Top 10 Moments from Smackdown 06/29/12

Last night’s Smackdown was a pretty solid edition. It was chalked full of great matches, nice surprises, and some good ol’ AJ. It’s time to go down the top ten moments from last night’s show.

Stats

• Christian scored his 10th win of the year against the team of David Otunga and Cody Rhodes

• Cody Rhodes competed his 30th match of the year in a losing effort against the team of Santino Marella and Christian

• Sheamus scored his 35th win of the year against Alberto Del Rio and Dolph Ziggler

#10. Ryback does the usual

I’m not even going to get too much into this. Ryback came, won, and left.

#9. Teddy Long announced as next week’s GM

How many want to bet that there are going to be a few tag matches (playa)? In a short little backstage segment featuring the now rarely seen Aksana/Cesaro couple, Teddy Long announced that he was going to be next week’s special guest GM. He also announced what will probably be a dreadful match, Cesaro and Aksana vs. Khali and Layla.

#8. Damien Sandow vs. Zack Ryder

In the first Money In The Bank qualifier of the night, Damien Sandow surprisingly got the win over the more established Zack Ryder. It will be nice to see a young and up coming talent get a chance to shine (like another awesome guy that I will be getting into later) in one of the biggest matches of the year.

#7. Justin Gabriel vs. Tensai

In the most obvious qualifier of the night, A-Train scored a win over the extremely emo looking Justin Gabriel in a quick match. A lot of people (including myself) really don’t like Tensai, but I feel like he will add an interesting dynamic to the match. Let’s just hope he doesn’t win.

#6. Santino & Christian vs. Rhodes & Otunga

In what was an ‘okay’ match, the United States Belt Holder (I refuse to call it a championship while it’s around Santino’s waist) and the IC champion Christian defeated David Otunga and Cody Rhodes to both move on to the Money In The Bank match. It was a nice touch having Cody Rhodes not take the pin, then filing a “formal complaint” to the board of directors about it. This probably means we will end up seeing the former dashing one compete in the Money In The Bank Match, which is a good thing since he is no doubt a serious contender to win it.

#5. No! No! No! No! No! No!

In the opening segment of the night, Daniel Bryan, Vickie Guerrero, and AJ all delivered what I thought was an awesome segment about banning AJ from ringside at Punk and Bryan’s Money In The Bank match. This lead to other things, but I think we all got a laugh out of Bryan furiously screaming “No!” out of frustration for a good minute or two.

#4. Layla vs. AJ

There’s a few reasons why a Divas’ match is so high up on this list. 1. It opened the show. 2. It was a good match. 3. It featured great competitors. 4. It was a match people were actually interested in seeing. And 5. You didn’t know who was going to win.

#3. Tyson Kidd qualifies for Money In The Bank

FINALLY! Tyson Kidd, who is one of the most underused, underrated, and under-appreciated guys in the entire WWE, finally got a chance to shine after scoring an upset over Jack Swagger to qualify for the Money In The Bank ladder match. It will be a huge treat to see what Tyson Kidd can pull of in a ladder match, and it looks like this will be the start of a huge push for the Crown Prince of the WWE.

#2. AJ announced as the special guest referee

In what I already described as a great segment, AJ was announced as the special guest referee to the CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan match at Money In The Bank. This inclusion of AJ will add a lot more interest (if that’s even possible) to the match, and it will hopefully give us the pay off of the entire angle.

#1. Triple Threat Match

Smackdown has a habit of giving us long and awesome main events, don’t they? In the night’s main event, Sheamus successfully defended his title in a half-hour Triple Threat match against Dolph Ziggler and Alberto Del Rio, and boy was it entertaining!

Disagree with me? Tell me why in the comments.

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