And I don't think it got much better at last night's TV tapings.  But hey, there's still three VERY good reasons to be excited for SD!'s half of SummerSlam, and your mileage may vary from mine, anyway.

NOTE: Sunday night, the vast majority of us will get a live pre-PPV edition of Heat. As is my Lazy Man Custom, I shan't bother reporting the results of International Heat tapings...  

WWE Velocity/SmackDown! Tapings
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 / Detroit, MI

• Dark/Velocity Matches: John Heidenreich beat Funaki (presumed to be a dark match, as one report said Heyman was absent)....  Bubba Dudley beat Scotty 2 Hotty in a match that will make more sense after you read the SD! Spoilers....  the Grumpy Old Men (Gunn/Holly) beat the Bashams...  Jamie Noble beat Shannon Moore in a good match.
• John Bradshaw Layfield opened SD!, proper, with a promo.  He sass mouthed the Undertaker for a bit, and then introduced Orlando Jordan, who was his personal assistant or chief of staff or some such thing.  Just do NOT call him Faarooq Jr., or else you'll have my lawyers on your ass.  JBL and OJ announce that they've gone to GM Theodore R. Long and gotten a match for later tonight: Jordan will face the Undertaker. "A very rare Thursday night appearance for the Undertaker, folks, STAY TUNED," you can almost ALREADY hear Michael Cole ejaculating....
• Spike Dudley beat Paul London. Good match, plenty of extracurriculars to preview the PPV six-man.  Finish was clean, though, with London whiffing a top rope move, and Spike hitting the Acid Drop.  After the match, Bubba and D-Von took turns whipping the crap out of both London and Billy Kidman while Spike looked on as if he was the ringleader.
• Backstage: an excellent bit with Spike Dudley coming off like a total prick. In a confrontation with Scotty 2 Hotty, he basically dared Scotty to retaliate physically, but said he knew Scotty wouldn't. Of course not: Bubba and D-Von were both right there. So there's your Velocity match set-up.  Spike further opined that nobody in the company would dare speak ill or otherwise anger Spike Dudley.  Jerk.
• Nunzio beat Chavo Guerrero.  Not as good as you'd expect, apparently.  Nunzio wins clean with a reversal out of a Gory Bomb and into a roll-up (or something approximating that)....  smart-ass "Sins of the Father" jokes, anyone?
• Undertaker settled for a DQ win over Orlando Jordan.  Match was no great shakes, but fans were way into Taker, so that's something.  Jordan didn't get a whole lot in, and when Taker seemed poised to win, JBL ran out and nailed him with the Clothesline From Hell for the cheap DQ.  Then he and OJ got out of dodge. 
• Teddy Long addressed the fans.  He talked about SD! stealing the show at SummerSlam, and in the end started putting over Kurt Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero as a possible highlight, except he didn't want the personal animosity to overshadow what could be a great athletic contest.  So he had both Kurt and Eddie come out to the ring to air some grievances.  After Angle and Guerrero each have their say, Teddy suggests that in the spirit of the "Summer Games" (goddammit, if you know you're not legally allowed to say the word "Olympics," then just don't bother, OK?  This is just as obnoxious and lame as having to refer to the Super Bowl as "The Big Game"), that they shake hands.  And reluctantly, and not without plenty of Mutual Skunk Eye, they do.  And then leave the ring without incident. And interesting idea, and something that you could really only do with two guys as good as Kurt and Eddie: actually REDUCE the hostility in the week before the PPV, and just remind fans, Hey, these two guys are gonna kick fucking ass inside the ring on Sunday, so shell out the money, already!
• John Cena, Charlie Haas, and Rob Van Dam beat Booker T, Luther Reigns, and Rene Dupree in a "Summer Games Relay Match."  This thing was really long (30 minutes, roughly), as a result of a unique stipulation: two guys start, and go five minutes, then one guy is replaced by a partner, then they go five minutes, then the guy who was still in from the start (after 10 min.) is replaced by one of HIS partners, and so on and so forth.  They could, conceivably, cycle around indefinitely until finally one team or the other scores a decision.  In this case, it only took EXACTLY one entire cycle through so that everybody in the match was in for about 10 minutes.  Nobody even bothered trying to recap the play by play, but the order will go:  (1) Booker T and RVD go five minutes, (2) Luther Reigns and RVD go five more minutes, (3) Luther Reigns and Charlie Haas go five minutes, (4) Rene Dupree and Charlie Haas go five minutes (apparently with the closest thing to a false finish happening here, as Haas just barely managed to not tap out in the closing seconds, or something), (5) Rene Dupree and John Cena went 5 minutes, and things pick up since fans are digging Cena, and finally (6) it came back around to Booker T, and during his 5 minutes with Cena, he got pinned by a quick roll-up or something.  I guess the middle was slow (more work needs to be done to get Haas over), but the opening with RVD and the closing with Cena were pretty good, and this might end up as Match of the Week, if reports hold up.  Show just ends with the three winning faces celebrating a bit, as Booker T acts indignant that he's dropped a fall to Cena on the eve of the start of their Best of Five.  [There was also some Detroit-specific mic work by Cena after the cameras shut down to send the live fan home extra-happy.]

So there you go, you nosy jerks!  Be sure to check out the as-aired version of SD! on Thursday night, and/or come on back here on Friday for Big Danny T's Victorious Return to SD! Recapping.  We'll also have the big Team Coverage PPV Preview, including all your favorite columnists thoughts on how SD! succeeded or failed in putting any final oomph behind its half of the card!