Smackdown comes to us from Nashville, TN tonight and kicked off with a recap of Christian’s recent epic with the World Heavyweight title. We see clips of him winning it at Extreme Rules and then losing it days later on last week’s Smackdown. He is in the ring cutting a promo about how people shouldn’t be bitter that he lost the title because he is not upset. Now that he will be able to prepare himself 100% to face Randy Orton in a rematch at Over the Limit, he is confident he’ll win the title back. Sheamus’ music kicks in and he comes to the ring, followed by Mark Henry. They team up on Christian and Randy Orton runs to the rescue. They clean house and clear the ring of the two heels and shake hands as we go to commercial. After the first break, the two are shown again backstage and the dialogue is basically Christian thanking Orton for the help, but Orton dismisses it and says he did it for selfish reasons. He uses Christian’s words against him and says that he wants to ensure Christian is 100% for their rematch since ‘he’s so sure he can beat Orton at 100%’. Teddy Long comes by and books the tag team main event of Christian and Orton vs. Henry and Sheamus for tonight.

The first match of the night is a brilliant one with Sin Cara vs. Daniel Bryan. This is a wonderful match up made possible by the recent draft. Chavo Guerrero introduces Cara and one briefly wonders if this sets up Cara as a possible heel, but not likely. More likely is that Cara will have it out with Chavo to initiate a feud. Chavo is also in the booth again this week for the match, putting over the fact Sin Cara learned most of what he knows from Chavo’s arsenal. The match is back and forth at a furious speed and goes about 15 minutes. It’s a A quality match for a Smackdown caliber show and features signature moves by both men. Near the end, Bryan cannot quite get the Labelle Lock and he goes for a second missile drop kick on the top rope, but Chavo interferes this enables Cara to hit a side head kick that stuns Bryan. He succumbs to Cara’s finisher—some sort of wild flip off the top rope (we’ll call it a super-crazed suplex)—and is pinned by the masked man. After the match, Cara sees what happened on the jumbotron and decks Chavo. In all, this guy is just the next coming of Rey Mysterio complete with kids in the crowd wearing his masks. He has more strength and size, and more variety of moves so far, but I’ve been tired of small masked Mexican wrestlers burying the up and comers for quite some time now.

Next up is an Intercontinental Title match between Wade Barrett and Kane. Kane has the upperhand for most of the match and is in pole position after a flying lariat off the top rope. He sets up the choke slam, but this is the moment Slater and Gabriel interfere and there’s an immediate disqualification. Kane is gang-beaten by the three Corre members and the Ezekial Jackson runs to the ring, complete with his own entrance music. He starts out a house of fire but the numbers get to him after Barrett blasts him in the side of the head with a boot. This feud is just heating up.

Next we have a segment with Layla and Michael Cole. Layla is trying to drum up support in the ring for getting rid of McCool (I think we wanted both these annoying beeyatches gone though), and Cole comes in putting down the Divas division (can’t blame him). This sets up the Kharma bansee shriek and she comes to the ring. Cole and Layla are both petrified, but Cole trips Layla as she scrambles. This allows him to escape to his pod while Layla gets the beatdown from awesome Kharma.

After the commercial, it’s the uber-bad Great Khali with his equally annoying ‘brother’ coming to the ring for Kiss Cam. They eventually pick an obvious plant from the front row—a rather rotund woman who is way overacting her surprise. This actually turns to a decent segment though, because a sharp-dressed and pissed off Jinder Mahal storms to the ring and punks out Khali. He screams at him in native Indian and bitch-slaps him not once but twice. And Khali takes it like the chump he is. Presumably, this is the preworkings of a possible heel turn for Khali and a whole new persona under the tutelage of Mahal. That would be more than welcome…Khali is beyond a bad joke at this point so he needs something desperately.

A second intriguing matchup takes place next, with little fanfare. Ted Dibiase is introduced already in the ring and he is set to face ex-Legacy teammate Cody Rhodes. Cody comes to the ring giving and receiving heat from the crowd and he continues with the paper bag gimmick. He does acknowledge his “priceless friend” right before the match, as he hands him a bag and Dibiase tosses it aside. They two lock up and Cody’s viciousness gives a brief upperhand before he eats a nice dropkick from Dibiase, but then gives one as good as he received. The match is back and forth with the two trading nice rollups for near falls. Hopefully this breathes some life into Dibiase’s career. It would be a nice little rivalry. Cody locks in a nice submission lock that puts pressure on Ted’s neck, arm and shoulder. Cody now taunting Dibiase in the corner but Ted turns the tables with a stiff clothesline, inverted atomic drop and another hard lariat. Rhodes responds with a hard running knee and then hits Cross Rhodes for a convincing win over his former equal. So much for that Dibiase push. WWE once again makes no sense by positioning Dibiase now, when he’s on the brink of obscurity, rather than when his Marine II movie came out a year ago.

After the break, Matt Stryker is interviewing The Corre and they put themselves over the beatdown of Jackson earlier. The outcome is Wade Barrett challenging Jackson to a match at Over the Limit, and Slater chimes in that it should be for Barrett’s IC Title. It’s a tad strange that the champ is basically challenging the challenger in this instance. Either way, the match appears booked.

15 minutes are left for the main event, and interestingly it’s Christian and Orton coming to the ring first. Sheamus is the last to enter the ring and the bout starts cleanly with Christian and Sheamus. Sheamus uses his brute force to get an early advantage, thundering forearms and a hard side headlock followed by a shoulder block. Sheamus pounds his knee in Christian’s forehead, but Christian gets a side headlock of his own and bounces off the ropes to hit some of his big right hooks, followed by the back elbow smash off the middle rope. Henry in next and slows the pace with methodical stomps and punches. He goes for a gorilla press but Christian escapes and tags in Orton, who hits a standing dropkick among other more fundamental moves. A running knee drop comes next and lateral press gets a two count. The World Champ stalks Henry but is limited by what he can do to this big man. He’s hit by a hard heatbutt as he deliberates his next move. Henry now in charge and he picks up Orton and drives him into the corner and then lands another big headbutt. He no-sells some body blows by Orton and tosses him over the top rope to the outside floor. Sheamus goes to do some damage but Christian protects the downed champion. Back in the ring, Henry is dominating Orton with simple but powerful moves. Henry’s so much better as a heel. Christian gets a hot tag and hits a drop kick off the second rope to rattle Henry, and then goes for the spinning DDT off the second rope but he’s simply tossed away by Mean Mark, who them levels the former champ with a stiff clothesline. Sheamus in now and works over Christian with a chin lock compounded with arm bar. He’s softened by some body blows from Christian, but then picks up the Canadian and lands a vicious power slam. Christian is in the bad part of town and in trouble. He’s driven chest-first very hard in to the corner turnbuckles by Henry…a la Bret Hart. Henry gets a near fall on Christian. Orton seemingly tries to help during a double-team but it only creates more damage for Christian as the ref is distracted. Booker T feels that Orton does it intentionally but it doesn’t appear as such. Christian gets his legs up on a charging Sheamus in the corner but is caught in mid-air. It looks like another power slam but this time Christian slips behind the back door and hits an inverted neckbreaker. He tags in the Apex Predator who is cleaning house. He hits a snap powerslam on Sheamus followed by his fall-down backbreaker. Sheamus avoids the middle rope DDT and hits an Irish Curse backbreaker, but Orton kicks out at 2.5. The Irish eradicator prowls now but charges and is dumped over the top rope as he misses his pumps kick. This time Orton hits the DDT and goes into Viper mode. He goes for the RKO but is pushed into the ropes by Sheamus. Christian tags the back shoulder of Orton and Sheamus doesn’t notice as Orton is kneed in the solar plexus by Sheamus. Christian charges in as Sheamus raises his arms in victory. From behind, Christian locks in Kill Switch and lands while Orton hits the interfering Mark Henry with an RKO simultaneously. The winners by pinfall victory are Randy Orton and Christian. The two celebrate with a respectful handshake as Christian eyeballs the belt and we fade to black…

Source: wrestlingtruth.com