Another good episode of Smackdown this week. The highlight for me was the "Five Minute Challenge" between Kurt Angle and The Artist Formerly Known As Spanky, Brian Kendrick. Kendrick's been playing the role of Earnest Youngster Seeking A Job instead of the role of Goofy Guy With An Awesome Hat And Occasionally Pink Trunks that won him acclaim on the indies and in Japan, but he's still entertaining. Angle played the role of WWE Champion and just beat the crap out of Kendrick for most of the match. Kendrick bumped great as usual and the Canadian crowd was totally into his comebacks. It looks like he'll make a good babyface for a while. I'd love to see him go up against Matt Hardy for the Cruiserweight belt at some point.

Things that were bad included too much of too many McMahons, Nathan Jones and the announcement that Paul Heyman will be in the main event next week. The continued Heyman-centricness of the main event angle makes me question the validity of rumors that his creative role has been diminished. But hopefully they'll get the "Brock F5s Heyman" spot over with next week so it won't become the focus of the Wrestlemania main event like "HHH Pedigrees Stephanie" did last year.

And Edge is out for a year or so with the same neck surgery that Benoit, Austin, Rhyno, Lita, et al. have had recently. It really sucks for Edge to be missing so much time just as he was making it up to the Smackdown main event scene. It would be nice if the WWE took a look at their wrestling style and tried to figure out why it resulted in so many serious neck injuries, but they haven't really been big on figuring out what's wrong with their product and coming up with ways to fix it in recent years. I wish Edge a speedy recovery.  ¶ joe | 11:27 PM |