For those of you who don't like to be spoiled, please note, this live review contains some of the happenings of SD for Dec 12th.  Those who do like to be spoiled, read on ;-).   

The SD part of the Bridgeport show began with HHH almost making it to the ring before Jeff Hardy attacked him.  This was a nice bit of wrestling, eventually involving Ickie Guerrero, Chavo and a battalion of refs.  The crowd's favorite part? When Ickie got knocked on her keister as HHH shoved a mound of refs out of the way to get to Jeff.  Should put her back in a wheelchair for another couple of months at least.  The only drawback to this whole episode was the number of "earlier tonight" cuts it provided the Titantron (Note to Creative: the 'Tron's gettin' a little too much tv time.)  

We then rumbled into a fairly forgettable ECW.  Highlight moments included Morrison & Miz's defeat of Jimmy Wang Yang & Kung Fu naki, with some wicked high flyer moves from both teams.  If you can't appreciate the height JWY gets off the ropes on tv, you sure as H do live! The Miz continued his Charlie Haas-turn by mimicking KFn brilliantly and drew a nice laugh.  The Finlay/Mark Henry and attendants match should go over better on the screen.  The crowd was totally into Finlay's brawler style and of course, Hornswoggle got a rave for his tadpole splash.  However, Finlay's Son-saving martyr moment fell a bit flat and ended an otherwise sweet match on a bit of a bland note.  

Asides: the Boogeyman's back.  Composters everywhere have noticed the decreased worm supply.  His wrestling belongs in their pile.  Oh well, at least he's organic :-).  And Kozlov attacked Tommy Dreamer in a "Things That Make You Say 'What the Falkland Islands?!' " moment.  

 On to Smackdown...eventually! Edge hosted his Cutting Edge show, inviting Matt Hardy in to chat.  It ended as his show generally does, with Edge doing his best Hussein Bolt impersonation and Kozlov, who apparently no longer waits for matches, attacking Matt (talk about Russian roulette!), although not before Matt managed to get a good shot or two in on Edge.  

We were "treated" to Khali destroying the newly resurrected Hawkins and Ryder (waiting for them to change names again...and also for Khali to kiss them, but that didn't happen ;-) ) as well as to the Doublemint twins beating Natalya and Maryse.  The latter two make quite a nice team.  Natalya, as usual, worked her butt off.  She does so well with what she's given, but its really a waste of talent for her to be jobbing to the Pink n' Pretty's. Crowd loved them winning, though.

MVP lost yet again and was taunted by Mr. Kennedy, who I have never liked.  I'm always waiting for him to blow out a tonsil.  However, the Kennedy-Kennedy thing really goes over much better live than on tv and the dude is definitely charismatic.   

The HHH and Hardy match fell a bit shy of its build-up (possibly because the build up was inescapable), but still was definitely one of the highlights of the night.  The two were in and out of the ring half a dozen times.  Whisper in the Wind still rocks out of sight.  It is AWESOME live! Armageddon should be sweet.  

The night concluded with a dark match between BS and Taker, which absolutely topped the night. (Overall, the crowd was pretty luke warm,  with just a few explosions (pyro excepted ;-) ).  It involved a rather rickety steel cage, which looked as if you could huff-and-puff it over, and a rare bit of comedy from the Deadman, who began the match by getting up in BS's face at the outset and being slapped for his trouble, at which he turned not a hair, but followed it with his signature right.  The crowd was well into his chokeslam victory, even though BS still gets quite a positive reaction as a heel.  I still think he should be a face giant, but I won't hold my breath or anything heavy waiting for it.  Taker stalked off, looking a bit glad the night was over...and the night was over.

(c) BE 2008