The first thing I noticed was that Tony Chimmell – ring announcer – twice referred to Gregory Helms as the "WWE Cruiserweight champion of THE WORRRRRLD". Since when has the belt been held in such high regard? It has always been just the Cruiserweight championship. I don’t know where "of the WORRRRLD" came from – maybe Chimmers was just having a strange day. But he said it twice. The idiot in my thinks it is an increasing sign of respect for the title in response to the success of TNA’s X Division.

The second odd thing about the Cruiserweight match was that it had an angle. I don’t watch the TV much anymore but it looked as if the deal with Gregory Helms being a champion who doesn’t think too highly of his fellow Smackdown light heavyweights has been played out over recent weeks. It is a simple but effective angle and with Kendrick, London, Helms, Kash, Psychosis, Super Crazy, Jamie Noble and the rest they have the talent to make it a great division. But they won’t because "little guys can’t draw". Which is balls but no one is asking the "little guys" to draw – a great product will draw and part of that great product should be the cruiserweights. Women in bra and panties won’t draw but that doesn’t stop them including it all the damn time.

MNM vs Matt Hardy and a mystery partner. They looked for a brief moment as if they were going to put Matt with MNM. That could’ve worked – three punks intent on causing havoc, Matt as the singles guy who has his tag team backup. A bit of fresh, brash, attitude. Melina could go elsewhere (she does nothing for the team) and so even the name could remain – Matt, Nitro and Mercury. But they didn’t do that because humiliating Matt Hardy is the top priority. We’re supposed to believe that he would go out looking for a tag partner and come back with Tatanka. I said pretty much all I’ve got to say about Tatanka in my Royal Rumble piece. Maybe the idea was that Matt was so unpopular and pathetic that he couldn’t do any better than a chunky guy in feathers who isn’t in the least bit over with anyone. WWE should’ve killed two birds with one stone and halved our misery by making Animal and Tatanka into the new LOD. Forget Heidenreich – the face painted duo of Animal and Tatanka could’ve sucked their way through their fifteen minutes of fame and we would’ve been shot of them. Naturally Tatanka got the pin. Matt isn’t allowed to beat anyone. When they do the rematch I bet Matt does the job. Sucks to be him. Sucks to like him these days.

Dave Batista came out for an interview. He’s only been gone for a few weeks but they played it up like he’d been gone for ever. He didn’t say anything important. He seems like a nice guy but I was disappointed. Foolish me mistook his music for Brock Lesnar’s. Click here for the unedited moment when he inadvertently summed up so many peoples feelings about his brand.

Booker T is great in his current comedy role. It is so often the way that guys in their physical prime have no personality and only after their prime do they become entertaining. He’s working hurt, he’s over forty and he never quite reached the level people thought he would, but he’s great right now as the cowardly heel. Sharmell is an inspired addition too as the annoying clichéd (black) bitchy wife. Naturally, WWE decided against a long chase to make people care that he lost the title. He wins it, he’s cocky for a few weeks, he loses clean. No real build, didn’t make any money, all over now.

Randy Orton looked like a star in his match with Rey. Trouble is that he’s damaged goods. They decided months ago that he would wrestle for the world title at Wrestlemania. To build to this they had him feud with the Undertaker. He beat ‘Taker too – the perfect way to get him to the level where he was fit to main event this year’s biggest show of all time ever in history. Except that Undertaker beat him in a rematch. And another rematch. And another rematch. And probably several more rematches. Basically, Undertaker laid down for him once (after interference) and proceeded to beat the piss out of Randall Keith Orton for the next three months. Not a great way to build up a character. Their response was to have him say bad things about Eddie Guerrero and beat a man almost half his size. But the match was good – Randy is good enough and Rey is awesome. If it hadn’t been for the Taker slaughter I’d say Orton was ready for his big push.

Rey’s selling after the match was amazing. I noticed going in that he wasn’t wearing his contact lenses – was this a deliberate idea to focus attention onto his eyes so the post-match emotion would be conveyed. For a guy who wears a mask, Rey has incredible facial expression. The cameras caught every nuance of despair and his suddenly dark brown eyes drew us in. It’s a shame they had to use the build up they did but the end result was still excellent story telling.

Undertaker has a reputation for being a grand entrance, having a reluctance to put anyone over and for being washed up in the ring. On this night he had his big entrance, he put Kurt Angle over clean and he went solidly for thirty minutes. He’s never been someone who could carry anyone – he had his great matches with Hart, Michaels, Foley, Flair, Hunter, Lesnar, Angle, Austin et al, and his sucky matches with Nash, Bundy, Gonzales, Kamala, Underfaker etc. We haven’t seen much of the good Undertaker for a while but then he hasn’t been working with the right people for a while.

It is a testament to how good Undertaker and Angle are that I found myself almost believing Taker would tap to the ankle lock. Yes – that Undertaker would tap out. Ridiculous. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that the recent trend of long submission spots without a tap is an attempt to see UFC fighters as wimps for tapping after a couple of seconds. But whatever their reason, this was a hell of a match and those ankle lock spots were awesome drama.

Overall it was a good show – the Smackdown brand is generally disparaged but they have a diverse and potentially excellent crew. The talented cruiserweights, the veterans who can still go, the up and coming names – all of which are hampered by bad writers and more than a little bad luck. It is a cliché to say it but think of what Paul Heyman could do with that locker room.