By Shane McKinley, PWTorch Specialist

I'm a casual basketball viewer, but I try to make a special effort to watch when Lebron James is playing. Wrestling right now doesn't have that guy which makes casual viewers tune in every time. It's not John Cena, and it's not Kurt Angle. Heard a story once about WWE being very interested in Lebron years ago. Here is a site that I found that talks about Lebron James and Christian Cage: Story link.

Bam Neely gets canned? I carried his torch for a long time. Val Venis gets cut off as well? Hell yes I want some more of Ricky Ortiz, D.J. Gabriel, Kizarny, and Boogeyman!

According to some reviews, "Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia" wasn't all that bad. One reviewer I read said that it was a shame that it wasn't released in theaters, Mr. Kennedy is a much better actor than Cena or Kane, this is the best WWE film so far, and so on. I do know that WWE sure bought up a lot of air time to heavily promote this DVD. I was kind of hoping that the movie would bomb so that I could bring up a Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference, but it looks like the verdict for Kennedy's movie is that it's serviceable. But the only thing that concerns WWE is how well it does in terms of buys. Next up to the plate: John Cena's "12 Rounds."

Tazz takes off his gimmick sunglasses. He's serious. Apparently Jeff was involved in a hit and run accident.

Vickie didn't appreciate Triple H's sense of humor. Not a lot of us do. Vickie sends out a vegan (John Morrison) to wrestle in a table match against Trips. Trips easily disposes of JoMo but gets attacked from behind by the evil gopher Chavo.

After the match, Trips meets up with Vickie backstage. Trips must be really hurt. He was trying his best to think up a witty fat joke, but he just didn't have the strength. "Ugh....uh....you don't sit in your house, you sit around your house...ha ha...uh...I'm the king..."

I've been wishing for a Kozlov training video, and fans got one tonight (credit to blogs.ign.com for pic).

There was a news report about the BART Oakland shooting, and then Smackdown came back on with the Jeff's hit and run bit. This is something for the "Under The Microscope" article, but was the car that hit Jeff the same make and model that ran over Stone Cold? The car that hit Jeff was a black Crown Victoria. The "cop footage" reminded me of "World's Wildest Police Chases."

Speaking about cops, take my advice and never joke around with police officers. I got pulled over recently and thought that I could lighten the mood by mocking the overweight cop. The cop gave me a ticket. I protested and said that I was just copying the behavior shown by Triple H. The cop replied with this: "Wrestlers are made up. They are as real as Batman. Wrestlers are not role models."

Michelle continues her evil ways by beating up Victoria. Awesome Kong shows up and swallows her in one gulp.

So it's Trips vs. Chavo and Miz. Gotta love Chavo. His first offensive move against Trips was running straight into him and bouncing off him. All right, chief! It was like Chavo ran into a brick wall. Trips wins by Chavo playing the coward. Trips is battered and bruised after the match. Trips screams, "I'm fighting for one chance, just one chance, to come back here to Smackdown and tell my enemies that they may beat me within a inch of my life, but they'll never take away... my fat jokes!" (credit to channel4.com for pic).

So it's MVP talking with Mr. Kennedy. Don't know how to react to Mr. Kennedy wearing a shirt that has military medals on his left chest. This segment was something that you would see on TNA programming: Largely pointless, unfocused, and well past the point of being relevant. Kennedy kept up saying lines that was sure to get the fans cheering. That didn't happen.

You know a bit is in trouble when repo men get a bigger reaction than the wrestlers. Kennedy then goes back to babble on some more. Can we go back to the repo men? Kennedy leaves MVP with this thought: "Things could always be worse." True. That skit could have lasted 10 more minutes. Boogeyman shows up and this segment sinks even further. Boogey/Kizarny as a tag team? I'm trying to find a silver lining here.

"Things could always be worse." Sometimes you have to take things with a grain of salt. That goes for wrestling storylines as well. I don't expect that every wrestling storyline is going to be fully "airtight," make total sense, and not have any flaws. But that doesn't mean that I should just accept mediocre crap every time.

Nice showing by Carlito and Kendrick here.

WWE then shows the "cell phone camera" footage of the Jeff accident. Useless, but at least acknowledges that "them young whippersnappers today have cameras on their cell phones." I think the last time we saw Vince he was having trouble working a regular phone during that McMoney Mania: "Let me put on my cheaters here...let's see...7....3....5....4....whoops, messed up."

It's Triple H vs. Big Show in a Last Man Standing match! Trips is so valiant!

The whole "Triple Jeopardy" thing was a "take it or leave it" thing. I'm sure Trips playing Rocky worked well for the younger audience, but others were bored. Hearing Jim Ross and Tazz gush over Trips was special as well. Ross: "There's not another human being alive that would be able to withstand this punishment." I kind of miss Ross calling Trips a no-good bastard.

Yep, Last Man Standing matches on TV are pretty grueling to watch. I took a little snooze on my WWE inflatable bed. It's killer (credit to 7gadgets.com for pic).

However, the match picked up nicely thanks largely in part by the storytelling of both men. The match ends with Show landing a knockout punch on Trips. I liked it how Trips barely moved his left hand during the final ten-count. As Vince once said, "we make movies." Fans can already see the WWE dramatic video package now.

Thank goodness Trips lost this match. It seems absurd that Trips could be expected to win a last man standing match after already wrestling two matches, but you never know with Trips. Trips had his own little movie tonight with the Triple Jeopardy.

On a side note, while writing this I was watching Triple H vs. Chris Jericho in their Hell in the Cell match. At one point Jericho was on top of the cage and I could hear some kids yelling, "Fall! Fall! Fall!" How nice.

SMACKDOWN'S FINAL VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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