by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

How will the change affect things on SmackDown!?  Well you can wait till Thursday to find out... and if that's your plan, you'd better hit BACK now and find something else to read.

For the rest of you, however, we'll forge ahead with spoilers for the entirety of the Fed's remaining programming for the week, as compiled from multiple e-mail reports:

WWE Sunday Night Heat
(Taped Monday, Airs Sunday)

• Molly Holly cut a promo, and got into a spat with a woman from the crowd.
• Mark Jindrak beat Justin Credible
• Raven also got to cut a promo, promising that his win over D'Lo Brown last week was the start of bigger and better things for him
• Lance Storm beat Johnny Stamboli
• Note:  Lita was once again the Coach's broadcast partner

WWE Velocity
(Taped Tuesday, Airs Saturday)

• Albert beat Funaki
• Chavo Guerrero beat Crash Holly
• Ron Simmons (apparently ditching the "Faarooq" gimmick) beat Chuck Palumbo
• Note: dark matches also included the return of Bill "Hugh Morrus" DeMott, who was victorious in his gimmick-less debut

WWE SmackDown!
(Taped Tuesday, Airs Thursday)

• Show opens with Undertaker (with a cast on his right hand) waiting for the arrival of Brock Lesnar.  After the opening theme and pyro, Matt Hardy hits the ring for a promo, and announces that the Taker is "hiding" in the parking lot because he doesn't want more Mattitude (claim is accompanied by footage of Matt pinning Taker last week).  This, of course, results in Taker coming out to the ring and getting into a brawl with Matt.  Taker seems to be controlling Hardy (even hitting him with cast-assisted rights), until Matt slams his injured hand against the steel ringpost.  Matt, although bloodied, is able to escape the scene while Taker sells the hand.
• Backstage, a trainer tells Taker his hand may be broken in yet another place, and urges him to go to the hospital for x-rays.
• Eddie Guerrero defeats Rikishi... Chavo Guerrero was also at ringside, and after a few minutes of solid action, he decided to get involved.  Instead, he got beat down, and Rikishi delivered a double Stinkface to both Guerreros.  While the ref was occupied with getting Chavo out of the ring, however, Eddie was able to whack Rikishi with a chair.  Then, he cinched in the same leglock he used last week to get a submission win.
• Backstage:  Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle are having a little face-off, and Stephanie McMahon is there to arbitrate.  She says she put them together because she wants SD! to have the greatest tag team of all time, and knows Angle and Benoit can do it.  She also reiterates her threat that if they DON'T work together, they'll both be suspended for a year.  Angle says he'll come out on top no matter who his partner is, but Benoit counters by saying that since Angle's never won a tag title, maybe he should follow his (Benoit's) lead.
• Backstage, Funaki interviews Rey Misterio Jr. about his tag tourney match tonight (with Edge vs. Noble/Tajiri), when Nidia walks up and interrupts with something in Spanish.  Whatever Rey's response (also in Spanish) was, it caused Nidia to storm away.  When Noble tried to calm her down, she stormed away from him, too.
• Still backstage: Eddie and Chavo are chatting about their successful cheating to win and eventual tag tourney win when they spy Chris Benoit.  Benoit, in not so many words, says that no matter who is partner is, he thinks HE will be a tag champ when all this is said and done.  Eddie and Chavo try to plant a seed of dissent by telling Benoit they heard a rumor that Angle was taking time off soon (the Olympic training thing? already?), and might just take a potshot at Benoit for the hell of it.  Angle picked this time to walk up and tell Benoit to get ready for their match, and asked what they'd been talking about. Benoit just walks away.
• Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit beat the team of John Cena and Billy Kidman to advance in the tag title tourney.  This was a good, mid-length match, which Benoit won by getting Kidman to tap out to the Crossface.  After the match was over, Angle and Benoit bickered for a bit.
• Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar, and a woman (identified as "Tracey") hit the ring for a promo.  Heyman's about to tell us why Tracey is there when Undertaker's music interrupts and Taker comes out.  Tracey eventually grabs a mic, and announces that she'd had an affair with Taker, and that he'd never mentioned to her that he was married, or had a baby on the way.  She calls "Mark" a bastard.  Taker plays the "I've never seen this woman before in my life card" as Tracey, Lesnar, and Heyman leave the ring.  
• Backstage: Heyman is consoling a very emotional Tracey and getting ready to leave when Stephanie walks up and tells him "Not so fast."  Lesnar is now being booked to wrestle later tonight.  Because Noble followed Nidia out of the building tonight, Tajiri is without a tag partner.  Brock Lesnar will fill in in the main event, against Edge and Rey Mysterio.  She also says that if Undertaker interferes in the tag match, he loses his Hell in the Cell title shot at the PPV.
• Billy Gunn beat Reverend D-Von with a Fameasser in a tepid little affair.  Only intrigue was that Ron Simmons showed up at ringside in support of D-Von partway through the match. 
• Backstage: Undertaker is on the phone with Sara, and again tries the "I have no idea who she is" angle with her.  Sara hangs up on Taker.  [Note:  so Sara gets the live satellite feed from SD! tapings?]
• Backstage: Chris Benoit is lured into a dark room.  Chavo Guerrero slams the door behind him.  Loud crashing noises ensue.  Eddie Guerrero walks out of the room with a mangled chair.  Eddie and Chavo smile.  You do the math.
• Backstage: Torrie Wilson is making final preparations for a lingerie match, and her dad is there again.  Torrie's not comfortable in parading around in lingerie in front of her father, and asks that he stay in the back during the match.  Good ol' dad agrees, but while he's lurking around, he winds up bumping into Dawn Marie, who is more than happy to show Mr. Wilson HER lingerie.
• In the ring, Tazz MC's the Lingerie Contest.  Dawn Marie disrobes and gyrates first.  Torrie goes second.  The fans once again select Torrie by an overwhelming majority.  Dawn is again indignant.
• Backstage: Brock Lesnar gets on the phone and calls Sara up, offering condolences.  Sara doesn't know who he is, at first, but as soon as she figures it out, she hangs up.
• Edge and Rey Mysterio advanced in the tag title tournament with a win over Brock Lesnar and Tajiri.  Another good mid-length match (no show-stealers tonight), that had Edge pinning Tajiri following a Spear (while Lesnar was otherwise occupied with Rey).  After the match, Lesnar got into a pissy mood and annihilated everybody, including his own partner.  After a few moments of that, Undertaker came out, and tried taking a shot at Lesnar with his cast, but Heyman and Lesnar got away from the ring.  [After the cameras stopped rolling, Edge and Taker went back to the ring to celebrate for a bit.  Edge spotted injured Diamondback Luis Gonzales at ringside, and invited him into the ring.  The celebration continued, much to the delight of fans, with Gonzo joining in with an old school Five Second Pose.]

SmackDown! apparently conceded the week's epic, show-stealing free TV match of the week to RAW (in the form of the TLC match)...  but that's not to say that they didn't still turn out a few really good ones.  Both tag title tourney matches were praised by attendees, while Eddie/Rikishi, and the opening Taker/Matt stuff was also fun.  Of course, people were also a bit less enthralled with "Tracey" and the adultery angle; though not as bad as the "Katie Fick" thing on RAW, it's another case of unnecessarily introducing an "outsider" character into the show in the name of soap opera-ish-ness.

Check out the show tomorrow to see how it plays in its as-aired version.  Otherwise, come on back to OO for analysis and thoughts for all these shows after they are broadcast!  

E-MAIL RICK SCAIA
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Rick Scaia is a wrestling fan from Dayton, OH.  He's been doing this since 1995, but enjoyed it best when the suckers from SportsLine were actually PAYING him to be a fan.

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