Pre-show:

Bell time on the tickets was listed at 7:30 p.m. At 5:15 p.m., there was a small line of less than 100 people at the box office. By 5:45 p.m. Toyota Center signs stated that Smackdown was sold out.

The building didn't fill up completely until dark matches were underway, but from all angles I could see, the show looked legitimately sold out. The Toyota Center can seat 18,000 and change for basketball, so I'm guessing a Smackdown sellout is around 12-13,000 people.

The crowd was hot for nearly the entire taping, which lasted nearly 4 hours. The breakdown of crowd type was very mixed both racially (Houston has a heavy Latino and African American population) and age wise (lots of small children with lots of 18-25 year old men and women).

Dark Matches: (all match times are bell to bell)

Chuck Palumbo d Funaki: Palumbo was dressed in all black, and his hair was back to black as well. A seemingly solid effort. The crowd "oohed" and "aahed" at Palumbo's offense on Funaki, and both men looked good. Palumbo wins in just over 5:00 with a fall-away slam like Scott Hall and JBL have done in the past.

Winner: Chuck Palumbo in 5:00

Vladimir Kozlov (or so we think) d Jamie Knoble: Kozlov's intro video is xenophobically designed to give him heel heat. He cut a pre-match promo to some good heat from the crowd, which took advantage of the opportunity to chant "USA." The match was a basic power-man match, and Kozlov didn't take any move risks that would see him botching something. USA chants were heard at various times during the match. Kozlov did the old Eddie Gilbert "Hot Shot" move, and made Knoble tap to a combo cross armbreaker/headscissors hold in around 3 minutes. While his video said "Vladimir Kozlov," Tony Chimel announced the winner as "Boris Alexiev."

Winner: Vladimir Kozlov/Boris Alexiev in 3:00

Next, we had a Divas video that JBL's music interrupted. JBL and Michael Cole came out together.

Smackdown:

Smackdown started with a Royal Rumble recap plus the Raw closing of Cena, Michaels and the Undertaker.

1. Chris Benoit d Fit Finlay: Both men received great reactions. I'm not sure how much of this will be edited or not, but it wasn't due to mistakes. If anything, it would be due to length, as the match went 14:30. Benoit had the early advantage only to see Finlay take over working on the knee. Benoit fails in a suplex attempt due to selling the knee. Although Benoit finally capped off three back suplexes in a row, he still sold the knee. Benoit misses a top rope headbutt, which Finlay used to take a top turnbuckle pad off. With the referee distracted, Finlay went under the ring to grab Little Bastard, who for some reason was not coming out. Finlay nearly got counted out in the process. Out of nowhere, Boogeyman's music plays, and he emerges from under the ring with Little Bastard and begins to carry him off to the back. This distraction led to Benoit rolling up Finlay for the pinfall win.