WWE Spoilers: Smackdown Results, 8-24-07

The following report is courtesy of lordsofpain.net...

JBL and Michael Cole make their way to the ring, the opening video is shown and everyone gets a little deafer from the pyrotechnics. Vince McMahon and Jonathan Coachman are out first, still trying to figure out who Vince’s bastard son is. Kane’s pyro goes off and damn near gives me a heart attack – he’s on his way to the ring to tell Vince he thinks he’s his son and to also demand a match with Finlay. Finlay and Batista is our main event for the evening, so McMahon adds Kane vs. Finlay to the SummerSlam card.

MATCH #1: Chris Masters vs. Chuck Palumbo
Personally, I think the “Masterpiece” gimmick is about as dead in the water as could be, and Palumbo’s biker get-up isn’t doing anything for me either. He’s looks like the “American Badass” version of Undertaker, only not nearly as warmly received by the crowd. He got little to no pop, even when he defeated Masters with some kind of crucifix powerbomb variant.

MATCH #2: Funaki vs. Chavo Guererro
Not much to say about this match. Chavo comes to the ring with a mannequin head that has a Rey Mysterio mask on it, then does his best Al Snow impression. Chavo would be disqualified after failing to obey the ref’s orders, and he then put the Mysterio mask onto Funaki and tried to take out his knee.

MATCH #3: Jamie Noble vs. Jimmy Wang Yang
I’d like to see these two have a match that went 20 minutes or more; they’re both more than capable of having fantastic matches, it’s just that more often than not they’re relegated to 5 minute bouts like this. It was good for what it was worth, though, and Noble went over but seemed to be more concerned with whether or not Hornswoggle was under the ring.

MATCH #4 – WWE Tag Team Championship: Deuce & Domino w/ Cherry (c) vs. Shannon Moore & Eugene
Eugene got one of the bigger pops of the night, even though I was under the impression audiences had begun to turn on him a bit as of late. No real question what happened here; Deuce & Domino retain.

1-ON-1 BASKETBALL CHALLENGE: MVP vs. Matt Hardy
Before this took place, there was a backstage segment where MVP put himself over to Teddy Long saying he could beat all the current SD! brand champions. Teddy then one-upped him by saying he guessed MVP thinks he could take the tag team championships by himself, but MVP backpedals then says he’ll tag with the next person to walk in Teddy’s office to take on Deuce & Domino. In walks Matt Hardy, and Teddy makes the match for next week: MVP & Matt Hardy vs. Deuce & Domino.

To start the basketball challenge, MVP again put himself over with how great he is at basketball, saying he’s friends with Shaq and D-Wade of the Miami Heat, only to miss an easy layup. Matt Hardy makes his entrance and starts the challenge by throwing the ball directly into MVP’s face. While he’s recovering Deuce and Domino attack and beat down the pair of them, the idea being to create some sort of chemistry between Hardy & MVP working as a team.

MATCH #5: Brad Allen vs. Mark Henry
After the squash, Henry talks about how he’s not scared of druids or other spooky stuff like that, then the lights go out and the bell tolls. A new Undertaker promo video airs on the Titan screens while Henry stands in the middle of the ring washed in purple light. The video was an amalgam of different horror film-esque splash scenes and it ended with several druids out in a desert digging up a box which is revealed to contain several coral snakes and a large, metallic “Undertaker” symbol. The people around me went nuts at the sight of this thing, thinking Taker might actually appear, but of course he didn’t. Henry eventually left the ring and that was that.

WWE DIVAS BIKINI CONTEST: Michelle McCool vs. Victoria vs. Torrie Wilson vs. Kristal
Michelle McCool (who came to the ring wearing a Ryan Succop USC Gamecocks football jersey) looks awesomely hot, as does Torrie Wilson and Victoria. Never have been too big on Kristal, but hey – different strokes for different folks, right?

Michael Cole hosts this contest with the winner, of course, being decided upon by crowd reaction. All four of the ladies show their stuff and then Cole does the unthinkable…

He brings down Mae Young.

Mae Young is 84 years old – she should be in a comfortable chair somewhere enjoying her grandchildren’s company, not threatening to take her clothes off on national television! Grandma boobies are not a boob variety for which I think I’ll ever be able to develop a taste. Cole declared her the winner, even though I think the crowd got louder for her because we were all retching like we’d just come down with a sudden and horrible case of food poisoning.

MATCH #6: Batista vs. Finlay
Batista’s pyro is pure torture, especially when you’re sitting as close to those cannons as I was. The other negative thing about it is that it creates a lot of fumes – so many that there was a cloud of smoke that slowly made its way up to the rafters, pretty much ruining visibility for people in the cheap seats and making it really difficult for people like myself who were trying to get some decent pictures of the matches.

I had hopes that when it was announced Finlay would be his opponent that Batista would be forced to step up his workrate a bit. No such luck, though, as Batista continues to have some of the lightest matches imaginable. I can definitely see why WWE’s booking strategy as of late has become to protect their talent as much as possible, but good Lord if it hasn’t made for some lack-luster television.

A few minutes in, The Great Khali and his handler made their way to ringside but didn’t get involved in the match until several minutes later when Khali went after Batista only to have Batista fight him off. I kept thinking to myself, “Okay, Batista’s going to be the face in peril and Ric Flair’s going to run in for the save!”, because Flair hadn’t been involved in the show up until that point. As it would turn out, Flair wasn’t involved in the show at all – not a match, not a promo, nothing, even though he was on the local NBC affiliate the past two days hyping this show.

Batista commenced to beating down Finlay and Khali, and appeared to have drawn blood from the scalp of Khali. Referees went to separate "The Animal" from his prey, but I totally marked out for Irwin R. Scheister and Dean Malenko who were also trying to get in on the fun.