Friday Night SmackDown Review - May 20, 2011

The show kicked off with which ultimately won Match of the Night, Christian vs. Sheamus. Both are tremendous workers and developed more chemistry as the match progressed despite only working a singles match together nearly a year prior. The close-near falls and clever finish made Sheamus look strong in defeat, and also set up the main event nicely with the save by Randy Orton afterwards.

The Divas match this week wasn't as bad as expected, given that at least Brie Bella was given the perfect opponent to work with. The finish was decent, but it's good to not to see the campy twin switch for once.

Ezekiel Jackson's promo was well cut, which shows signs of improvement, but his facial expression is what distracted me. Anyways, his performace in the ring was slightly disappointing with the multiple bodyslams he did, but I enjoyed the unique finish. As for everyone else, the match was well constructed and given enough time to make The Corre look somewhat credible in the ring.

Chavo Guerrero and Daniel Bryan have tremendous chemisty, so I was a little disappointed to see them work only a five minute match. Nonetheless, they provided us with decent action, but nothing compared to last week. I was quite surprised Bryan kicked out of the Frog Splash, where suspense is a nice quality I look for in all matches.


I'm psyched to see the reunion of Legacy, but it was a bit awkward seeing they just had a match together last week. As for the match, Trent Barreta did well for himself and gave DiBiase the win he needed.

Going into the The Great Khali and Jey Uso match, there was no doubt who was coming out victorious. However, the angle with Jinder Mahal is getting more intriguing by the week and I'm anxious to see how Khali will react next week after attacking his translator.

With another fresh match in the main event, Mark Henry certainly impressed me with his showing against World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton. They provided solid action and gave us disqualification finish in order for Henry stay strong. The post-match celebration with Orton and Christian was different with Orton's unexpected enthusiasm, along with the fact they allowed the other one to be beaten one while they watched, so it's odd to see them shake hands and say thank you thereafter.

Overall, I rate this a watchable and decent episode ofSmackDown. It did an excellent job building towards Over the Limit this Sunday and provided overall average action as well.