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Shore's WWE Smackdown Hitlist: Poor WrestleMania hype, Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler is great, so is Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan, and Drew McIntyre finally gets fired

Posted in: Shore Editorials, MUST-READ LISTING
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Mar 3, 2012 - 03:00 PM

By Chris Shore

WWE Smackdown Hits

Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler: A very good match to open the show, even if it didn't have any drama attached to it. Ziggler is about to earn the "get a broom over" status he so richly deserves. Sheamus moves well for a big guy and always puts on entertaining matches. He and Daniel Bryan should be a classic at WrestleMania.

Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton: Another good match that should have had more drama than it did. They tried to build the match based on the "concussion" angle, but then Orton buried it with his promo and made it about the Chamber. Still, Orton continues to impress and Bryan continues to show how well he had adapted his style to the WWE style of matches. I wouldn't mind seeing this on PPV someday.

WWE Smackdown Misses

Overall Show: The show wasn't bad per se, but it wasn't used to its fullest potential in hyping WrestleMania. Sure, they announced Cody Rhodes vs. Big Show, and hinted at Kane vs. Orton, but with only two real shows remaining after tonight, they should have done more to build excitement about Mania. I'm not dreading the show in any way, but I'm not excited for it yet either. And I know I'm not alone. So this is a definite missed opportunity. In fact, so much of the show was uninspiring it's difficult to find something more to say on the segments other than, "Who cares?"

Big Show vs. Mark Henry: Just three months ago, Mark Henry was the most dominant heel in all of WWE. Today he's the guy who can't put a guy away with his finisher on TV. Moving a guy out of the main event, even one as hot as Henry, isn't a sin. Moving him without using the buckets of heat he had to put someone else over is. The match itself was well done, but the finish made this a huge miss.

Drew McIntyre fired: Whatever WWE hoped to accomplish here didn't work. Unless their goal was to leave McIntyre in the ring for too long while about 40 people chanted at him. This story has stalled so many times, I think most people thought McIntyre was already fired. Of all the weak, meaningless matches on the show, this one was the weakest and the most meaningless when you consider the crowd’s reaction. Well, other than the Divas but WWE has counted them in a while.

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