Smackdown Results - May 9, 2008

#1 Contenders Tournament
Matt Hardy vs CM Punk

Nice match here. Plus, it's a fresh matchup. These guys should feud over the WWE United States Heavyweight Championship in the future.

Kind of odd seeing CM Punk taking a clean loss here.

Winner: Matt Hardy

#1 Contenders Tournament
Finlay vs MVP

Good match. The difference in wrestling styles is a nice combination. They do the double pin finish to enable both guys advancing to the battle royale. It was nice seeing both guys in the battle royale, but at the same time, the booking was a bit puzzling.

Since neither guy is really involved in a storyline right now, WWE should have put them into a feud.

Winner: None

Natayla Neidhart vs Kelly Kelly

Decent match, but it's getting harder and harder to care about Natalya Neidhart. She's doing a good job of performing in the ring, but they're really not doing enough to develop her character.

WWE is really pushing the Sharpshooter, which is basically a way to capitalize on the Hart name without being too obvious. Very clever.

Winner: Natalya Neidhart

#1 Contenders Tournament
Batista vs John Morrison

Another fresh matchup that should turn into a feud some day. It'd be interesting to see how these guys would do on a pay per view with their contrasting styles (Morrison's acrobatic style against Batista's power style).

Batista picks up the win and moves on to the battle royale. Still can't help but think it would have been better to include everyone into the battle royale instead of doing these qualifying matches.

Winner: Batista

#1 Contenders Tournament
Big Show vs Tommy Dreamer

Another fresh matchup, but this one doesn't necessarily need to evolve into a feud. Big Show predictably gets the win after a dominating match.

Winner: Big Show

#1 Contenders Tournament
Kane vs Chavo Guerrero

Guess they ran out of ideas for fresh matchups in this tournament. Not as good as their match at Backlash, but still a pretty decent performance.

Winner: Kane

Vladimir Kozlov vs Phil Atlas

Something really needs to be done here. Either give Vladimir Kozlov a feud or a manager. Something. Anything.

I know I complain a lot about how repetitive this match is, but if you don't believe me, take a look for yourself. Just go through the image archives on WWE.com for his matches. They're basically the same pictures week in and week out. Nothing changes except for the opponent.

Winner: Vladimir Kozlov (and every single person the planet that was watching paint dry)

#1 Contenders Battle Royale

Battle royales are generally fun to watch. This one was no exception. It was a good one.

Your participants are Matt Hardy, Finlay, MVP, Big Show, Kane, and Batista. Still think they should have also had CM Punk, John Morrison, Tommy Dreamer and Chavo Guerrero in this match as well. In fact, they could have given some exposure to guys like Elijah Burke, Mike Knox, Kofi Kingston and Shelton Benjamin as well.

Anyways, Batista was the last man standing, which led everyone to believe that he had won. This allowed Edge to sneak into the match to eliminate Batista and win himself a match against the Undertaker at Judgment Day.

Winner: Edge

Pretty entertaining show. The Vladimir Kozlov match was the only horrible thing about the show.

The writers really need to figure out something with Natalya Neidhart before she becomes repetitive and dull. Give her something to actually do, even if it's just a straight up feud with Michelle McCool.

If WWE was smart, they'd book a main event next week between Edge and Batista. That would continue the flow of things.