By The Bullgod
Wrestlers Ramblings.com pro wrestling news 

Ladies and gentlemen after a short time away the Bullgod is back, fresh of the back of a UK tour with (belated) live notes and coverage for a second week in a row from the WWE Smackdown taping on Tuesday in Birmingham, England. Don’t worry though gang, I won’t be giving away any spoilers. ECW began with Tommy Dreamer pinning a jobber whose name I never caught (because I was on a hunt for a CM Punk t-shirt at the concession stand) in front of a less than half full arena. Tony Chimel then got in the ring to make the announcement that ECW was about to begin and would be on SKY Sports in the UK, which pretty much got everyone running for their seats. It was also good to see Joey Styles and Tazz getting a good reception as they made their way to the broadcast position.

ECW kicked off with the three potential number one contenders for the ECW title arguing over who should get the shot, with only the Miz (pictured, right) getting any real heat with some “Who are ya” chants from a rather subdued Birmingham crowd. The crowd did however come to life when CM Punk’s music hit (yes the Bullgod did mark-out I’m afraid) and even more so when CM Punk revealed Kane as his partner. After the handicap tag match a lot of people around where I was sitting where grumbling that CM Punk had been dominated by Miz for most the match (which, alongside John Morrison last week and Big Daddy V at No Mercy, means all three possible number one contenders have dominated the Champ, strange booking) but most fans where happy with the Punk/Kane victory.

After a 20 minute gap of nothing happening at all at the live event ECW continued with the Jesse and Festus vs Elijah Burke and Nunzio tag match, that the crowd couldn’t really get into after sitting around for so long. By the end of the match Festus seemed pretty over with the crowd. After Balls’ promo, a lot of fans seemed to leave for the concourse for the Morrison vs Miz match up and missed what looked like a decent match before Big Daddy V decided to interfere. The more I see of John Morrison the more I like him. I don’t agree with the ECW title being thrown on him because of his “WWE look” but he is improving so quickly and really suits this new gimmick. The Bullgod predicts big things for Morrison.

OK, now for what the fans came to see, WWE Smackdown. By this point the NIA Arena was pretty full, with only some sections having empty seats and the volume seemed to be turned up a notch with the WWE Smackdown opening and pyrotechnics. There was a lot of recap footage of last weeks Smackdown, which (from what I heard around me) seemed to annoy people as most fans seemed to “know” that the Undertaker wasn’t on the UK tour. So later on in the show when it was announced that Undertaker was fighting on the show, the roof blew of the place, by far the biggest pop of the night.

So Smackdown kicked off with the UK fans being ‘treated’ to a WrestleMania rematch of the Great Khali vs Kane (pictured, left). Khali seemed to get a fair bit of heat, which quickly turned into “you can’t wrestle chants”. I was amazed at just how big this man is in real life, and that’s standing next to Kane. Its easy to see what Vince sees in Khali, pity pro wrestling skills aren’t a factor anymore when it is decided who will get a push.

Chuck Palumbo got a good reaction when he came out and the fans seemed to be into his gimmick. The Bullgod has always been a fan of Palumbo, from his WCW days, and even sticking with him when he was going to marry Billy Gun (kayfabe of course), and am hoping Palumbo get reach and sustain mid-card status.

Drew McIntyre had another match this week against one of the Major Brother, Brett maybe, but the fans really weren’t into the match at all, which wasn’t by any means a bad match, I think it was more to do with the fans don’t know the Major Brothers, or Drew McIntyre well at all yet, and Dave Taylor (Drew’s partner seemingly) isn’t exactly a household name. The Bullgod will be bringing an exclusive article on Drew McIntyre this week so keep your eyes peeled for that here at WrestlersRambling.com.

Jimmy Wang Yang teamed with Shannon Moore for a match against Deuce and Domino, that was again, solid with good use of the contrasting styles but once again the fans weren’t into it as much as I would have expected. Things picked up with the Undertaker’s match. I have never had the pleasure of seeing the Undertaker live but watching his entrance is something else, literally sending a chill down the Bullgod’s back. JBL had an interview with the World Heavyweight Champion Batista that seemed to go down well, and the fans loved all of the MVP and Matt Hardy stuff. Second biggest pop of the night had to be Rey Mysterio, who had an excellent match with MVP (unfortinatly some fans started to leave after Undertaker’s match), and had a showdown with JBL. The latter I feel was instead of a dark match main event and will not be on the WWE Smackdown TV showing, especially as 3/4 of the arena had left by this point.

In other live notes, John Cena was getting loudly booed anytime he came on the big screen, and as a friend of mine pointed out, there were A LOT of young fans dressed up as Rey Mysterio, but none in Cena outfits. This may just be because it was a WWE Smackdown taping and Not WWE Raw but thought it was worth mentioning. The Crowd also seemed to be fed-up of seeing Big Daddy V as he was involved in three matches and had a promo over the course of ECW and Smackdown.

- The Bullgod

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 10:05 am and is filed under WWE News and Views, WWE Smackdown review, British Pro Wrestling, WWE pro wrestling photos, ECW news and views, World Wrestling Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.