(#20) Christian vs. Cody Rhodes - Smackdown 8/13/2010
Yeah, this was definitely good. Cody immediately backs Christian into the corner, targeting the arm. When Cody charges, Christian gets his feet up, which makes Cody back off to protect his face, starting a really entertaining sub-plot, with Christian trying to hit Cody in the face and Cody avoiding it. Cody takes a good bump to the outside and then Christian hits a great plancha and looks in control at the break. They come back with Cody in control, which I didn't like because I don't like to miss transition spots, but they recapped it and it was fine. Cody works Christian's arm; Christian sells: it's really good. Awesome moment where Christian falls on his arm on the bottom rope and sells like crazy. Another really cool spot where Christian goes for his slap-in-the-face spot while Cody's on the second rope, only for Cody to walk away. Christian then hits a sunset flip from the outside, which I thought was a cool variation on his standard corner spot. Finishing stretch really rocks: Christian can't hit his finisher because of the injury, and Cody uses the injury to his advantage, but Christian does get to slap Cody in the face really hard (and Cody sells it really well), so they pay off on that sub-plot. I dug this, but it was a notch below the McIntyre matches, mainly because Cody only brought about 40% of the intensity that Drew brought. I think "Dashing" Cody Rhodes is a great character that totally suits him, and there are a lot of things to like about Cody, but I don't think he's quite firing on all cylinders as a worker yet. I am excited about his future though. He's 25.
(Added, #14) Christian vs. Drew McIntyre - Smackdown 7/16/2010
This is a notch below their last two matches because it doesn't have the awesome arm work and arm selling, but it's still great. It felt like a total slugfest, with tons of stuff stiff and great bumps, and lots of really nifty counters. It felt like both guys came prepared for the other guy's big stuff. There are some neat exchanges around the apron early on that felt totally fresh, and they resulted in a cool spot where Drew tried to slam Christian down into the apron, only for Christian to hold onto the top rope and hit his pendulum kick from a different spot than he normally does. I love the way he can vary his signature spots. And I also loved how they still delivered on the teased apron bump a little bit later when Drew shoves Christian off the top rope, and Christian shoves his own head into the mat. Absolute bonkers-ville bump, and I loved it. But Drew never really gets a lengthy control session here, as Christian keeps making comebacks and throwing bombs from the top rope, which I really liked. Christian takes some good-looking throat-first bumps onto the ropes; Drew takes a tornado DDT really well, and the counters during the finishing stretch are really fun, and the eye poke is awesome, and Christian's sell is even better.
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