In case you missed it last night (Fri., Nov. 4, 2011), here's the latest episode of WWE Friday Night Smackdown, which emanated from Greenville, South Carolina.
The show featured Mark Henry taking on Daniel Bryan with Big Show inserting himself into the fun. The way they booked the main event was actually brilliant and added to the match in a way that accomplished every conceivable goal.
Big Show hits the big punch on Henry, which takes him out. This gives Henry the disqualification win, which is usually unnecessary but it worked perfectly here, setting up Show vs. Henry at Survivor Series. After Show knocks Henry out, though, he goes to Bryan, who is selling on the outside, and wakes him up with some water and a few slaps. Show tells him this is his big chance and he should cash in the Money in the Bank briefcase.
"Henry is knocked out, you can become world heavyweight champion!"
Bryan struggles with the idea of this, as he's planned since the moment he won the briefcase to cash it in at WrestleMania 28 next year. After wrestling with the decision, and Show still in his ear egging him on, he climbs in the ring with the briefcase and acts as though he might actually do it. The problem is that he took to long to make his decision and Henry has come up. Bryan sees this, goes to knock Henry out again by drilling him with the briefcase but gets caught and boom, World's Strongest Slam.
Show comes in from the outside to try his luck with knocking Henry out again but he also takes a World's Strongest Slam and Henry reigns supreme as champion.
Teddy Long then comes out and books the rematch between Show and Henry for Survivor Series.
What makes this entire scenario so great is that it not only sounds good in theory, it completely worked in practice. Awesome performances from all involved.
This is all without mentioning the fact that Smackdown opened with a 30 minute street fight between Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes. No mindless meandering promo to kick things off; just an amazing match between two workers at the top of their game.
And now we can say without a shadow of a doubt that Smackdown booking is worlds ahead of Raw booking. It's not even close. To check out full results and a running live blog for the show click here.