BRM Reviews the 1/20/2012 Smackdown (horrible)

[Big Red Machine]

DANIEL BRYAN PROMO- Not so good. Dragon’s pauses and phrasing were a bit off, confusing the meanings of some of his sentences. Not so good as far as promos officially marking the start of heel turns go. Not going to lie to you guys: When Dragon said that AJ had a “cervical sprain,” my first thought was “I didn’t know you could sprain your cervix.”

TEDDY LONG & CODY RHODES SEGMENT- not so good.

CODY RHODES vs. JUSTIN GABRIEL (w/Hornswoggle)- 4/10. Way too short.

MARK HENRY & TEDDY LONG- Henry was awesome.

TORNADO TAG TEAM MATCH: The Usos vs. Primo & Epico (w/Rosa Mendes)- 2.5/10. WAY too short. I don’t think I’ve seen this stip in years, and I was really excited for it, too. It barely even felt relevant.

TABLES MATCH: Wade Barrett vs. Sheamus- 5.25/10

FLAG MATCH: Ted Dibiase Jr. vs. Hunico (w/Camacho)- 2.5/10 Some nice bumps, but an utterly pointless match. They should have just given these four minutes to the Tornado Tag Team match.

BLINDFOLD MATCH: Santino Marella vs. Drew McIntyre- no rating. Eh segment. I liked the way Santino used the crowd. I would have been fine with this if it wasn’t for the ultra-serious “McIntyre might get fired” angle.

LUMBERJACK MATCH FOR THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Daniel Bryan(c) vs. Mark Henry- 5/10. Not good enough for a main event. I really wasn’t thrilled with the way this turned out for a few reasons. If I remember correctly (going back to a Raw vs. Smackdown Lumberjack match from 2005), if the lumberjacks go into the ring to attack someone, it should be a DQ. Not only did we not get a DQ here, but we didn’t even get any sort of official announcement at all as to the result of the match. Calling a Double DQ or a no-contest really gets over the fact that the ref has lost control. I will say that this did its job, which was getting over that Dragon is a jerk (although pushing the lumberjacks seemed a bit out of character to me). I did like the way the schmoz started, and the fact that Dragon, the guy whose fault the schmoz really seemed to be (if inadvertently), escaped.

TEDDY LONG MAKES A WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH FOR THE ROYAL RUMBLE- The logic behind having the cage match is great… but Teddy Long should have explained it! This isn’t a cage match for the sake of having a cage match. This a cage match because the cage will prevent the problems that have ruined the World Heavyweight Title defenses over the last three weeks (people not involved in the match becoming a factor in some way).

Overall, a horrible episode of Smackdown.