What Were They Thinking? 1.05.08: Beat The Clock

Posted by William Bumgarner on 01.05.2008

My first column of 2008, and I take a look at the recent SmackDown!'s poorly-booked attempt to crown a #1 Contender.

Welcome back to What Were They Thinking?. I am your ever-cynical host, Bill
Bumgarner, and this week I'm going to talk about the "Beat The Clock" #1 Contender's event on
last week's SmackDown!. But before I get into that, let me just say that I speak for everyone
when I say that replacing JBL with Jonathan Coachman on the announce table was a bad, bad
move. Coach just doesn't have the charisma that JBL did and I'll be sorry to see the man go from
the commentator's pool. Quite frankly, I'd have loved to have seen Funaki take Bradshaw's place, as
the sheer comedy value alone woulda been worth listening to. (Plus, can you imagine his
voiceovers on the next SvR game? "I don't think that the manufacturer quite had this in mind
when they made that particular item." "It good for what he used it for!!!!" Gold. Pure gold.)

Anyway, the "Beat The Clock" stuff. Having Finlay come out first and finish off MVP to set the
"Time to Beat" at 9:46 was a decent movie, as it's a conceviable time to beat and would make
Finlay look strong without costing anyone anything. He gets a non-title win over the U.S. Champ,
looks good doing it, and then Chavo beats Funaki in 6:02. Finlay hasn't lost any steam, Chavo has
gained some and potentially positions himself as a #1 Contender; everyone's happy.

Then we get more of the WWE's crap. First, Batista in a handicap match against the Rated
Rmy (Curt Hawkins and Zach Ryder, and I didn't misspel the stable name). This wouldn't have been
so bad if they hadn't made Batista look virtually powerless against these two. The finish, at least,
was clean, which is a rarity in these days of DQ finishes and run-ins that the refs are always
conveniently turned away for. Batista didn't get as much in the way of offense as he usually does,
and that's a no-no if you're trying to book someone as a monster. Batista ran out of time after the
Rated Rmy kept stopping his Batista Bomb, and the time to beats was still 6:02 with Chavo in the
lead after what, to me, was a painful match to watch.

The next BTC match was supposed to be The Undertaker vs. Matt Striker, but instead Striker
was made the special guest referee and the opponent was Mark Henry. This time around, Big Evil
got in plenty of offense and looked very strong in this match. Mark Henry did his job,
as well, and made it look lik The Dead Man had to give it everything he had to keep him down. As
far as that went, this match was fun to watch. But, predictably, Referee Striker screwed 'Taker over.
In the final seconds of the match, Undertaker pinned Henry, Striker counter 1...2....and stopped. He
got up, left the ring, and the bell rang, signalling that the time was up. 'Taker got pissed and did
some damage to Henry afterwards, but once again we lose a viable contender to the World
Heavyweight Title.

The next (and final) match in this series was Rey Mysterio vs. World Heavyweight Champion
Edge, who brought the Rated Rmy (DAMN I hate that pun) to ringside with him. Both men
got some offense in, and then Batista runs down and starts beating up Edge's cronies. Edge is
distracted by this, which allows Rey to get in more offense, then Undertaker appears. the lights go
out, and hen Edge is hanging in the middle rope. Mysterio hits the 619 and West Coast Pop for the
three-count and the win, coming in at 4:35 and becoming the new #1 Contender. The only problem
here is that Rey has a lot of fans, and they're gonna be disappointed by the WWE's booking.
He'll either lose to Edge thanks to some shenanigans, or he'll win the belt, but he'll be made to look
like a wimp by getting squashed in a bunch of non-title matches just like he did the last time
they put the big belt on him. It seems that the WWE just doesn't know how to book little guys (then
again, they don't do such a hot job with the big guys these days, either) and tend to think of
them as jobbers, no matter how over they are (this is a gripe with me about TNA, also, as Shark
Boy is mega-over and yet I can't recall him ever actually winning a match).

Well, I've said my piece. The WWE's thinking (or lack thereof) puzzles me yet again as they've
gotten the hopes of the fans up, only to disappoint (like when they gave Triple H the WWE Title,
only to have him lose it about two hours later). This, frankly, smacks of WCW in the late 90's.
People say that about TNA, and it's true in some respects. But the WWE does it, too, and in grater
volume. They obviously want Edge to retain the title (or get it back quickly after losing it), but they
don't want to job out the big guys like Batista, so they set Rey Mysterio up to take the fall. Sad,
sad booking. It's no wonder that the WWE's games are selling so much; they're a lot
more enjoyable than what's being put on TV these days.