Friday Night SmackDown Review - October 12, 2012

A returning Randy Orton ambushes Alberto Del Rio.

Throwaway opening segment featuring World Heavyweight Sheamus and Big Show. The "power of the punch" challenge gave me horrendous NXT flashbacks, and it wasn't even all that interesting. How this is supposed to get viewers excited for their World Championship match at Hell in a Cell, I have no idea, but Tensai attacking Sheamus was a nice tie-in to the opening match.

Decent match with World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus defeating Tensai. We've seen it before, but Sheamus scored more offense than usual due to his frustration. Sheamus has already been established as a monster inside the ring in the past, but at least we didn't see his usual happy-go-lucky character here. The outcome was obvious and hardly did anything to help either guy.

Fine tag team match with Heath Slater and Jinder Mahal defeating Santino Marella and Zack Ryder. The action was fine for what is was, but this match's meaning was mostly to establish "The Band" as a threat. Although they may not have much credibility, they're slowly garnering more and more heat each week and stacking victories will only help expose them more on both Raw and SmackDown.

Good match between WWE Tag Team Champion Kane and Dolph Ziggler. It was built to nicely with Ziggler's challenge made to Kane via Tout earlier this week, so it felt somewhat significant. It received good time and protected Ziggler by not allowing him to be pinned. I would've rather seen him get the better of Kane to make up for lost momentum, but Team Hell No attacking Matt Striker following the bout was fun stuff.

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Daniel Bryan locks in the No Lock on a defenseless Matt Striker.

Brief match with Big Show quickly squashing Kofi Kingston. A majority of the match was focused on Kingston and not Show, given the fact that Kignston's recent rival Intercontinental Champion The Miz was on commentary hyping their upcoming title match on Main Event. Show getting the quick win was beneficial for him, but makes Kingston look weak after the strong showings he had on both Raw and Main Event this week. However, the promo from Miz following the contest made up for it and successfully gave viewers a reason to watch Main Event next Wednesday night.

Nice match between Damien Sandow and Sin Cara. Given the fact that Sin Cara is known for his consistent botching, he worked very well with Sandow here. I'm not sure if Sandow spoke Spanish or tonight was just a good night for Sin Cara, but the two had good chemistry together. It could've gone a bit longer, but it was fun while it lasted. I have no problem with Sin Cara winning here, as all signs point to Team Rhodes Scholars winning the tag team tournament come this week's Raw.

Great match between Alberto Del Rio and WWE Tag Team Champion Daniel Bryan. Their similar styles meshed well together and made for an exciting back-and-forth match. Del Rio scoring the clean win over Bryan was smart booking, as Bryan could easily take the loss without any harm being done to his character. The return of Randy Orton was also well done and has me excited for their pending feud that looks to culminate at Hell in a Cell in a few weeks.

Overall, a decent to good show this week that didn't feature anything all that noteworthy or exciting, but what he received was fine and served a purpose. Some hype was done for the upcoming Hell in a Cell pay-per-view a well, so this edition of SmackDown was effective and successful in that aspect. Nothing on this week's show was worth going back to see a second time, but the show wasn't insufferable to watch throughout the night.

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