Last night's WWE Smackdown was the second in a pair of successful debuts for the new brands. Much like WWE RAW on Monday the emphasis was on showcasing younger talent. There was an important difference between the shows. While RAW's new stars - MVP, The Miz, Matt Hardy - have never achieved success on a main event level Smackdown's instant front runners - CM Punk, Jeff Hardy and John Morrison - are former one-time world champions who haven't gotten the sustained push they needed in order to catch fire. All three of their previous title reigns were a month to a few months long and booked hesitantly at best with undercard stars often getting top billing over them.



CM Punk pinned the world champion, Edge, which normally I would say is a terrible way to begin promoting the new king pin of WWE Smackdown. But in this case Edge has been the champion so many times before and so recently that it doesn't really benefit him to have the gold and pinning him when he's wearing it doesn't mean much more than pinning him when he's not. That's proof positive that the company would benefit more from putting the belt on someone else, but I'm not sure who outside of Titan Towers would even debate that. The WWE still did well by demonstrating CM Punk to be a contender on that level. And having Punk promise to cash in the briefcase only to get jumped from behind seconds before was manipulative but I don't fault them for it in this case. It added a unique hook to the entire evening.

Jeff Hardy became the number one contender at WWE Judgment Day after winning a Fatal Fourway elimination match against Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio and Kane. I believe Jeff Hardy actually has an outside shot of winning the belt because the creative direction of the company right now is so focused on promoting rising stars, and because, privately, Hardy has been taking a tough bargaining line in negotiating his next contract. Since I don't think Hardy would negotiate simply for a main event title shot failure - having had lots of those in the past - it only makes sense to imagine he's been successful in twisting their arm into giving him an actual run at the top. If so, bravo, congratulations, you're the man, Jeff, and I can't wait to see it.

John Morrison's match was really odd in that he was wrestling Shelton Benjamin, who last I checked is a heel. The crowd was strongly behind Morrison as a good guy. But unless the WWE is counting The Miz stuffing it to him at the draft special as a face turn I wasn't aware that John Morrison is now one of the good guys. At first I was confused, not only because of the 'invisible' overnight face turn but also because Morrison, like MVP, has generally worked best as a heel. But looking down the road a year or so with Michaels and Batista both having said publicly they'd like to retire in about a year, and The Undertaker rumored to be in constant physical pain, this may prove a smart move in the not-so-very-long run.

And MVP rocked the house once again, this time with The View's Sherri Sheppard as a fun new manager. She came out in full costume - a pretty good one at that - and got into the spirit of the show better than a lot of male celebrities. This can only help the WWE's PR and help them appeal to a new audience. I assume it was a one time thing but I actually wouldn't mind seeing her stick around.
 
Whatever the case, I'm having a blast with it. I'm not an equally big fan of all of the new stars yet, but I'm in favor of all of them getting great material to work with and a chance to stand out. If they fail to take the show home when they have the spotlight then we know. Then the WWE can move on to someone else.

Obviously this can't last. It's an easy called shot to say the WWE is going to undo some of this progress and throw the good out with the bad when Triple H returns (not to mention The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and John Cena, none of whom are ready to concede the spotlight yet.) It gives credibility to the rumors of how badly Michaels and The Undertaker are hurt that the WWE is trying to build up seven or eight new stars at once. It does make me think one or both of those all-time favorites is in the last year of their career as an active wrestler. But I think Triple H could be white haired, physically a wreck and more limited in the ring than "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka and he would still come out and squash the promising young stars of the company, and the McMahons will let him.

Still, the WWE is obviously, finally awakening to the fact that they need fresh faces, and for the most part they've been dead on in identifying who those guys need to be. If ever there was a good time to watch this is it. This is going to be fun. Stay tuned.



-Henry Jenkins, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of ©World Wrestling Entertainment 2009. All rights reserved.)