WWE Smackdown TV taping report
April 13, 2010
London, England
Report by Paul Meenan and David Hayter, Torch readers

Superstars taping for Thursday's show

(1) Matt Hardy beat Carlito. Matt amusingly fell through the ropes upon his trademark entrance, which got a good laugh. He was good-humored about it. The crowd was very hot for Hardy, chanting for him throughout the match. The match was of reasonable quality with a few teased finishing exchanges and some NXT Rookie involvement. Hardy won after the Twist of Fate.

-- SEE ALSO: Raw Superstars SPOILERS from last night.

Smackdown taping for Friday's show

Chris Jericho cut a promo to start the show complaining about being robbed of the WWE World Title and demanding he be given his rematch. Edge interrupted and the two went back and forth, but the crowd seemed to be into both men with loud "Y2J" chants throughout. Teddy Long interrupted and announced that Jericho would get his World Title re-match tonight with Jack Swagger and Edge in a triple threat match. The crowd booed Teddy Long intensely throughout.

Drew McIntrye then cut a promo ripping on England, prompting a series of "We Hate Scotland" chants.

(1) Kane beat IC champion Drew McIntyre via DQ when Matt Hardy made a run-in. This match was plodding, but Drew sold well. The match finished with Kane chokeslamming both Drew and Matt Hardy.

(2) Michelle McCool beat Mickie James. A decent women's match that went longer than usual and featured some solid action. The finish looked poor, though.

(3) Dolph Ziggler beats R-Truth with a sleeper hold. Dolph put R-Truth to sleep at the end of a passable TV match. The crowd chanted "You Suck" instead of "What's Up" for R-Truth. Not sure if this will come across on TV or not, though.

(4) Hart Dynasty (Tyson Kidd & D.H. Smith) & Rey Mysterio beat C.M. Punk & Luke Gallows & Darren Young ina six-man tag match. Young didn't look out of place and this was a fine match with a relatively hot crowd. The crowd was pretty pro-Punk, and Tyson Kidd looked very sharp in the ring. However, the same cannot be said of D.H. Smith. Smith pinned Punk with the running powerslam. Good TV match.

(5) JTG beat Caylen Croft. The crowd slept through this match. Shad attacked JTG after the match, but he was fought off by JTG. Looks like this program will continue.

(6) World Hvt. champion Jack Swagger beat Edge and Chris Jericho to retain the World Hvt. Title. Good length main event, with some great action. It started at a slow pace, but they had the crowd really going by the end. The crowd was completely behind Jericho in this one with splatterings of "Y2J" and "Ask Him" chants. Swagger won the match after a series of nearfalls when he capitalized on a spear by Edge to pin Jericho.

After the match, Jericho locked Edge's foot in-between the steel steps and the ring. He then kicked the steps, crushing Edge's ankle to end the show.

Dark Match: Rey Mysterio beat C.M. Punk. This was a surprisingly long dark match and a really good one at that. Lots of nearfalls and inventive counters. The finish was an exact re-run of their WrestleMania match up. Great way to close the show. After the match, C.M. Punk told us that he hated the WWE Universe, but this did not stop the crowd from cheering him.

Overall Thoughts: The three big main events made the show and sent everyone home happy. However, a hot crowd was utterly killed by NXT. The crowd booed almost every segment (expect the ones with Wade Barrett) and it took the crowd along time to recover. However, once the good matches started, the show never looked back and C.M. Punk was the undoubted MVP.

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