Storytelling in Smackdown...

This past Friday, I sat down in my living room and watched Smackdown for the first time in a long time. As I've mentioned before, I have had a lack of interest in televised wrestling since the "Benoit Incident." So for me to be flipping on the TV to the CW (Channel 4 here in East Tennessee) is something of a big deal. It's a means to me slowly getting myself back into the mix.

So what did I think? What's going through the mind of the Mad Scientologist of Pro Wrestling (Is that as bad a joke as I'm starting to think it is???) as he's watching the supposed B-Show of WWE? Well, to be honest, I was entertained. The segments and matches on the "B-Show" did something that I thought WWE was currently incapable of: They told a story, and they did so without being completely outrageous.

Now, before I get lambasted, I want to interject that the story wasn't completely outrageous for Smackdown and its wild assortment of characters. It won't work on a show like Nash Bridges or ER, but for WWE's Friday Night show it's acceptable. I'm going to take a peek this week at how acceptable they really are by reviewing three different segments.

Today, I'll take a look at the Shannon Moore-Jamie Noble match up. Before the matchup, they give us a video that summed up the "animosity" between Noble & the Cruiserweight Champion "Little Bastard" Hornswoggle McMahon. The video itself was a good brief recap of the feud and shows fans, like myself, that Hornswoggle has been tormenting Noble for the past few weeks. The match itself is a Cruiserweight #1 Contender's match between Moore & Noble, which turns out to be fairly competitive. Moore and Noble try to hash it out in the ring, and Noble has the upper hand between the two. Once Moore realizes this, he utilizes the fact that Noble is paranoid about Hornswoggle costing him a match and lies to the ref about seeing the Little Bastard coming out from under the ring. Noble, not about to let Hornswoggle get him again, tries to see for himself and gets rolled up in a school boy pin. Moore wins the match.

What does this match tell us? Well, for one we see that Noble is technician enough that Moore resulted in cheap tactics to win the match. Secondly, we see that Hornswoggle has messed with Jamie Noble enough that Noble can no longer handle it. It puts over both Hornswoggle and Jamie Noble in one segment, proving that Hornswoggle has some credibility as Cruiserweight Champion. Is this credibility related to his in-ring ability? No. That’s a weakness in the feud, and one I’m afraid won’t be fixed. But Hornswoggle wouldn’t be the first person to result to mind games out of the ring to get an upper hand in the ring, would he? Nor would he be the first limited in-ring competitor to hold a title. I mean, at least he’s not David Arquette.

Later this week I’ll take a look at the two other segments I found entertaining on Friday Night: Domino vs. MVP and the Mark Henry-Undertaker segment. I’ll break them down much like this one and try to explain why I think they worked, and what I think needs improvement. Feel free to speak up until then.

You can complain to JJ Dangerously about Noble being misused here

Better yet, join in the Friday Night Smackdown! discussion here