6 Ups & 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (25 Oct)
2. Mysterio Family Values
This was brilliant.
Holy f*cking sh*t was this brilliant.
Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez may well be the ones fighting over the former's WWE Championship next Thursday at Crown Jewel, but the company haven't half crafted a side-story just as captivating between 'The Beast' and the real victims of his latest slaughter jobs.
A segment that borrowed from an underrated original version featuring Sid, Shawn Michaels and Jose Lothario's son Pete back in 1996, Lesnar battering Dominick with Mysterio and Velasquez left waiting in the ring was the sort of cruelty that can inspire fire in even the coldest of babyfaces. Which was exactly what Cain was until he took a sh*tkicking of his own when he arrived on the scene.
Bursting in with all the chaos and disaster his finisher name has always promised, Lesnar's F5s on Rey (onto a wall) and Cain (onto Dominik) were cold and calculated, tacitly teasing the fear he probably still has for his former UFC rival in a fair fight.
Thick with plot and stakes and intrigue, it remains a crying shame that this first WWE meeting will occur at a show of such reprehensible repute. Should Lesnar go over, the company could at least promote a rubber match for WrestleMania next year, and more power to them if they do. As long as Lesnar remains in the orbit of the Mysterio family's orbit, only good (and bad - dangerously brutally bad) things can happen.