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KELLER'S TAKE
KELLER'S WWE SMACKDOWN BLOG 1/20: Vickie in a dance-off with Brodus Clay, three-way World Title match set for Rumble, Vegas Roulette

Jan 21, 2012 - 1:46:07 AM
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By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

KELLER'S WWE SMACKDOWN BLOG
JANUARY 20, 2012
TAPED IN LAS VEGAS, NEV.
AIRED ON SYFY


-I'm ready for new Smackdown show-opening music.

-Daniel Bryan is believable in the psycho overreacting boyfriend role. His asking Big Show to quit just cemented that he's way way overreacting to the apparent accident. I'll still curious what it means for Michael Cole's character that Bryan is going heel. Cole is not siding with Bryan, so does that mean Cole is turning babyface? The impetus for Cole going heel was back on NXT when Bryan was a contestant. If Bryan goes heel, is that a way to transition Cole back to sanity and being a straight announcer?

-Can you help me? Booker T was on his way to a good quote and then he lost me. I've rewound the DVR six times and I still can't figure out the end of this: "You get a title around your waist, you can lose your mind. You get a good woman, and this guy's nose is wide open right now." I know that's not what he said, but I can't figure out what he actually said. Email me and let me know if you could make sense of it.

-That first wheel spin wasn't even close to legit looking. It looked like it had a half rotation at least left before it suddenly stopped at Player's Choice. At least Cody Rhodes reacted the obvious way, by choosing to face Hornswoggle. One of these years they do the roulette wheel, they have to do all the crazy options, like putting Cody in a pillow fight match or bodyslam match. It's convenient that Cody was the only wrestler without a predetermined opponent when he went to spin the wheel. What if one of the other scheduled matches on the show landed at "Player's Choice"?

-The chemistry between Mark Henry and Teddy Long is a blast. Henry's unwillingness to spin the wheel and calling it a stupid concept might be enough to turn him babyface prematurely.

-Booker had the early line of the night. When Cole said it was "great" how Cody moved out of the path of Gabriel's set-up for the 450, Booker fired back: "That wasn't great, Cole. He just rolled out of the way."

-Cole, by the way, isn't even hinting at toning down his obnoxious pro-heel stance, despite siding against Bryan at this point. He was laughing at Cody beating up Hornswoggle.

-The clip of the tag title change at Sunday's house show drove home the fact that TNA's house show entrance set looks way better than WWE's new one. WWE's new one looks like it folds up into a suitcase and was thrown together with spare parts sitting around backstage - at least from what I've seen in TV and web clips.

-Booker was regressing back to cliches again this week. He said, "On any given night you can go out there and lose it. And tonight Gabriel is on fire." There were other cliches in the Rhodes-Gabriel match, too.

-They turned seeing Rosa Mendez spin the wheel into a reason for people to visit WWE.com? They even had a specific URL to type in: "www.wwe.com/see-rosa-spin-the-wheel-if-you-really-have-no-life-at-all/".

-I will have to strongly disagree with our Hits & Misses Specialist, Jon Mezzera, in his "Miss" given to the Dance Contest. Brodus Clay is beyond a guilty pleasure for me and he has a chance to be a breakout character. Is he designed to be the next Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan or John Cena? No. But he is "all in" with this character and he's just a blast to watch dance to the ring. It's also a way to inject some sex appeal to the show with his dancers, which is better than two models pretending to wrestle every week for 90 seconds. And Vickie Guerrero's dancing was hilarious. The crowd was laughing, and so was I. (ProWrestling.net's Chris Shore's side is still hurting from laughing, too.) And then to make it even better, out comes the master of comical facial expressions, William Regal, with a line of the night contender (scolding the fans for booing "this buxom wench" Vickie) and then a dance that may have funnier than Vickie's. Brodus is a good part of a diverse mix, Vickie is willing to put herself out there without any shame, and Regal is just a master at reacting to stuff like this. Fun segment.

-I worry that in some parts of the country people are cheering "The Great White" Sheamus for the wrong reasons.

-I really wish, when Brodus taunted Regal by asking if he was a "funky chicken," that instead of doing the traditional chicken imitation he did the version from "Arrested Development" (Cuh-caw! Cuh-caw!), one of TV's greatest comedy moments ever.

-When Cole said it's been a very long time since they've seen a flag match in WWE, there's a reason. It's an awful concept match.

-The best part of the blindfold match was Cole saying Booker T announces like he's blindfolded. The blindfold match always plays out the same way, which is why you can't do it very often. The babyface finds his way around because of cheers from the fans while the heel cheats by peeking when the ref isn't looking. Too bad that as the ref Charles Robinson put the hood over Drew McIntyre, you could see right through it.

-The apparent double-turn continues with Daniel Bryan and Mark Henry. Bryan bails out and gets counted out after lamely accusing the lumberjacks of ganging up on him (that is what a lumberjack match is all about), while Henry gets stomped down for real by the lumberjacks in a scene reminiscent of Rodney King. You came out of that segment sympathetic to Henry, while Bryan is whining to Long backstage about being treated unfairly.

-The three-way at the Royal Rumble for the World Title, which Long announced at the very end of the show, should further move Bryan toward a solid heel and Henry toward a face turn. The face turn may be coming too quickly. As I noted on the PWTorch Livecast on Thursday, Henry could have been a credible threat to Undertaker at WrestleMania this year, lose to Taker, but put up such a valiant fight that Taker would give him a nod of approval and respect at the end, and that could have single-handedly turned Henry face. They obviously have something else in mind for Taker, but who is Henry's heel opponent at WrestleMania assuming things are going the way they appear to be?

-Good show. The spinning wheel gimmick is ludicrous for many reasons, but if you set aside any logic regarding how conveniently the wheel landed on just the right stips for each match, it was a good way to fill two hours with "novelty" matches to break the pattern of the usual show.


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