Previously on Smackdown Live…
Jeff Hardy & Sheamus agreed to a Bar Fight, half the women’s division pretended to be at a karaoke bar, & I wished bars were open where I lived so I could forget last week’s episode ever happened.
BOTCH: Daring To Be Sour On This Feud
Again, from last week’s Pops & Botches:
At this point, we’ve already had New Day lose a non-title match, had Kofi lose a singles match to Nakamura, & now had the non-finish. We’re one Cesaro beating Big E in a singles match away from a bingo. Note: The free space is them ultimately losing the title match (Sorry).
Bingo!
(Does somebody at WWE read my reviews? Have we gained that much steam already?)
Big E & Cesaro have a good enough match, but once it’s announced picking a stipulation at a ppv is on the line, you can easily wager a guess who’s going to take the victory. After putting New Day through a table last week, Tables Match was the obvious choice, but there was an iota of intrigue put into it with Steel Cage Match at least on the board, so I guess that counts for something. Sadly “Swing Your Opponent Into The Plexiglass From The Ring Match” wasn’t an available option.
Look, I don’t like to dump all over this mainly because the wrestling between these four guys has been one of the better parts of the show in recent weeks, but it feels like somebody reading “How to Book a Tag Team Title Match For Dummies” has been put in charge of this month’s content. Cesaro & Nakamura are 3-0-1 against New Day this month. So them losing Sunday does very little to convince us New Day are the better team. I’m not sure that matters (I am) as they’re currently the only two available tag teams on the show with Otis Jannetty-ing Tucker, Uso #1 relegated to game show host & The Forgotten Sons being… well forgotten, so expect them to be feuding well into 2021 at this point.
I’m hoping WWE pulls the trigger on Nakamura & Cesaro, but with SummerSlam looming, a lot of these feuds feel like they’re in the middle step of a larger payoff down the line.
BOTCH: Evolution 2 Is A Mystery
There was a lot of speculation this week with women in the division posting on Twitter some of their dream opponents past or present that Stephanie would show up to glory hog, I mean announce that the second women’s Evolution event would be happening. Everyone apparently forgot that The Ghost of Teddy Long still haunts these halls & we get a tag team match instead, playas! Big time let down. It was like expecting a bike for Christmas & your parents decided to give you old Halloween candy.
In the “so obvious why didn’t we see it” portion of the program, A Moment of Bliss’ mystery guest is Asuka, who’s been called in after Bliss apparently knows she can’t exist at this point without Sasha & Bayley coming out to gloat about how much better they are than everybody. Normally, anything involving these five women would get a Pop, but it gets demoted for two reasons: The aforementioned Evolution 2 bait & switch, as well as having the exact same finish as last week’s match with Bayley pinning Nikki Cross using her feet on the ropes for leverage.
I don’t want the challenger pinning the champion in non-title matches any more than any of you, but if they’re trying to build Cross up as a viable #1 contender, they’re doing a very bad job. That’s two weeks in row her taking the pin in tag matches, not to mention her costing Alexa her match the week before that via DQ. You could easily have Nikki pin Sasha in one of these affairs or at the very least put her over any of the four women stuck singing 1980s theme songs.
Also:
POP: Braundo’s Got What Swamp Plants Crave
After Bray Wyatt Prime takes over The Firefly Funhouse to deliver what feels like every other Bray Wyatt Prime promo we’ve ever heard, something pretty great happened. Braun Strowman shows up really pissed off about the entire thing, giving us the most character growth he’s had since he took off a sheep mask. He cites personal fears & anxieties about facing Bray Wyatt because he knows Bray is the reason he exists in WWE & how Bray can use that to potentially beat him. Braun’s going to use all that to go to that swamp & beat Bray so bad he won’t ever have to deal with him again. That leads to a weird point where Braun mentions he’ll avoid facing The Fiend if he wins, which feels like a misstep given that assuming this form of Bray loses on Sunday, wouldn’t the natural progression be for The Fiend to come & get the job done the other iterations of his psyche couldn’t? I’m willing to give it a pass though since it’s a sense of urgency we haven’t seen from Braun ever & not just him talking about the giving of hands.
A slight botch goes to Morrison again having to get obliterated by somebody more important than him. I’m assuming you paid him all this money to bring him back to WWE for a reason, guys. Put him & Miz back in the tag title hunt already or feud him with AJ Styles for the IC TItle. The guy is way too good at his job to be in a minute squash match.
BOTCH: Laces-y Evans
The Lacey Evans experiment isn’t getting any better despite her recent heel turn via losing a singing competition. She’s shown flashes in the ring at times, but getting through an entire match that’s more than three minutes feels like a struggle. Here, she gets to fly under the radar because the ending is just so bad I can’t decide if I like it or not with tying Naomi’s hair to the middle rope giving her enough time to set up… punching her in the face? Sure.
Regardless, I think we’re all on board that Naomi deserves better.
Next time though, put your hair *up* if you want to square up, Naomi!
POP: Too Sweet Me, Bro!
Easily the highlight of the evening was the Intercontinental Championship match between AJ Styles & Matt Riddle. These two worked, dare I say, phenomenally together. At around twenty minutes (yay!) the match both did what it was supposed to giving a clean victory to the champion, but at the same time under delivered with the flash roll-up leaving me wanting to see more. I really liked the finish with Styles having Riddle in the Calf Crusher yanking on his toes (Pete Dunne has got to be furious you stole his idea from the eventual Broserweights feud), to Riddle transitioning it into the Bro-Mission, but then Styles having the wherewithal to counter it into a pin. That’s the kind of ending a veteran champion should be getting over new up & comers, using their experience & guile to sneak out wins when they have to.
Like I’ve mentioned before, having a challenger have a long back & forth match with a champion & still lose does wonders for both competitors. Riddle looks like he belongs in the big leagues & Styles looks like a smart, crafty veteran, which he is. Add in the fact that, yeah Styles won, but he didn’t definitively win, and you’ve got a talking point going forward if/when a rematch ever happens.
Anyway, the two have a nice moment of mutual respect at the end, shaking hands after the match as the show goes off the air.
I SAID THE SHOW WENT OFF THE AIR!
That does it for this week’s Smackdown Live.
Certainly better than last week’s, but still, improvements can definitely be made.
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