Well assuming Punk does leave the company, I guess it is still possible that he could return for the Austin thing at Mania.
Anyway having just watched it this morning my thoughts on July 1st Smackdown!
1. Enjoyed the locker segments between Long and Christian, it carried on building his heel character nicely, without being over barely, and added depth to the feud with Orton and Christian's hunt for the World Title.
2. Non-Title match between Orton and Henry was too short to really do anything, and the action was predictably sloppy [see the worlds strongest man still can't do a belly to belly suplex correctly], the finish was also lame [fine I know it was meant to spark interest in his feud with Show, but there are far better ways to do that, this trick has been used a hundred times], although Henry was impressive in the bully role post match.
3. Daniel Bryan VS. Ted Dibiase was a good long TV wrestling match, DB sold well and carried the match to perfection, before getting a deserved win. The defeat doesn't halm TD, and keeps his little story with Rhodes ticking along nicely.
4.Christian VS. Sin Cara was a big let down, Cara blew far too many moves, and his style and Christian's just mixed well, the pace of the bout was very akward. The good news is that Christian gets the clean win going into MITB.
5. Jackson VS. Rhodes was a very rushed non-title match, during which the champion looked clamsy and out of his depth. Rhodes getting a non-title win is the right result.
6. Kane and Barrett proved a decent big man match, the big red machine moved around quite well, and carried most of the action, it had its weak moments, but mostly was effective in giving the impression that both would be threats in MITB.
7. The contract signing to close the show was fairly enjoyable, however Orton's monotone delivery really sucked the life out of it. Anyway Sheamus laying both out seems to hints that he will be a part of the title match on the PPV. Personally even though Christian did not get to sign his contract, I still think he will wrestle for the title, because he is the heel getting the most hype right now, and they would lose so momentum by taking him out at this stage. I think it will be a triple threat, but I would like it to be just Orton and Christian one on one.
So IMO a Smackdown which looked much better on paper than it actually turned out. Don't know about anyone else, but I have really been enjoying the vabel wars between Cole and Booker!
