Tuesday, 20th July, 9.10pm: This show has been finished and completed for nearly two days, and I have managed to inadvertently find out who leaves the show with the world title belts. Damn you Twitter and my inability to not follow links even though I suspect they will spoil a surprise.
9.15pm: PLAY. I have a cup of tea (no milk or sugar). Just hardcore tea. My wife is drinking heavily in the corner and cursing at the Irish (this is a lie).
9.21pm: Smackdown Money In The Bank match. And Kofi is first out. Great news for fans of Kofi Kingston in ladder matches. Maybe he'll try that stilts spot again. Four guys I like in this (Dolph, Christian, Matt and Big Show), four guys I don't care four (others, look up names yourself)
9.27pm: Big Show was awesome at the beginning of this. I loved the look on his face as he breaks that first ladder under his weight.
9.59pm: Well, how about that? At first watch, I thought that was really good. Felt a lot more like a fight and a struggle compared to the usual spotfest with elaborate unrealistic setups. Having the two big guys in there gave it a different feel, with one story being about how the smaller guys could restrain them. Big Show's involvement was great - he made getting the huge ladder into a real performance for what could have been very dull - but they don't overplay his stuff and use credible stuff to keep him out. He took Kofi's DDT like a king. A little bit, I thought Dolph was the best guy in this. He's a good bumper, so there's plenty of opportunity for that (has he started doing Foley's apron bump regularly? Onto ladder was a cool spot), but his best moments came fighting with Kane on the ladder, scrambling over him then catching him with a sleeperhold. Kane does some stuff I don't like, but the booking of Drew Macintrye as the guy left at the end only for Kane to stop him was a great way of getting a face pop. Had it been Matt Hardy, for example, it would have been badly received.
10.15pm: Oh, and Kofi was inoffensive and that announce desk leg drop was nuts. Well played, WWE. Next match.
10.17pm: Next match soon. Errands have emerged.
11.25pm: Sheamus interview. I'd like to clarify that great white sharks do have souls. Some produce beautiful poetry (largely unwritten), about the loneliness of being a shark in a world that thinks you are soulless. Decent interview. Sheamus has got better at talking.
11.28pm: Eve Torres vs. Alicia Fox begins. It's the battle of the divas with surnames. This was what it was. Alicia Fox looks more able than the average diva. Is it futile to point out that if you can't do a suplex because of a bad back, you can't then do a moonsault?
11.36pm: Speaking of divas, my wife has just fired our cleaning lady for putting the shampoo in the conditioner's spot on the shelf (utter fiction).
11.39pm: That was not a realistic conversation between Jack Swagger and the (imaginary) Ma Swagger, unless Ma and Pa Swagger are divorced. Or, more probably, if they are still are married.
11.40pm: Haven't seen the Usos before.
11.50pm: That was a perfectly decent, if short tag match. Felt like they packed a lot in and I was surprised only about seven minutes passed. Usos look like competent heels, and that assisted samoan drop was very cool. I'm very into the Harts being top team now, after being jobbed out all of last year. They complement each other well - definitely a greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts deal
Wednesday, 21st July, 12.01pm: Tired. Going to put on the Segunda Caida radio hour and fall asleep to Eric and Phil's melodious banter and Dean's falsetto. Will finish this tomorrow, providing my wife doesn't insist we got out shooting dogs again (absolutely never happened before).
11.52pm: This is ridiculous. I've been procrastinating watching stand-up on Youtube. Onwards.
11.56pm: Man, I wish I'd watched more Smackdown this last month. Rey vs. Swagger is on my screen now. Rey appears to be wearing his tribute to the gimp from Pulp Fiction costume, one of the lesser superheroes.
Thursday, 21st July, 12.05am: I love Rey busting out the split-leg moonsault as he's going around on a bad leg. Commentators missed how clever that was.
12.11am: Just a really nice match. Swagger looks great beating up Rey, Rey plays to his strengths (great selling, nice comebacks, including a couple of really nice dodges which barely missed). Couple of minor annoyances (Rey's setup headscissors seems to get less and less believable, and the top rope DDT was telegraphed and looked overly co-operative.
12.16am: This MitB angle is WELL played out by this point. Are they doing a split personality thing with Kane? That was the only thing that struck me as interesting here. That tombstone was a mistake, there was daylight and some of the following night between Rey's head and the mat.
12.20am: Layla vs. Kelly. SC's Eric says Layla is good, I have seen no singles matches of hers in 2010. Let us test this hypothesis. LayCool always strike me as two of the better developed characters on the show, and it's not just booking - they play them well.
12.27am: Fine for what it was. I liked Layla using Finlay's ring apron spot, but the slightly botch the dodgy finish. OK, it's late again. More sleep.
6.22pm: Right, I'm finishing this tonight. RAW ladder match now.
6.35pm: OK, a lot of this is really uninspiring and unimaginative multi-person ladder match fare. But Mark Henry pushing four guys off the ladder in two directions was a really cool visual. Bourne and Henry are the only people I care about so far, mostly for actually bringing something new to the table.
6.40pm: Morrison's obstacle course run to the ladder was nice - sort of thing that usually goes wrong. His unprotected bump inside the ladder looked really nasty.
6.43pm: Not a word of a lie: Henry bump off Edge's spear outside was the greatest bump ever taken by any man ever.
6.50pm: Fuck it. COME ON EVAN.
6.54pm: Nowhere near as good as the Smackdown match. Highspots weren't as good, loads of stuff that was overly contrived. The few nice moments featured Henry (his elimination was great, his bumping and selling off of that terrible offence was a sight to behold) and Bourne (I liked the shooting star out of nowhere). It felt like all the really good ideas were taken by the Smackdown match. All things in moderation, WWE.
7.02pm: Main event: Sheamus vs. Cena, in a cage.
7.30pm: A perfectly solid main event, with overbooked ending. Not particularly violent or hate-filled, nor did it feature anything standout-ish, but it was all put together well. I thought that they might actually give Sheamus a cleaner win at one stage, before Nexus came out. That said, this felt like a match where Sheamus seemed at home as heel champion and main-eventer, and I think that was Cena's doing.
7.33pm: I think it's time to move Cena away from the title belt for a bit, which this Nexus angle gives the opportunity for. Overall, a good show, with most things solid, and only the second ladder match disappointing my expectations. The opener was most surprising of all, and I recommend a watch.
7.35pm: My wife has just proof-read this post, and dislocated my arm as a punishment (a complete fabrication).
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