Hello! Based on RAW, I thought things were getting back to the "status quo" a bit in WWE in general- and I think it's safe to say after last night that it is indeed the case. I was actually looking to Smackdown this week, for the simple fact that they weren't dead in the water in-terms of being able to top RAW before they'd even started like they were last week. With that in mind, and the fact basically every main-event guy wasn't going to be in one match as was the case last week I actually had reasonably high expectations for the show. The only thing left to do now is to see whether they were met or not.
Dean Ambrose & Dolph Ziggler Promo Segment
This segment was odd in the sense that I wasn't expecting Ambrose to be the one to be a bit dick-ish. I'm not necessarily against it, but it caught me off guard- as has been the case for the last two weeks where Ziggler and Ambrose have been involved. Ambrose's promo was really good to me, if nothing else than for the fact every word he said when he was talking about Dolph was true. I thought Dolph did a good job playing up the whole "this could be my last chance" "fiery babyface" type promo. So on the whole I thought this whole thing was pretty good.
The Bray attack on Dolph was an interesting way to set-up the Main Event, because as I'll discuss later with what they ended up doing it's definitely not what I would have done. But we got the Main Event out of it- so in that respect the segment did do its job.
Apollo Crews v Kalisto v Baron Corbin- IC Title #1 Contender Match
I talked about this with someone on Twitter last night, and I'll repeat it here for obvious reasons. I just don't understand the logic of having a segment that's designed to set-up Apollo Crews vs The Miz for the IC Title and having Baron Corbin standing tall to end the segment. The person I was talking to last night said they had to do it "to make Baron Corbin look strong". If that was the case, it begs the question why book him in a segment where he wasn't going to win? We could just as easily have had Crews/Kalisto in a singles match where Kalisto did more Lucha things, and then have Corbin squash someone later on in the show.
I thought the actual match was pretty good on the whole. All three guys got their moves in, and Apollo Crews is going to Summerslam. I wouldn't be surprised if this Crews/Miz match ends up on the Pre-Show thought to be honest.
Eva Marie v Becky Lynch
Ladies & Gentleman, prepare for the Review of the segment featuring the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in this or any other segment. Allow yourself to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by All Red Everything herself Eva Marie.
I'm sorry, that introduction is officially the best thing in Wrestling. I said it in last week's review, I just wanted Eva to make her entrance and then leave. That's exactly what we got here, and it was absolutely amazing. Genuinely, the only conceivable way this segment could've been better was if we had Corey Graves on commentary marking out for her entrance and then acting like his world was falling apart when Eva got "injured". I simply won't hear a bad word about this segment.
I actually talked about this in one of my Takeover Reviews absolutely ages ago when discussing Baron Corbin. WWE want Heels to be booed, as surprising as that may be. A "good heel" isn't a heel anymore, because the crowd are too intent on cheering the bad guys. That's where guys like Miz, Corbin and indeed Eva come into play- because the crowd doesn't want to cheer for them. They want to boo them, and that's why despite all of her shortcomings- of which there are many there's a spot for Eva in WWE.
Carmella & Natalya Backstage Interview
I like the new backstage set-up they've got for Smackdown, just because it seems more "professional" in a way I suppose. Carmella still has a lot of work to do, in basically every possible aspect of what's needed- but she'll only get that with screen time I suppose. I'm not even going to talk about Nattie's talking ability, I've had my say too many times in that respect.
American Alpha v The Vaudevillains
Two things caught me off guard in this segment. One, Aiden English was the one to take the pin. After Simon Gotch's escapades last week I would have thought he'd be getting pinned for the foreseeable future. Two, the fact this match went as long as it did. That second one isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Alpha need to get over with their ring-work and general in-ring charisma with the "casual" crowd like they did in NXT. The match was good as a showcase, Alpha got all of their moves in- and I can only assume we're getting matches like this until they introduce the Smackdown Tag Titles hopefully by having a Tournament for said Titles.
John Cena & AJ Styles Promo Segment
I'm quite torn on this segment, and especially the Cena promo. It was a really good promo, I don't think anyone will dispute that. However, how many times have we heard Cena do what is in essence this exact same promo? How many feuds has he had since becoming "the guy"? That'll give you a rough estimate. As I've already said, it was a good promo- but if I'd been doing these Reviews for the last 10-12 years or however long it's been since Cena became the guy I could just Copy & Paste my review of said good promo.
I liked the AJ stuff, and his subtle name-drop of The Elite and his not-so-subtle shot at TNA/Dixie. He nearly said Slammiversary instead of Summerslam at one point, so that would've made this segment absolutely hilarious. On the whole it was a good segment though, and I liked it because they didn't do any bullshit build to the match. Both guys wanted the match, so they agreed to have a match. Wrestling can be so simple, and yet so effective at times.
Randy Orton v Fandango
I'd like to open this part of the review by stating that Fandango wasn't in fact pinned, and I can only assume Fandango was going to win before Brock interfered. The actual match wasn't much, although that was to be expected given what was going to happen to end said match. The surprise to me was that Brock showed up to a show unadvertised, which I don't think he's done since he beat the streak. I don't know if that's a response to Brock not necessarily drawing a big rating on RAW or what- but it's definitely an interesting development in the booking of Brock with around about 8 Months left on his current contract.
The one thing I'll say that I loved in this segment was that Brock managed to hop the barrier and get in the ring to immediately hit the F5 on Randy- all in the time it took Randy to hit the RKO on Fandango. The man's just a freak athlete.
Heath Slater & Daniel Bryan Backstage Segment
This was a fun little segment. It's where I'm expecting them to go with Heath, in that he's just going to keep losing "contract matches" for at least a month- and then he gets an upset win over another returning guy who's only doing a one-off appearance. Rhyno's Gore from outta nowhere was quite fun though, I will admit. I'll start the Over/Under on Rhyno's win next week at 1 Minute and 30 Seconds.
Dean Ambrose Backstage Interview
This was fine, and it continued the whole angle with Dolph and his perceived "self-sabotaging" in the eyes of Ambrose so it got the job done.
Natalya v Carmella
Both women's matches on the show last night didn't start. I understand that given the general lack of depth, and really lack of talent with the Smackdown women they have to work really hard to establish the characters and get some feuds going- but both matches not starting was just stupid. Have Nattie DQ herself by just refusing to stop attacking her once the match starts or something. This was just lazy, and exactly the type of booking I thought WWE had gone away from with the women.
Dolph Ziggler v Bray Wyatt
The whole night was building to this match, in the sense that they basically spent the whole night saying how stupid it was of Dolph to put his #1 Contender spot up when he didn't have to. I thought this would give us an angle where Bray won, likely with shenanigans- leaving Dolph with "nothing" and he would then go on a really aggressive and "focused" run through some of the Midcard and actually build his character up to a point where people are invested in him for a match with Dean somewhere down the line.
As it was, Dolph won via the exposed turnbuckle- and that was that. I tweeted just before this match that last night was better than RAW, if nothing else than by virtue of it not being 3 Hours. I'm not necessarily saying that this Main Event changed my opinion of whether Smackdown was better than RAW- but it made it much more of an even contest.
I just can't understand the logic of having Bray Wyatt, who's one of two Heels on Smackdown who would look credible in a Main Event spot losing just to further an angle with Dolph fucking Ziggler. I'm not ruling out Dolph winning at Summerslam, as surprising as that may be. For the simple fact that he's going into the Kent State (?) Wrestling Hall of Fame at around the same time. It goes back to my theory on Mark Henry winning the Title on RAW, WWE may not want to turn down the easy publicity. However, the best Dolph can hope for is him getting a run as a transitional champion and either dropping the Title back to Dean or dropping it to Bray.
To add to that, Dolph pinned Bray- okay if that's what you want to do, fair enough. As with the Corbin case, this segment is designed to put over the Ziggler/Ambrose match. So why must you insist on letting Bray "get his heat back" as soon as the match has finished?! I will say I was happy they did this, for the simple reason that if Bray had gotten properly hurt like I thought he had at one point I doubt they'd have done the ending they did. Take that out of the equation though, and fucking hell is it stupid.
With the end to the show they acknowledged that they need Bray to look decent because they let him "get his heat back" albeit with Rowan's help. That's another thing, why wouldn't Rowan... you know... help Bray win?! What's the use of having him attack Dolph (and Ambrose) after Bray's already lost. The more I think about this the more angry I get about it, so I'm just going to stop before this becomes an completely unintelligible rant.
You may be able to tell that I didn't really like the ending to the show, but on the whole I do think the show was pretty good. I'm interested to see where they go with a few things on the show, especially with the way they book Bray- because I can't help but fear that him and Rowan are just going to be fodder for Ambrose and Dolph in the next few weeks as annoying as that'll be.
Thanks for reading as always, hopefully you've enjoyed the Reviews of the last two nights of wrestling. If you haven't already feel free to read the RAW Review. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you'll be back for the RAW Review next week and then the Smackdown Review as well, where you should have had enough time to be suitably prepared to be seduced, enchanted, dazzled and entranced by the most stylish, elegant, bewitching, eternally beguiling, continuously charismatic and fantastically fascinating woman to appear in WWE.
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