12/28 WWE Smackdown House Show in Raleigh, N.C.

Submitted By Nick Noel on 12/28/08

Report byPatrick Harris bigpatpunisher@hotmail.com Attendance for the show looked lousy. The RBC Center capacity is about 10,000, but half the arena was roped off and the entrance curtain was in the middle of the building. The upper deck was also empty. To give a perspective, the ringside seating went back only 15 rows to the curtain and 10 rows back on the far end to the general section seating. I’d have to estimate 2,500-3,000 tops. I don’t know what their expectations are, but it’s a far cry from the numbers in June here with Raw and this time last year with another house show. 1. The Great Khali squashed Ryan Braddock in a minute. Khali is massive in person, but he’s so unconvincing in the ring because he isn’t athletic or able to deliver any move convincingly. After the match, Khali dug in his pants and gave Justin Roberts a note. Roberts then asked if anybody in the crowd wanted a kiss from Khali. They chose a girl from ringside, who was actually pretty hot, to come in and smooch him. Eve Torres was in the crowd after and brought some kids to the floor after they answered a trivia question. Following behind her was R-Truth for the next match. 2. Shelton Benjamin defeated R-Truth and Hurricane Helms in a Triple Threat match to retain the U.S. Title in about 10 minutes. R-Truth and Helms got respectable hometown reactions since they’re N.C. natives, though Killings got the better reaction with chants during the match. Decent action by all three men. R-Truth hit his ax kick on Helms but got thrown out the ring by a recovering Benjamin. He pins Helms instead for win. 3. Natalya and Maryse defeated the Bella Twins with Kung Fu Naki as the guest referee in about eight minutes. The news here is that Maryse appeared to injure her knee badly. The crowd was entirely dead for this. Nothing they did garnered reaction. After a few minutes, a Bella twin tried to dropkick Maryse. I’m thinking her intent was to either miss entirely or possibly contact her thigh, but she instead landed square on the kneecap. It looked like a freak occurrence. Maryse shrieked loudly and collapsed to the mat. She laid there for a minute before a WWE official came around to check on her. He gave the X symbol and several trainers ran out. She stayed in the same position for the rest of the match. The other three were scrambling around and trying to improvise the match during all of this. It was a huge mess and looked terrible. Natalya looked to end the match by taking a three count at one point, but Funaki just stopped his count before three for no reason even though she didn’t budge. She eventually used the Sharpshooter on one of the twins for the end. Maryse probably laid there for at least another five minutes while the trainers looked at her. They eventually brought out a stretcher and carted her out instead of trying to have her walk. 4. Kizarny defeated MVP in five minutes. I really feel for MVP. He cut a brief promo about his slump and now being reduced to being fed to new wrestlers so they can add a name to their ledger. Kizarny reverses the Playmaker into his finisher. It’s an odd style DDT where he rolls over and ends up on top in a pinning position. MVP lingered around the ring after and looked extremely frustrated. He grabbed the mic again and said he’s tired off all this and that he quits. I don’t believe those comments have been on TV in any way, so "quitting" might be the direction they’re going. 5. Triple H defeated Vladimir Kozlov in a Street Fight in about 15 minutes. I understand Kozlov is a work in progress, but he doesn’t seem to have that "it." He’s like Khali in that nothing he does looks authentic or natural in person. The street match was fairly average. Kozlov choked out Triple H with an extension cord for what seemed like forever. Finish had HHH hitting Kozlov with the sledgehammer (even though HHH totally whiffed) followed by a Pedigree. Intermission – Eve tossed shirts into the crowd 6. Carlito and Primo defeated The Brian Kendrick and Ezekiel Jackson to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship in about 12 minutes. Ezekiel is enormous. Funny stuff at the start by Carlito and Primo in that they didn’t want to fight Ezekiel and kept tagging each other in. Carlito fought off a Sliced Bread No. 2 attempt by Kendrick and hit the Backstabber for the pin. 7. Jeff Hardy defeated Edge to retain the WWE Championship in 20 minutes. I love Edge. The guy is gold. All the little stuff adds up to a true heel, from mocking the young girls and kids at ringside, grabbing and ripping up a Jeff Hardy sign, the facial expressions in the ring, and the stalling tactics. Edge was getting heckled by a guy in front wearing a Cowboys jersey. He would later scream out to him that the Cowboys were currently getting wiped out by the Eagles while handling Hardy. Classic. Very good match. It saved the show. Edge controlled the majority of the action but lost after missing a spear. Hardy hit the Twist of Fate and a Swanton for the pin. Hardy celebrated for a long time around ringside with fans. 8. Undertaker defeated Big Show in a Steel Cage match in about 17 minutes. They assembled the cage between matches. It’s not the same one used for TV. It’s much smaller, shorter, and frankly looks completely unstable. Any contact with the cage made the whole thing wobble and rock back and forth. They should either assemble the full style cage that lowers from above or consider another match type. A casket match would work just as well. 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