WWE Smackdown 6-21-13: Daniel Bryan Wins, But Is Not Happy

The show began with Daniel Bryan addressing his match being stopped on Raw a few nights ago due to suffering an injury that didn’t allow him to continue. Bryan has been obsessed with proving to everybody that he is not the “weak link”. After Randy Orton came out to tell Bryan that when helped him to his feet after their match on Raw and embraced him, that he respects Bryan for his guts and determination. Instead, Bryan took that sportsmanship as pity and was determined to prove himself in their rematch later on in the evening. Also, Wade Barrett got his Intercontinental Championship rematch after losing the championship to Curtis Axel at Payback the previous Sunday. It was a Triple Threat Match that also featured The Miz; Axel won the championship in controversial fashion when Miz had Wade Barrett locked in his signature submission hold “The Figure Four Leg-Lock” and Axel picked up the scraps by pinning Barrett to win the championship, so I felt that he needed to prove himself as Intercontinental Champion. During the rematch against Barrett, Axel did just that by hitting Barrett with his signature maneuver and pinning him for the 1-2-3 to retain his championship. Also, during a non-title match between World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio (accompanied by his personal ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez) and Chris Jericho, Dolph Ziggler came out and attacked Del Rio right in front of the referee, thus giving Del Rio the win by disqualification. After Del Rio and Rodriguez escape through the crowd, Jericho confronts Ziggler for costing him the match, hitting Ziggler with his signature maneuver “The Codebreaker” in the process. Then, Del Rio and Rodriguez reemerge and pick up Jericho’s scraps when Del Rio kicks Ziggler in his recently concussed head. Also, backstage announcer Renee Young attempted to interview Paul Heyman about Brock Lesnar’s attack on CM Punk the previous Monday on Raw, but Heyman refused to address it. Finally, in the main event rematch between Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan, I wasn’t sure who to root for in this one, both men ended up outside the ring towards the end of the match; the referee was counting both men out and while Bryan made it back into the ring before the ten-count, Orton did not, thus earning Bryan the win via count-out. Afterwards, Bryan said that he refused to take a count-out victory and demanded that the referee restart the match, but to no avail.