J.R.'s Family Bar-B-Q

Thanks for taking a moment to stop by our space here on WWE.com. Things are great in the land of J.R.’s BBQ here in Oklahoma and with that said let’s get this show on the road as we are “burning daylight.”

Friday Night SmackDown emanates this week from Atlanta, once the home of multiple, regional wrestling promotions including WCW, which much like the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL, had many more “losing seasons” than winners. With that said, I still have many fond memories of working and living in Atlanta in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s before coming to WWE and lovely Connecticut in 1993.

Whatever one does, do NOT, play any sort of drinking or eating game Friday night based on a litany of Olympic Games’ references during the opening match of the night which features six SmackDown Divas in a variety of Olympic garb. This match will never be confused with a Triple H vs. HBK mat classic, but it was uniquely entertaining. Yours truly may have even channeled the late, great Jim McKay for a few seconds.

Hawkins and Ryder, along with most of “The Family” had interesting nights in Atlanta as the WWE Tag Team Champions are still looking to establish themselves as bonafide WWE Tag Champions, whose names belong with some of their more noteworthy predecessors. Just one man’s opinion, but ECW’s Morrison and Miz just might be the best tag team in the entire WWE as I write this. Ryder and Hawkins are a talented, young duo and I love their upside, but they need to step out of Edge’s shadow, including the Edge-like haircuts. The Long Island-bred duo also might want to study WWE 24/7, especially when tag teams such as Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, the Midnight Express, and the Rock ‘n Roll Express are featured. Knowledge is power.

Yours truly mentioned last week that Triple H will achieve the most success at SummerSlam when he defends the WWE Title against The Great Khali if The Game is able to destroy Khali’s 7-foot 3-inch vertical base. The WWE Champion makes that point abundantly clear to the most popular Indian athlete ever in WWE. I have never seen an arm wrestling contest like we featured Friday night including shards of glass on the arm wrestling table. In this contest, one can see the amazing size difference that Khali holds over Triple H and The Game is 6-foot-4!

United States Champion Shelton Benjamin faces Jeff Hardy, or is it Jeff “Harvey,” this week on SmackDown, and these two put on quite a wrestling display. It’s another strong SmackDown one-on-one match that surpasses any other bout on WWE TV this week in my biased opinion.

Read the rest of J.R.'s column at WWE.com »