[7.0] "it was a new beginning for Smackdown and this is an appetiser for the show it will become. there are stories, great wrestlers and aura"

[7.0] "I don't enjoy this kind of "tournament" that Steph set up at the beginning oft he show. It's either obvious that one of the two first competitors are going to lose at the end, OR one of the two competitors are wrestling in 4 matches over a 2 hour period. I don't like KOTR for that reason as well but the way they've done KOTR recently with only the semi's and the finals in the same night, it's ok. With that said, the last two matches are really well done and were good enough to get this show a 7 rating. The Brock/Matt Hardy match was super entertaining, and the triple threat match, which is really the only way Undertaker can have a solid singles match, was great. Love how easy it is for everyone to get their finishers in with this kind of format and not feel shitty that they didn't get the pin afterwards. A hidden gem here is the Rico vs Rey match, which is not part of the tournament. This is probably Rico's best match of his life and Rey just has to be Rey in order to make this work. Fantastic match. The rest of the wrestling was just ok, with the disappointment being the cruiserweight guys match. All 4 of the guys involved usually put on good entertaining matches but this one was sorta blah. I enjoyed the D-Von beat down of Cena. Again, Cena hasn't shown anything really yet as to why he should be a champ or the eventual 17 time champ. But, I'm watching it anyway! There weren't any super interesting non-wrestling segments, but Hardcore Holly makes an appearance for some reason."

[7.0] "This was a very good wrestling-focused episode of Smackdown, with all the matches on the show being good outside of Cena/D'Von, where Cena actually lost, and Benoit/Rikishi which was really short. Brock/Matt was also a complete squash, and Tajiri also lost to Shannon Moore in his match."

"It's surprising to see John Cena lose against D-Von, but that was certainly going to change in the near future. The rest of the show emphasizes wrestling, and you can notice how at this time Smackdown was going to be ahead of RAW. In overall good show"

[7.0] "Some odd booking here, but overall still a solid wrestling show and still miles better than Raw. The main focus is the number 1 contender series and while this does give us a good opener and main event, the gauntlet style makes the early matches feel redundant. Edge v Eddie Guerrero is good and their feud continues on and the main event triple threat between Undertaker, Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit is a gem. Elsewhere Rey Mysterio has a surprisingly great match against Rico and Brock Lesnar has a fun squash against Matt Hardy. It's also the show that officially de-pushed John Cena as he was beaten easily by D-Von Dudley. It's not a perfect show, but it is still decent and The Undertaker is definitely better suited to Smackdown."

[6.0] "The world title tournament had some solid matches like Edge/Guerrero and the main event with a surprise appearance from Taker and he won the #1 contender match in the MOTN. Lesnar got to kill Hardy in a well-done 3 minute match but other than that nothing else really noteworthy happens here. A fine show"