Friday Night SmackDown Review - August 3, 2012

Daniel Bryan lands a devastating kick on Christian.

Effective opening segment with Booker T being named the new SmackDown General Manager. Obviously, it was announced by WWE a few days in advance, so it was no surprise, but it was still well done. It's always nice to see Mr. McMahon, and whatever gets Booker off of commentary. The altercation between Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio helped further their feud and hype their matches for later on in the night.

Good match between World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus and Tensai. Tensai has been seriously lacking in character development as of late, but I was glad to see him get some offense in on Sheamus. Their sizes made for a decent contest that saw them go back and forth for most of it. It was also a bit of a surprise not to see Tensai jobbed out quickly given the heat he received due to a recent remark he made on Tout.

Fine match with Antonio Cesaro once again defeating United States Champion Santino Marella. It was most of the same from what we saw last week, so nothing out of the ordinary here. Santino's comedy antics were toned down to a minimum and the action was short and sweet. I'm sincerely hoping these back-to-back victories for Cesaro mean he'll be the one to finally take the U.S. title off Marella relatively soon.

Fun six-man tag team match with Daniel Bryan, Intercontinental Champion The Miz and Dolph Ziggler defeating Chris Jericho, Christian and Kane. Similar to the tag team bout we saw on Raw this week, this match was also very entertaining. Every worker involved can just go, and made for a solid matchup as a whole. It built a handful of feuds while incorporating smart booking by having the heels go over here in an impressive manner.

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Randy Orton maliciously breaks down Alberto Del Rio.

Brief match with Ryback defeating Jinder Mahal by disqualification. This contest was even shorter than what we saw last week, and it looks they're building around the fact that Ryback desperately wants to get his hands on Mahal. That makes sense, but why Mahal? He hardly receives a reaction and has never looked all that credible. Nonetheless, at least they're giving Ryback a story to work with for the time being regardless of who his opponent may be.

Throwaway match with Darren Young defeating WWE Tag Team Champion R-Truth. The action was fine for what it was, but it was too short to mean anything. Nice win for Young, which should earn the Prime Time Players a shot at the WWE Tag Team Championships. On a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to see A.W. still have his live mic gimmick at ringside following his controversial remarks made on Raw this past week.

Boring main event match between Randy Orton and Alberto Del Rio. These two have provided excellent singles matches in the past, so I'm not sure why this contest wasn't as good. Nothing was bad by any means, but it felt slow and plodding. It also seemed like Orton was trying to catch his breath, meaning that he's still not at 100% following his two month absence. After seeing this match, I'm not all that excited for Orton's return, as it seems he hasn't changed at all.

Overall, a decent edition but merely forgettable as we quickly progress SummerSlam. There was some hype for the upcoming pay-per-view, but nothing on the show felt worthy of watching if you had missed the show except for the six-man tag team match. Nothing on this week's show was truly terrible, but it felt like a chore to watch this week for the most part.

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