[8.0] "Interestingly, the show, and WWE as a whole, was doing very poorly in the ratings at this time, and all the talk was that the draft had watered the product down so much it was really effecting business. Fair enough, the shows weren't always the best, but this week's episode showed that there was still lots of good stuff happening in WWE in the summer of 2002. The opening battle royal was one of the more star-studding matches of this sort I've seen in a while and was good. Even better that it set up a big main event match as well. The Christian vs Val match was quick but fast paced. Angle vs. Holly was terrific, a real hidden gem and the best match these tow ever had in my opinion. We also found out that Hurricane's stalker was his ex-beau; the debuting Nidia. She looked the part, as did her new boyfriend, the also debuting Jamie Noble. Speaking of Tough Enough winners, Linda and Jacky, the controversial season 2 victors, met with Vince and set up a match for Velocity. Torrie Wilson, ahem, 'sucking' a banana whilst visiting Maven in hospital was something to behold. Tajiri's facials whilst investigating them were a blast. After Torrie had given Maven his 'medicine', Tajiri spat the green stuff in their faces. Edge came out to confirm what had been long reported, namely that he was injured and thus forfeit his KotR qualifying match with Jericho, who proceeded to destroy him before big Val made the save. Dawn Marie told Stacey that she has better puppies than her when she ran into her outside Vince's office. Storm vs. Kidman was a short technical match which would have been better if it was 20 minutes rather than 2. The main event was an improvement over their Backlash match, although it seems crazy now that they put a match of this marquee on free TV."

[7.0] "Yeah this is a really good episode of smackdown. The main event was sorta weak. It seemed weird that HHH and Hogan were buddy buddy at the end, like what was that about? Tajiri giving Torrie the green mist in the hospital was awesome. Speaking of the hospital scene, I notice the WWE over the past couple of months has been upping the "attitude" again, with sexual shit and other random things like the vomit from last episode (and austin pissing on people). They're also concentrating on having bigger, almost PPV style, main events. Think of the ladder match, the cage match, now this, I think there were a few others the past couple of weeks. There was the pretty good tag match last week which wasn't a main event but should have been. Anyway, there's a clear shift in their writing and strategy that I appreciate. Back to the review... Not a fan of battle royal's and definitely not a fan of TEST being one of the final 3 guys there, as if he's got a chance to main event a PPV at this point after them trying their asses off to push him at every opportunity in 2001 and finally realizing he isn't "it". Very surprised they gave 7 minutes to hardcore holly vs angle but it was a good match! Nothing here really sucked."

[8.0] "This was an enjoyable episode, everything flew by and didn't feel like 2 hours at all. A good battle royal to start it off and also sets up a big main event (not the most important as Cole keeps banging on about). A tag title change that ended a rubbish storyline so we can move on so that's good. A good match between Angle and Hardcore helped the match quality of the show. A big focus on the KOTR which was greatly apricated as it was always treated as an afterthought. The ongoing Tajiri/Maven stuff was pretty entertaining as well. A ok main event followed by a good angle to set up future matches was just the nice way to end the show. Great watch and a perfect time capsule of how good 2002 was."

[8.0] "This was a really good all around episode that was a precursor to what the show ould become in the second half of the year. The only really bad match the whole show was the tag title match and the battle royal, Angle/Holly, and the main event were all really good. Val Venis vs. Christian was also solid despite the questionable result."

[8.0] "I have to appreciate how the WWE started constantly booking good main event matches on their shows on both brands at that point and it's what I remember fondly about the Ruthless Aggression era. Triple H and Hulk Hogan was a decent tv main event that in my opinion was much better than their PPV clash. The show is a good palette cleanser after the awful Raw episode that week as it started out with a controversial battle royale that set up the main event. The wrestling matches are consistently good to watch and in general Smackdown had the much better roster."

[8.0] "2002 is the best year ever for smackdown, and this is one of the many great episodes from that year. Angle vs. Holly is a great match, and Venis vs. Christian is a good, short match."