Smackdown! was mostly enjoyable this evening...

Making Theodore Long the new GM was strange, considering how he's been a fairly minor character in WWE for a while now... he seems at least initially to be acting as a face GM too, immediately shedding the 'race card' image he's used for the past yeaqr-and-a-half,

Spike Dudley winning the Cruiserweight strap was also a surprise. It makes for the first real singles gold he's won in this federation... I think he very briefly won the Hardcore title a year or so ago, but that was really a comedy title, one he held for less than a few minutes.

The set up with his brothers making it a tainted win can bring some interesting storylines. Right away it gave Rey Mysterio a new feud.

The tag team title match was also pretty solid, and I'm glad that WWE will let Kidman-London hold them longer. At 18 titles, I think the Dudleys have held them enough.

The lagging part I found was the promo with Eddie Guerrero and Kurt Angle. I felt it dragged at least 8 minutes too long. Granted, the (in)famous This is your life, Rock skit a few years ago proved us IWC folks wrong, at least as far as the ratings went.

The 8-man elimination match for the US title was pretty solid. Booker T got a sneaky but clean win. It makes sense: John Cena was getting stale as an unbeatable champion. I just hope Booker can hold onto this longer than his unfortunate brief Intercontinental title run was (he had to vacate that quickly due to injury).