It's hard to dislike a Smackdown! that starts with a fanboy wet dream match: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri.

They did do something short term that I think is a mistake though... having Storm and Christian defect with the tag title to RAW was bad enough; now Chris Benoit defecting with the IC title shows the error even more.

Now we can't see more matches pitting RVD against Benoit. The only male singles title there is now the Hardcore one. Between the two changes, feuds were run into dust, both brands have now lost levels of competition. Are the titles now only going to change brands if the current holders lose them, and the new champion is drafted?

I think that either all title holders should be allowed to travel both shows, or each brand should have their own titles. As it stands, the options for each show are ultimately limited.

Of course, they may already have a plan for this. I'm hoping so... this is a time I'd be happy to eat my words!

Well, I was going to say that the "UnAmericans" were indeed, as Rick Scaia said a bit anti-climactic... then Chris Jericho coming too changed that.

I still think the 'anti American' tirades are a bit tasteless in subject matter though; making insults using Elvis work as a heel speech - he died almost 25 years ago, and is often the butt of jokes - but the shot at Ted Williams was in very poor taste.

The 'talent raid' was indeed a swerve, as the targets were in the ring just before defecting. As we expected it to mean they'd stay, that much came off a surprise.

The tag scene is still on one show or the other it seems, but at least now the Island Boyz can have a shot at the belts.

(By the way: here in Canada, TSN went to commercial to "protect" us from seeing the staged attack on Moolah and Mae. Why bother with the warnings at commercials when they'll decide what we can see anyway?)

I still think they should allow the tag champs to be on both shows. Now, Bob Holly abd Val Venis are wasted as a team on Smackdown!. There are only so many matches they can have against Chuck and Billy before it gets old.

The mysterious attack on Shawn Michaels worked to keep a match between him and Triple H out of plans; does this also mean that HHH as a heel is done with too?

When RAW was done, I turned to TNN to check out the Slamball preview. The game looks as sad as I thought to me. You may think otherwise... but for me, I thought of the XFL right away.

On Confidential tonight there was a segment on Rob Van Dam 's life.

I have memories of him being in WCW early in his career, before his ECW days, but that wasn't mentioned.

Is my memory faulty here? Let me know via comments if I remember right.