Smackdown! again offered us a very entertaining show, albeit a truncated one thanks to cutting half an hour for the premiere of The Mullets (which didn't improve from the dumb promos for me. I gave up on it after the opening).

The only big negative for the show is one becoming a broken record: too much McMahons. Other than that the parking lot brawl lived up to expectations, as did the Rhyno / Chris Benoit match, even the opening cruiserweight tag match (although I wouldn't have complained if it was longer).

I missed all the time between SummerSlam and now, as well as a show or two. Last week I was in Toronto for the 61st annual World Science Fiction convention, so wrestling was a whole other thing far from my mind. The result will be yet another long post from me on a week's worth of shows:

* RAW offered a lot of poorly chosen stuff in my mind.

First, we now have both Coach and Al Snow as heel commentators on Heat. I guess it helps to make the show a bit different from RAW, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Then it leads to a non-wrestler vs. other non-wrestler match at Unforgiven: Coach vs. Jim Ross. Gee, can you hear the buy rates soaring? Neither can I.

Then, that attrocious Shane-Kane skit. The less said about it, the better.

The show did have some good stuff though: on the plus side, they seamed speeches and promos into matches well. The final 6-man match was pretty good as well. So was the Christian-Jericho IC title match.

The only thing I'm worried about: Goldberg is finally building up as a monster in the WWE, devastating Evolution. I'm hoping this (and the whole win-or-retire angle) aren't building up to him losing to Cripple-H. If H wins this one, I think RAW will see a major fan backlash.

* Over on Smackdown! we saw a fantastic Cruiserweight match between Rey Mysterio Jr. and Tajiri, an excellent tag title match, another case of A-Train not managing to suck all the pleasure out of a Chris Benoit bout, and some fantastic story work between Eddie Guerrero and John Cena.

It wasn't all good, granted. Brock Lesner seemed to over-act his final bit to me.

Tajiri turning heel was expected. The fed finally gave up on Eddie being the heel (the fans wouldn't go with it), so his opponent had to. Besides, as many people have said: Tajiri has always worked better as one.

* Sadly, I think Ultimo Dragon has been permanently demoted to Velocity - at least for now. I don't know about you readers, but seeing him teamed with Jobber-to-the-Stars (and A-Train) Funaki offended me.

Also: this is the second week in a row for Cat not to be an announcer. Tazz made a throw-away comment, but was he fired?

* Jimmy Yang as a jobber on the RAW brand side (on Heat) just seemed wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if he ultimately ends up in the Cruiserweight division on SD!.

The show also proved: as faces or heels, Coach and Snow don't make Heat any more interesting.