William Regal "Besmirched" His Way Into Our Hearts - WWF SmackDown 10/5/00 Review

SmackDown comes from Baltimore on October 5th, 2000, and it is a noticeably better show than the RAW that preceded it. Tommy Blacha and Rob Pasbani spend a few minutes up top explaining what that probably means behind the scenes: somebody noticed, somebody said something, and the pendulum swung back toward wrestling. William Regal shows up and within minutes of sitting at the commentary table, uses the word "besmirched" and immediately gets over with everyone in Rob's friend group. Tommy says Regal has the full checklist and is the total package, not Lex Luger.

Austin confronts Foley in a segment that actually works. Foley tells Austin that his job has sucked since Austin arrived, which Rob and Tommy note is exactly what they had been saying for weeks. Austin gives Foley the chance to reconsider, hears no, and delivers what passes in Steve Austin's world as an apology before stunning him anyway. Tommy says the stunner is starting to feel like a pie in the face. Meanwhile, in the second Stephanie and Triple H backstage segment of the night, she tells him "the only thing hurting me is you." Both hosts agree it is not going where it should.

In the main event, Rikishi runs in and interferes on The Rock's behalf against Kane, costing them the match on a DQ. Tommy and Rob spend the back half of the episode fantasy booking a better Austin mystery driver reveal, agree there was almost nobody satisfying on the current roster, and settle on Goldberg or Flair as the only options that would have actually worked.

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Other major discussion points include:

Jacky and Low Down pin Lita in what everyone expects to be a Hardy exhibition; Jeff Hardy hits a split-legged moonsalt that Rob says suggests he has been watching Sabu tapes; the upset does not lead anywhere for Low Down despite Tommy pitching for them backstageBilly Gunn interferes in the X-Pac match to help Al Snow win; Michael Cole explains on commentary that it is because Billy Gunn was kicked out of DX; Tommy says this is his pet peeve and the announcer explanation is the weakest possible version of storytellingEddie Guerrero eats a Goodfather powerbomb pin in the RTC match; Tommy says you can always recover from a loss if your character has attitude around it, and Eddie Guerrero has plenty of t