Hello! Yes, it's the first official Smackdown Review post-split- and we're officially at the end of the 4 days in a row of posts on here as of this Review. I was really looking forward to last night's Smackdown, the competition aspect of the WWE is back to an extent in that RAW and Smackdown are competing with each other. That can (hopefully) only lead to both RAW and Smackdown trying to put on better shows, as we saw on Monday for RAW. I'll preface this whole review by saying, I didn't think Smackdown could beat RAW this week- but I was still expecting a really good show and for them to set a high benchmark for themselves as RAW did 24 Hours prior.
Shane, Bryan & the Smackdown Roster Opening Segment
So, the show opens with Shane and Bryan backstage- and Bryan says something to the effect of "this show isn't about the authority figures". That's one of the first lines said on the show, keep that in mind.
This segment was fine, and it was a necessary one in that we needed a "state of the union" address from Shane and Bryan before everything kicked off. The 6-Pack challenge thing was interesting, although just because I wanted it for RAW as well I wish we could've gotten a Tournament leading up to Summerslam- which as I'll talk about later on would've probably been a better idea in-terms of having a really strong show last night. This segment was quite "meh" on the whole though I felt, although AJ's reaction to when they called him in as one of the 6-Pack guys was hilarious.
The only real criticism I have of this segment is the fact they had Bray out there standing outside the ring like just another guy. I tweeted about this last night as well, and someone responded "well, he has to be there for when his name is called". Why did he have to be there? Genuine question, why did Bray have to be there for the segment to not completely fall apart? Especially because Bray/The Wyatts were exempt from these segments when we seemingly got them weekly under The Authority for a run they know it's a stupid move to have him out there and yet they did it.
Battle Royal for a 6-Pack Challenge spot
This was a complete non-entity of a Battle Royal. It really only served to highlight just how weak Smackdown's undercard is once you've scratched away the surface of the Cena's, Orton's, Wyatt's, Styles' etc. The people that I thought had a chance of winning this match were Crews, Kane and Kalisto. So I wasn't far off in my predictions. I was happy that Crews did win, mainly because I had a really weird feeling that Ambrose would be wrestling Kane for the Title at Summerslam.
Shelton Benjamin Vignette
AIN'T NO STOPPING ME NOW! This vignette was genuinely the most I've marked out at any point over the last three days of wrestling. I love Shelton Benjamin so fucking much, so to see him coming back is ridiculously exciting for me. I always joked on Twitter about Shelton "deserving better" than what he got, and while I don't think he's going to end up as WWE Champion- if we get one more really good run out of him I'll be absolutely over the moon. Especially with the natural fit for him seemingly being a run with The Miz hopefully capped off with an IC Title win.
The one thing that does have to be said, Smackdown was all about Shane's "new era" right? So, the fact Smackdown's seemingly getting the majority of the returns of people 40+ doesn't really make sense does it?
Becky Lynch v Natalya
This match was just... a match. The crowd weren't really into it for the most part, I wasn't really into it- and it just sort of happened. I was hoping that this would be the blow-off of the angle with these two, and given what followed it could be- but at the same time it could just as easily not be.
The Smackdown Womens Division comes out
The only purpose of this segment was to highlight just how weak Smackdown's Womens Division was. That was literally it. There wasn't a Title that was announced, an angle with anyone or anything like that. We had Carmella, Alexa Bliss and Naomi come out and deliver a few lines and then we had Eva with the most hilariously amazing over the top heel entrance arguably in history. I genuinely wouldn't be opposed to Eva just coming out and making her entrance with the announcer bloke saying how she's beguiling and whatever else every week without ever actually seeing her wrestle.
MizTV w/ Randy Orton
I'm torn on this segment, because the stuff with Miz interviewing himself was fine up to a point but it largely died a death. However, when Randy came out and he was being all sarcastic and stuff it was really entertaining to me. It seems as though Randy's just in a "zero fucks" "I'm just going to have fun" type mindset for his return, which is fine by me- because the only way Randy can ever really be bad is when he comes across as bored. The end-game of this segment was to have the Orton/Miz match set-up, so the segment did its job on the whole- and that's all that can really be said about it.
Randy Orton v The Miz
In the mandatory "ridiculously scary moment" last night after Sasha nearly killing herself on RAW and Big E nearly killing himself at Battleground- literally the first bump Randy took on his return looked scary as anything and it looked like he'd done his shoulder again. I'm assuming it was a work, or at least the injury wasn't as bad as it looked- because if he'd fucked his shoulder this close to the match with Brock there was no chance of them carrying the match on. This match was just odd. It was odd from the moment Orton took the bad bump within the first 20 seconds of the match, and it only progressed from there.
I know what people are about to say, in that Miz was wrestling Randy Orton. However, did they have to kill their Intercontinental Champion? To quote Miz "really?". There are literally two titles on Smackdown, the WWE Title and the IC Title. Given that fact, and there can only ever be a select number of guys feuding for the WWE Title at one time- surely it would've been a good idea to start building the IC Title up for the "best of the rest". Instead the IC Title is completely dead on night one of the "new" Smackdown. Good job, guys.
American Alpha Vignette
I'm assuming because they had to pack almost everyone into the Battle Royal earlier on in the show, there just wasn't an opponent for American Alpha to face this week. Another misstep on Smackdown's part in my opinion. Granted, American Alpha doesn't have much of a tag division with which to compete with- but getting them out on the first show and indirectly telling us that Jordan and Gable are the guys they want to build the tag division around would've been a good move in my opinion.
Heath Slater Promo/Rhyno's Return
This was a really fun segment, right up until the moment that Rhyno came out from under the ring. I get the feeling that this is going to be a running theme of the next few weeks where Heath comes out and then someone returns and kills him. Which is a shame actually, because Heath was great in this segment. Heath's great 99% of the time, and I was (and still am) hoping for him to start a faction of some "'forgotten" guys who are "pissed off" and want what's "owed" to them with guys like Hawkins and Jinder who are rumoured to be returning. But just for now, NXT's Rhyno has officially been called up. Bit of a joke they called this young upstart up over Nakamura, Joe etc. isn't it?
Dolph Ziggler v AJ Styles v John Cena v Apollo Crews v Baron Corbin v Bray Wyatt- 6-Pack Challenge #1 Contender Match
Dolph Ziggler, the actual Dolph Ziggler is now the #1 Contender for the WWE Title heading into WWE's second biggest event of the year. No, really. I'm actually in two minds about whether Dolph's win last night was a good move or not. That's mainly just because I've been over Dolph for at least a year at this point.
Dolph's win put over the whole "everyone's on an equal playing field" type environment they seemingly want to create with Smackdown, because in the eyes of the fans Dolph's been a guy who's been consistently "held back" and not been given what fans perceive he deserves. The thing is, in my opinion- and I'll happily be proven wrong Dolph peaked over two years ago at this point. I'm not saying he still can't be a compelling on-screen character to oppose Ambrose (especially if he turns), but it's not going to be as good as some people think in the sense that some are still in love with "cash-in" Dolph and don't want to look past that.
The actual match was really good, if a bit messy at times- and Dolph won by Superkicking and pinning AJ. That caught me off guard even more than Dolph winning, because apart from the Dolph/Ambrose feud- Cena/AJ is the feud on Smackdown for Summerslam. I always thought Bray was winning this, so I'm interested to see where he goes especially now- because it's not like there's necessarily an obvious avenue for them to explore with him at present. Then, going back to the very first thing I talked about in this Review- the show not about the authority figures ended with the authority figures coming out and Bryan getting the crowd to chant "Yes". Seriously. It was a moment of complete stupidity to mark a fairly mediocre first episode of the "new" Smackdown.
Last night's Smackdown had its moments without a doubt, however on the whole I felt like it was a pretty weak episode. While comparisons between RAW and Smackdown won't really be appropriate in my opinion for at least three months given the respective states of the shows and their rosters, Smackdown last night wasn't even close to RAW the night before.
The main problem last night had was the fact that they packed basically every single guy with some credibility except for Randy in the Main Event, rather than spreading the "star power" out over the two hours. That meant they had to fill an hour and a half's worth of TV time with the dregs of the Smackdown Roster, which were the dregs of the dregs of the RAW Roster for the most part. I mean, apart from a few- the Battle Royal and its participants wouldn't have looked out of place on an above average episode of Main Event.
I'm not going to get too upset with Smackdown though, at least not for a number of weeks- because Smackdown is more of a "project" show in the sense that they need to use the 2 Hours of TV time they get a week to build new stars and try and make it compete with RAW by organically growing over a number of months. As opposed to RAW where the majority of the pieces for them are already in place. You can almost compare it to NXT Pre-Network in a way, in that the Roster had a lot of potential but they just needed time to really grow.
Thanks for reading as always, for those of you who've read all four of the posts that have come out over the last four days thanks for your support- and hopefully if you're new around here you'll keep coming back in the weeks to come. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you have a good week and THERE AIN'T NO STOPPING ME NOOOOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment