We open with a recap of Batista crashing Great Khali's championship celebration last week.

After the opening theme, GM Teddy Long and fiancee Kristal Marshall are out. Kristal calls Teddy "Teddylicious". The wedding will be in the ring on the season premiere of Smackdown on Sept. 21.

Khali & Runjin Singh interrupt the make-out session in the ring. Khali spews some unintelligible Punjabi venom. Singh translates it as Khali coming out to interrupt as payback for Batista's actions last week. Kristal is scared away. Long takes umbrage and makes Batista-Khali for the title at Summerslam. Singh gets nose-to-nose with Long, with Khali standing beside his manager, when Kane's pyro goes off. The Big Red Machine is in our opener, but not against the champion......

Match 1: Kane vs. Chris Masters Standard big-man match for our opener. These two clashed a couple of times last year over on Raw. The story to this bout was Masters attempting to hit the Masterlock on Kane. After a while, he succeeds, but unfortunately, Big Red has the presence of mind to force a rope break. It's all downhill from there for Masters, as he attempts to reapply the full nelson. Kane avoids that and a clothesline attempt, then hits the chokeslam. Ballgame. Winner: Kane.

Deuce & Domino talk strategy backstage. Deuce is only interested in obtaining revenge on Batista for flirting with Cherry last week. Cherry is conspiciously absent, and strangely, Domino doesn't seem the least bit worried about his sis......

Another Chuck Palumbo video. They should've been doing this before letting him re-debut on Smackdown.

Match 2: Mark Henry vs. Nate Nickerson Squashola. Nickerson is a cruiserweight in way over his head. JBL refers to Nickerson as a "Cabo Wabo Sammy Hagar lookalike". Heh, that hairstyle was last century. Henry puts Nickerson away with the bearhug, shaking his victim unconscious. Winner: Mark Henry.

Post-match, Henry cuts a promo, and shows footage of his beatdown of Undertaker 3 months ago. I guess that tells us who Taker will face when he comes off the DL.

Jesse & Festus on: Fashion. Jesse's looking sharp, but Festus? He actually tried to talk, but that's hard to do when your tongue is rolled up almost permanently. Jesse calls his partner a "true Hollywood fashion plate". Somewhere, Fred Blassie is spinning in his grave over that one.

Match 3: Matt Hardy vs. MVP (non-title, arm wrestling) By now, you should know how these things work. The heel, in this case, MVP, stalls and stalls to build heat. Well, unfortunately, Porter generated more heat than a city block full of furnaces, and Hardy had had enough. Porter produced a tennis ball to strengthen his hand in order to continue the stall tactics. Hardy swatted the ball out of the US champ's hand and forced the match to begin. All that stalling came back to haunt Porter, as Hardy spiked his hand down. Good night, sweet prince! Winner: Matt Hardy.

Naturally, the Most Vacuous Poser was in denial, claiming that even after all the stalling, he "wasn't ready", and wouldn't back off his now-phony boast that he's better than Hardy or anyone else. Unfortunately, he wrote another check with his mouth, challenging Hardy to a regular match right then and there. Naturally, the title isn't on the line......

Match 4: Matt Hardy vs. MVP (non-title) So far, your match of the night. Hardy apparently "injured" Porter's right hand in the previous contest, and so he worked on that hand and arm for much of this match. For all of his boasting, Porter at times acted like there was some place he'd rather be. He had to work with just one arm, which is what some faces do, not heels. Go figure. Hardy hit an elbow drop from the middle rope for 2. Porter tried to run away, but Hardy cut him off with a baseball slide. Side Effect nets a 2. So does a small package. Hardy sets up for the Twist of Fate, but Porter's had enough, and slides out, taking a countout loss. So much for all the boasting. Porter took the coward's way out. Winner: Matt Hardy.

Deuce is on the hunt for Cherry. A tech aide helps out by ratting out the sexy valet, who ends up in......Batista's locker room. Deuce takes his title belt off his waist, and is prepared to waffle Batista with it when Cherry emerges. Domino shows up to diffuse the sitch and the three head back to their locker room. Batista shows up, but outside the door. It opens again, and Ric Flair pops out. The tag champs have been played for suckers!

Jamie Noble, Shannon Moore, & Sho Funaki are backstage, and Noble is hearing it about getting beaten by Hornswoggle, the current cruiserweight champion. Moore & Noble will have at it later. 'Swoggle is hiding in a garbage can.

A Rey Mysterio video plays, promoting his return. Chavo Guerrero interrupts a meeting between his Aunt Vicki and Kristal. Kristal departs and Chavo brags about putting Rey out. Vicki makes a rematch between her nephew & Mysterio for Summerslam. It's fitting, since Chavo was Rey's 1st opponent when he arrived in WWE 5 years ago.

Match 5: Jamie Noble vs. Shannon Moore It's been a long time since Noble has had his hand raised in victory. The same can be said for Moore, but then, he's been 0-forever since returning to WWE last year as "The Reject" in ECW. Decent match, and at one point Moore hit a corkscrew moonsault on Noble for 2. Looked like a crisper version of Jeff Hardy's Whisper in the Wind. That, however, was the extent of Moore's offense, as Noble finished him off with a deluxe gutbuster, using both knees to the gut of Moore. Winner: Jamie Noble.

Post-match, Hornswoggle came in, but Noble was waiting for the cruiser champ. Let the fun begin! Noble chases 'Swoggle outside, and gets a custard pie in the face for his trouble. 'Swoggle goes back under the ring, and Noble tries to intercept him on the other side. However, 'Swoggle greets Noble with a fire extinguisher, and scurries away with his prized title belt.

Match 6: Kenny Dykstra (w/Victoria) vs. Jimmy Wang Yang (w/Torrie Wilson) This spins out of last week's mixed tag match. Dykstra, who claimed he was Hall of Fame bound two months ago, is still looking for his first win on Smackdown. Great match. Dykstra countered Yang's attempted leg sweep with a double legdrop for an early near fall. Yang went for a crossbody, but Dykstra met him with a mid-air gutbuster. Never seen that one before. Dykstra goes up top, but Yang meets him with a spin kick for 2. Dykstra blocked the moonsault once by crotching Yang on the top turnbuckle, but Yang elbowed him off, remounted, and hit the moonsault for the fall. Winner: Jimmy Wang Yang.

Worth noting: Victoria had a water bottle and spit bucket for Dykstra pre-match. What? Did she think this was boxing for a second? By the by, those pigtails are so last century.

Deuce, Domino, & Cherry head for their car. Cherry's looking a little forelorn, probably from getting browbeaten off-camera by Deuce. Our main event is coming up.

Another Michelle McCool video. She's lovin' life. Aren't we all?

Match 7: Deuce & Domino (w/Cherry) vs. Ric Flair & Batista (non-title) Potentially, it could've been the match of the night. It was great, no question, but it was ruined by a lame, lazily written finish. Flair & Batista, 2-time World tag team champs when they were on Raw a few years back, had the current WWE tag champs on the defensive early. After a commercial break, Deuce & Domino got heat on Flair, working him over for several minutes. JBL, in commentary, even scolded Domino for "hot dogging" (playing to the crowd) when he should be trying to finish the match. This proved costly, as Flair ultimately made the hot tag to Batista. Batista doesn't have the spinning sideslam completely down, but then again, he's been studying Big Daddy V's more compact version from ECW. Sets up Domino for the Batista Bomb, but that's when Great Khali returns. The distraction helps the champs, but Deuce gets caught in the ring by ref Jim Corderas, who ends up calling for the bell. Deuce hits the Crack 'Em in the Mouth, but by then it's too late. He & Domino have been DQd. Winners: Ric Flair & Batista via DQ.

With Batista incapacitated, Khali takes out Flair with a brain claw and leaves him lying. Granted, Khali now has a more effective finisher than the tree slam, but they'd be nuts to have him be a long-term champion.

As Flair was introduced, they ran a "breaking news" crawl to plug the return of "Mr. McMahon" on Raw on Monday.