By Greg Parks, Torch specialist

Updated Saturday, April 12, 2008

Smackdown was a bit of a mixed bag on Friday night. It started off in an interesting way - a way that almost turned Great Khali face. His peace offerings to Big Show were physically rejected (how could you reject a goat!?!) when Show punched him right in the face. I don't know if we're to assume Khali had an ulterior motive, but Show came off as an ass here.

The opening tag match was fine, but it's a match we've seen a hundred times. Yang & Moore win the non-title matches (generally), and lose the bouts where the belts are on the line. Are there really no other teams (besides Jesse & Festus, who've had their share of chances too) to challenge for the tag titles?

It seems as if the Hornswoggle McMahon angle is over with, at least that's what Cole's announcing led me to believe. I guess the Finlay vs. Striker match was what we'll be seeing more of, with WWE catering to the younger crowd now. Nattie Neidhart's debut adds another dimension to the women's division on Smackdown and she should have some decent matches with the improving Michelle McCool.

I think we've seen enough face-to-face confrontations with Batista and Shawn Michaels already. Although, this week's seemed to transition from Flair being the major point of the heat to Michaels and his attitude. Hardy vs. Palumbo was okay, but the star was MVP on commentary. I could just imagine Vince in his headset telling MVP to bury Coach & Cole.

Festus vs. Undertaker was surprisingly decent. The story of Festus not knowing to tap out was interesting too. I guess the reason they gave for Vickie making this match made sense (that being she wanted to make Taker's life hell for beating Edge). But since Vickie and Teddy were out for the day, who was in the building in charge of Smackdown?

Greg Parks publishes his weekly "virtual time" review of Smackdown every Friday night on the Torch main listing. You can also hear him every-other-week in the post-Raw audio show Monday nights in the Torch VIP audio section.

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