Finlay: Kane, Rey Mysterio, The Great Khali, Mr. McMahon
The Undertaker: Mark Henry, Batista

SHELTON BENJAMIN vs. KANE (4 weeks w/ 1 week hiatus)

This week, Shelton Benjamin teamed with the reigning ECW Champion, Chavo Guerrero, to face the eclectic tandem of Kane and C.M. Punk. The babyface team won the match after Punk nailed the GTS on Chavo for the umpteenth time.

WWE is slowly grooming C.M. Punk for a successful career, but fans are anxiously anticipating his first huge win against someone with established credibility. No matter how hard WWE (or Chavo for that matter) tries, fans aren't going to simply grant Chavo a high position on the heel ladder, regardless of how much he might deserve it. In fact, that may be why they started this rivalry in the first place. Their feud is helping Chavo slightly more than it is Punk, but it's doing neither much good. The storyline has been pretty enjoyable, and the week-to-week events are entertaining, but these two can get much further with other opponents.

As for Kane and Shelton Benjamin, nothing has yet stuck out as particularly exciting. Their matches and the potential feud possibilities are still intriguing, but the audience has been waiting for some kind of click that just hasn't happened yet. The most fearful element here is the idea that after all that promotion, Benjamin is going to fall back into that jobber role once again. If WWE felt that pairing him with Kane was a good idea, they need to give him some kind of fighting chance against The Big Red Machine. Oh, and where did all of Shelton's promo time go? That was only helping things.

What should you look for? Any signs that the Punk-Chavo or Kane-Benjamin feuds will even continue on either ECW or Smackdown

Intrigue Level (out of 10): 6 [same as on ECW]

Previous Feuds
Shelton Benjamin: n/a
Kane: Finlay, Big Daddy V

CHUCK PALUMBO vs. JAMIE NOBLE & MICHELLE McCOOL (12 weeks)

Michelle McCool was set to take on Victoria one-on-one this week, but before the match began, Chuck Palumbo's music hit. Palumbo played the intimidation game outside the ring while Michelle tried hopelessly to focus on her matchup. In the end, the distraction led to Victoria capitalizing with a Widow's Peak for the easy pinfall. After the match ended, Palumbo entered the ring, grabbed a mic, and stalked McCool. He stepped on her arm and hair to prevent her from leaving. "You better get used to it," Palumbo said, presumably referring to how he's messing with her head.

This type of role for Palumbo could really be effective in garnering heel heat. Michelle McCool is a likeable character, and putting her in that kind of situation is an intelligent way to use one person as a catalyst in order to push another (without necessarily harming the catalyst character). If WWE has an effective babyface, they should certainly try to pair them with a heel in order to strengthen the heel, especially if said heel is finding it difficult to catch on with the crowd.

Palumbo's actions this week actually helped him tremendously, but let's go over the strengths and weaknesses. His strength here was that he appeared to be an obnoxious heel. The fact that he revved his bike at ringside to cause Michelle to lose all concentration on the match was a great way to enhance his heel character. Another strength was his threat to continue to mess with her. And he didn't just verbally threaten her; he stood on her hair the whole time. I'm not sure if message delivery could get any more heelish than that. The weakness, however, was in his delivery. Something in his voice still reeks of inauthentic acting, and that could hurt his ability to look like a true heel (even if his actions make him one of Smackdown's strongest midcard heels).

What should you look for? How Palumbo will continue this threat without relying on the same exact method each time (the motorcycle distraction) and Jamie Noble's response to all of this

Intrigue Level (out of 10): 8.5 [same as last week]

Previous Feuds
Chuck Palumbo: Chris Masters, Kenny Dykstra
Jamie Noble: Hornswoggle, Vickie Guerrero

CURT HAWKINS & ZACK RYDER vs. JIMMY WANG YANG & SHANNON MOORE (3 weeks)

This week, two relatively new rivalries collided in one match as Hawkins, Ryder, Deuce, and Domino teamed up to face Yang, Moore, Jesse, and Festus. Michael Cole and Jonathan Coachman noted that Festus underwent psychological treatment for weeks, yet nothing seems to have changed about his personality. When the bell rang, Festus experienced his usual transformation. At the end of the match, Yang elbowed Domino in the face before landing his picture-perfect moonsault from the top rope for the victory.

Suddenly, Hawkins, Ryder, Deuce, and Domino began attacking the babyfaces as Festus stoically stood on the ring apron, unable to realize the trouble. Jesse fled to ringside to ring the bell himself, which put his tag team partner back into an aggressive state. Festus charged the ring, delivering clotheslines and big boots to fell the group of heels. He flailed his arms wildly at Deuce, who hit the turnbuckle before freefalling to ringside. After the ring was cleared of all the heels, Jesse again rang the bell to bring back the harmless side of Festus.

WWE made the right decision to use the bell outside of a match. The whole story made sense. Festus is harmless in his usual state, and even when the heels were attacking, he just stood there. Jesse realized the opportunity and used Festus's condition to his advantage. I guess the next step would be to see what happens when either the heels try to use the bell or when heels attack Festus in his harmless state. Will he even fight back? Here is an essential element to this storyline: heels must recognize that Festus's condition is volatile. Although it's a big strength, it's also a huge weakness that should be exploited. Both of these feuds are pretty entertaining, and it's nice to see WWE focus on more than one tag team rivalry.

What should you look for? Whether these two feuds will continue separately or together, or whether they will discontinue one of them

Intrigue Level (out of 10): 5.5 [up 0.5 since last week]

Previous Feuds
Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder: n/a
Jimmy Wang Yang & Shannon Moore: John Morrison & The Miz


CONCLUDED FEUDS

(1) Rey Mysterio vs. Edge?
(2) Shelton Benjamin vs. Kane?

POTENTIAL FEUDS

(1) Batista vs. MVP


Thanks for reading, everyone. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, feel free to email me at newthtorch@hotmail.com. I greatly appreciate all the feedback that I receive, and I will respond to every email. Please insert a word in the subject line that deals with a wrestling topic or write something such as "WWE," "feud," or "Funaki" so that I know it's not junk mail.

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