WWE SmackDown, January 28, 2011: Rated-RKO Reunion, Final Hype For Rumble

Opening Segment

Decent promo. Having Vickie as acting General Manager again brings back old memories from the past four years... and not good ones. She gets huge heat, but having her in charge bothers me.

We saw a different, humorous side of Orton on SmackDown which I liked. But doesn't it kill his dark viper character that he plays? His interaction with Ziggler was also well done.


Lay-Cool defeated Katilyn and Kelly Kelly

Why in the world did the faces attack the heels before the match? They're in no feud currently, so I don't know what purpose it served. It was a different pace, but I think it could have been better and made more sense if reversed.

The match itself served no purpose, other than warming up Lay-Cool for this immediate title match Sunday. Neither Divas Champion Natayla nor Beth Phoenix appeared, so why should we care for the title match at Royal Rumble?

For Kayilyn's SmackDown debut, this was disappointing. She got better, but she won NXT, and thus should be given a little more respect.


Drew McIntyre defeated JTG

This match did nothing for me, and was actually served pointless seeing Kelly Kelly played no role at all.Giving JTG more air time doesn't interest me, and though the match wasn't terrible, it was very logical.

I'm not sure if the point of McIntyre walking away was supposed to leave me confused, but now I'm questioning my interest in this love angle.


Royal Rumble Exhibition

I'm not going to bash on this concept, but it didn't persuade me to buy the Royal Rumble pay-per-view by any means. Alberto Del Rio threw out two local athletes, that does not give me any interest at all.

Kane's return was the main highlight here, and he was welcomed as face, but that's probably just because he's a true hardcore fan favorite (myself included). The involvement of Kingston and Mysterio was random seeing they aren't feuding, but I'll talk about that more next.


Intercontinental Champion Kofi Kingston and Rey Mysterio defeated Alberto Del Rio and Kane

Solid tag team match. No high spots, but all of these competitors work well together with great chemistry. As I said previously, the only miss to this match was that they were randomly paired in an effort to build hype for Sunday, whereas both Kofi and Kane weren't even advertised till last night.

The contest got great time, and displayed a small dose of how there are no teams in the Royal Rumble Match. An awesome finish makes me want to see me more of these competitors Sunday.


Big Show defeated Heath Slater with The Corre

There's not much to say on the match, it only lasted a minute. I realize Big Show is a dominant Superstar, but squashing members of The Corre individually makes them look weak as singles competitors.

However, this squash match kept the feud going, and that's what more important at the moment. The brawl afterwards didn't accomplish anything, and if it were meant to hype the Rumble, none of the Corre members were even thrown over the top rope!


World Heavyweight Champion Edge and Randy Orton def. Dolph Ziggler and WWE Champion The Miz

With some competition from the previous tag team match earlier, this wins Match of the Night. The action between both matches, but this bout in particular included rivalries from both the champions and challengers for this Sunday's Royal Rumble matches.

It disappoints me this match wasn't more hyped over the return of the teaming of Rated-RKO, which is the main reason why I watched SmackDown last night. Nonetheless, the finish was electrifying and gave good hype to the title matches Sunday.

The post-segment with the banning of the "Spear" finisher was awkward, and didn't give me another reason to watch the World Title match. I hope this leads to a surprise win for Ziggler Sunday, as he was made to look weak both on RAW and SmackDown.


Final Review

Overall, this was a lackluster show which featured very little hype to theRoyal Rumble. Nearly all the matches featured very little meaning besides the main event, and the two hours went by quickly.

The Friday Night show has been tremendously the last few weeks and it kills me to witness a weak show like this one. As the Road to WrestleManiabegins on Sunday, let's hope more surprises await the WWE Universe.