Welcome to the Talking Smack column where I offer up a quick rundown of WWE's Friday broadcast, Smackdown. I'll do the blog plugs at the bottom. Among the posts this week were thoughts on the NXT debut as well as the releases of Helms, Maria & Burchill on Friday. As for this column, it's going to be a bit shorter than my usual. I was out partying on Friday night, got home really late, had a few too many drinks (hi Straight Edge people) and I'm not in the mood to write that much. I'll cover the show, but it won't be nearly as detailed as my usual. Hope you understand. Let's get to it.

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Taped from Milwaukee, Wisconsin let's talk some smack…

The new WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION Chris Jericho comes out with the title bragging about how after over a year of fighting he's back on top as champion. I love this man. I loved this promo. Asking the camera to zoom in on the title to see his name and "World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion" on it was great. Hey, he said wrestling. That should say sports entertainment. Quick, call the belt maker guy. We need a new one. Edge came out talking about how Jericho may have won, but he also gets speared by Edge a lot. They even got the crowd into chanting "spear" which is good because I've never heard that before. Jericho got pissed, attacked him with the mic and then went for the Codebreaker only to receive a spear from Edge. Good opening segment. Love this feud already. Looking forward to the next month of build.

Dolph Ziggler d. R-Truth & John Morrison to enter the Money in the Bank match (***)
Very strong match at about 12 minutes. They really did a good job with the nearfalls and timed their sports well. I didn't read spoilers, so I thought going in that Morrison would win for sure. Wrong. He was my pick to win MITB. Wrong. They definitely love that "one guy hits the finisher, the other throws him out and gets the pin" ending to these triple threats, don't they? I'm really surprised Ziggler won. I'm fine that he did because I think the de-push he got the last three or four months was unwarranted. Let's just hope he doesn't bust out the dreaded sleeper at WM in the ladder match.

Michelle McCool d. Mickie James to win the Women's Title (*1/4)
Vickie Guerrero was referee. They only got about four minutes with some good action. I liked the match at TLC in December more. The finish saw Vickie fall out of the ring only to have Layla rub her butt to make it feel better (not visually appealing, trust me). In ring, Mickie James-Canton had McCool in a rollup, but Vickie slapped Mickie and Michelle finished her with a hard kick to the head for the win. Question is, if Vickie is only a consultant then couldn't Teddy Long reverse this decision because she clearly interfered in the outcome of a match? Oh wait, there I go asking questions. Let's just hope they mention it next week at least a little bit. Disappointed that MJC only had a 3 week run. I assume it's to set up Mickie/Michelle/Beth @ WM. They deserve it.

Kane d. Drew McIntyre to qualify for MITB (3/4*)
Again? Apparently so. In only five minutes Kane won with a kick to the face. Clean. Yes, that was the finish. Huh? I really don't like Kane going over McIntrye. The way WWE does these "even steven" bookings bugs me. McIntyre wins clean at the PPV, let it end. He doesn't have to lose on the next show. Nobody gets elevated when this kind of thing happens all the time. Plus, the undefeated future World Champion lost in five minutes to a kick to the face? Not a fan of this booking. I also thought McIntyre would be in MITB. It looks like an IC title defense at WrestleMania is going to happen.

Post match, they had McIntyre all angry after his first pinfall loss. I guess this will make him meaner. Hopefully he doesn't get the whiner gimmick after losses. Remember that with Christian and DDP? Not a great feud.

I like the WM songs so far. That "I Made It" song by Kevin Rudolph is good while "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC is very old, but very popular. Good to mix some old with new.

I don't know what the hell The Miz was wearing with that shirt/vest combo thing, but he came out to mention that he can be on any show now that he's the unified tag champ. He forgot to say that HHH and HBK had no interest in working on Tuesdays, though. He asked Teddy Long to find a tag team for Showmiz to face at WM. Sorry Miz, no tag teams. Long came out to say Show wasn't there, but if Miz wants action he gets Edge later in the night. Works for me.

Shelton Benjamin d. CM Punk to qualify for MITB (**)
Benjamin's officially on Smackdown now. Good to know. Always been a fan of his. This was a fun match although I wish they got more time since it was only about five minutes long. These two could put on a wrestling clinic if they get 15 minutes for a match. Plus, Punk's such a strong heel that it would do wonders for Benjamin to be in the ring against him. Mysterio came out to distract Punk, which led to Benjamin hitting Paydirt for the win. Now Shelton qualifies for Money in the Bank so that he can steal the show with some incredible athletic moves like he does every year only for WWE to forget about it the next show.

As rumored, Mysterio vs. Punk is going to happen at WrestleMania. It's not official yet, but you can expect it to be. I think Mysterio will be in a MITB match next week only for Punk to cost him. That could be the show stealing match on the card.

The four people in the Money in the Bank match so far are Christian, Kane, Benjamin & Ziggler with four spots left. With no McIntyre, Morrison, Miz (I assume), Big Show (I assume), Punk (I assume) and Mysterio (I assume) in the match it'll be interesting to see who's in it. Could we see HHH and Sheamus in the match rather than having a rumored singles match? Could happen. My preference of winner is definitely Christian. He's an elite worker in WWE that deserves a main event run. I have my doubts that it will actually happen, though.

We got the Raw Rebound. Why don't they do a Smackdown Rebound on Raw considering Raw gets about 5.5 million viewers per week in the US while SD gets about 3.5 million viewers? Shouldn't you try to put over the better show that you've got buried on Friday nights? I don't get it.

Edge d. The Miz (**1/2)
This was a good TV main event. It's a very fresh match (they said it was their first match together), so that was good to see. The outcome wasn't much of a surprise with Edge scoring the pinfall via the spear after about 12 minutes. This is the kind of thing I want to see out of Miz, though. His promos are very strong, but if he's really going to get over and become a huge star they need to put him in big TV matches to get the crowd used to his style. Otherwise, they're going to be asleep when he gets the big push.

The show ended with Edge celebrating. No Jericho. Nothing extraordinary to end it. Don't see that very often on Raw or Smackdown.

Three Stars of the Show
1. The Miz – Really did a great job. Continues to impress me.
2. Edge – Looked smooth in the ring. Ankle has passed the test two weeks in a row.
3. Dolph Ziggler – Like the guy. He deserves the break.

7 out of 10
Last week: 6.5

It was a typically strong wrestling edition of Smackdown. It was weird not seeing Jericho attacking Edge after the main event. Kept waiting for it, but we got nothing. Also, a good night for anybody that delivers a kick to the face apparently. It was the WWE Finisher of the Night. I just made that up.

No sign of Undertaker at all. I guess they realized how orange his face was on Raw after he probably slept in a tanning bed, so they kept him off the show. We all know Vince hates that STUPID ORANGE CRAP right? Or is STUPID ORANGE CRAP exclusive to shirts? I don't know. Wish I did.

I'm bringing back the weekly polls. Vote:

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In case you missed it, lots of content on my blog this week:

- Posted some quick thoughts on the debut of WWE NXT from Tuesday night. Loved the show for the most part. Miz vs. Bryan will be a great feud.

- Thoughts on Helms, Maria, Paul Burchill getting released is here. None of them are that surprising although I thought they'd keep Maria around.

- In honor of the great HBK/Taker video on Raw, I shared with you videos of what I think are the five greatest video packages in WWE history with explanations for each.

- With WrestleMania coming up soon, I thought it would be a good idea to re-post some of my WrestleMania recaps through the years. First one up is WrestleMania X-7, which I feel is the best WM ever and the best PPV in WWE history.

Check me out on Twitter at Twitter.com/johnreport and I'll make you a deal. When I reach 1000 followers (at 753 right now) I will write a column called "The Top 100 WWE PPV matches from 2000 to 2009." I wrote the top 50 from 2000 to 2004 and re-posted it on the blog, but I haven't done the top 100 yet. If I get to 1000 twitter followers, I'll get to work on that column. That's a promise.

You can ask me anything at Formspring.com where I've now answered 1,150 questions in the last month with another 100 or so sitting in my inbox. I haven't had time to post my answers on the blog, but if you go there and sift through it you'll see a lot of answers to a lot of different questions.

Finally, I'll have a column on Triple H coming soon. It will probably be Monday. Mostly good things. You'll see.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

John Canton - oratoryjohn@gmail.com
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