8/31/12 Smackdown

Ratings:
Rey Mysterio vs. Cody Rhodes: **1/4

Kaitlyn vs. Natalya: 3/4*

Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow: *1/2

Tyson Kidd & Justin Gabriel vs. Titus O'Neil & Darren Young: *3/4

Alberto Del Rio vs. Kane: *1/4

Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler: ***
_________________

Reviews/Thoughts:
In Green Bay for Smackdown. They must all be excited football's starting up again.

Good grief, we're getting the HHH promo from RAW again? Ugh. Anyway, Sheamus starts the show to praise HHH. Enter Damien Sandow who flaps his lips and refuses to fight Sheamus. Booker doesn't care and books the match anyway for later tonight.

Rey Mysterio and Cody face off. Cody can't seem to get away from the whole mask dealie. Cole brings up the history between the two, including the whole deal with breaking Cody's nose and starting Cody's climb up the midcard ranks. The "Dashing" gimmick was doomed for permanent midcard status, but now I can see Cody main eventing soon. Good match, Rey counters into a rollup for three. Rhodes attacks post-match. Sin Cara to the rescue. They put a Sin Cara mask on Cody? Interesting....

Maybe Sin Cara can turn heel and he can face Mysterio. They teased a Sin Cara heel turn for a very brief time last year before he got sidelined with that knee injury.

The anger management skits with Daniel Bryan and Kane was gold. Best part of RAW.

Eve on commentary for the divas match. Yup, Natalya's jobbing to Kaitlyn now. Would never have imagined this happening last year. It was better than average in diva match quality, but still not saying very much.

General managers attacking employees? I mean, it's pretty much the same as boss and employee, so we've seen that before. Anyway, yay for AJ attacking Vickie. Booker doesn't condone AJ's actions. Vickie just may take matters into her own hands. Yay suspense.

Sheamus/Sandow next. Pretty formulaic, typical physical Sheamus match. Sandow runs away at the end. Boo.

Green Bay Packers in the house. Donald Driver front and center.

Kidd/Gabriel vs. Primetime Players next. Tag division finally getting more screen time. Included touts from Usos and Twitter mentions from Primo/Epico. D-Young with the gutbuster on Gabriel for the win. Makes sense, since we got face tag champs (Truth and Kofi).

Be sure to watch Kane's speech from his anger management session. Epic. Just epic. So funny.

Josh Mathews interviews Alberto Del Rio. ADR wants to nuke Josh. Kane pyros so they all hightail it. Apology for Josh as part of anger management! Damn, I want violence! How many times will they humanize Kane?! Oh, and Alberto faces Kane. Sucks to be Del Rio.

Josh basically playing scared on commentary throughout the match. Ricardo interferes and a backstabber from Del Rio wins it. Kane kicks Josh's ass and is sorry for doing so. Vintage two-faced devil's favorite demon! OK, that was fine with me. Cole pleads to AJ and Booker to do something about this. Wonder how long before there's a walkout again like they did with HHH.

Speaking of HHH, they do the whole damn promo from RAW. I loved the promo, but why so much hype? Plus, HHH is a lock for the WWE Hall of Fame anyway, and he basically delivered his Hall of Fame speech right then and there. Shoulda let it wait for when he's formally inducted. HHH wrestles part-time now, if at all. He's a corporate guy now. Let the young guys do their thing and let HHH run the company behind the scenes with Stephanie.

Ziggler and Orton close the show. Great stuff. Several near falls, good counters, and a strong finish. Nice to see Orton get the win, better than having him do long jobbing duty before going off to film his movie. Vickie tries to get some heel heat at the end by grabbing the mic and praising Ziggler as MITB winner in her annoying voice.