Previously on Smackdown Live…
Nikki Cross & Gran Metalik earned title shots, Matt Riddle earned a bounty on his head, & Jeeves The Bartender earned no tips after Jeff Hardy took out both he & Sheamus during a Bar Fight.
The show earned the elusive all Pops across the board & was pretty great. Could this week’s show keep Building Momentum™ as we head into Summerslam? Let’s find out.
POP: Ding Dong! Hello? LET ME IN.
Well, it’s official. Braun Strowman is definitely gone according to Bray Wyatt. He’s forever trapped in the Wyatt Swamp & doesn’t appear to be coming back to us any time soon. Might as well become one with The Green & hope Anton Arcane isn’t that big of a problem going forward.
With Braun out of the picture, Bray now demands The Fiend gets what he wants or it’s going to be an issue for everybody else on the roster. I’m assuming The Fiend wants The Universal Championship, but have you checked Braun Strowman’s locker? Maybe Miz & Morrison can smash the window of his car & you can look for it in the back seat? Seems like it’d be easy to just grab the title wherever he left it with him just submerged in swamp water for all eternity. Just hope he wasn’t wearing it when you threw his body into those swamp lands or it could be tricky to find.
Anyway, just another ominous Bray Wyatt threat. We’ve seen it all before. Doubtful he follows through.
POP: No Lucha House Parties Allowed
AJ Styles is big time back, you guys.
I’ve been back & forth on it for a while now, but after a string of good to great matches with Riddle, Bryan & Nakamura, this match with Gran Metalik of all people has sealed the deal for me. And that’s no shade against Metalik at all, he’s fantastic. But when Styles throws on his worker boots & puts on a twenty minute banger against a low card Luchador, you know he’s taking it seriously again. I’m not sure if this is a big middle finger to Paul Heyman or Vince McMahon after The Good Brothers fiasco, but something has definitely lit a fire under AJ & he’s making his matches on Smackdown appointment television again.
Styles is also furthering his crafty veteran status with his approach here. A couple weeks ago he used it to leverage a pin during Riddle’s Bro-mission & here he uses it to take down Metalik. What’s the best strategy against a high flyer? Destroy their legs, of course. Styles targets the knee most of the match, grounding Metalik & eventually after some hope spots, softens him up enough to get the easy tap out with The Calf Crusher. That’s having a game plan going in & executing it for a victory.
I’m really curious who they’re going to run up against Styles for Summerslam. He smashes Lince Dorado post match with a Styles Clash to buy them another week to drag it out, but I doubt that’s going anywhere after those two probably face off next week. Styles has already put Bryan & Riddle in his rearview. Jeff Hardy is available. I’d love for Big E to get put in that spot. Sheamus is also (unfortunately) looming. A lot of solid potential matches out there.
POP: Shorty Gets A Raise
King Corbin is either getting desperate or doesn’t think Matt Riddle is that big of an issue, so he tries to enlist a guy that he’s been constantly mocking for months on end in Shorty G. Bold strategy, Cotton. Corbin rightfully points out Riddle has been here for a minute & is getting title opportunities, while Shorty G has been here for years & all he has to show for it are personalized gym shorts. He makes a few more solid points, but Shorty G is onto him & calls him out.
And who the hell is this “Chad” Corbin keeps referring to??
Later on, since Corbin can’t stop giving anybody within ten feet of him grief, he interrupts a Jeff Hardy promo to give us the same lazy insults we’ve been getting from Sheamus for the past month. Thankfully, Drew Gulak is as sick of hearing them as all of us & punches Corbin in the back of the head about it. The match the two have is pretty good, but much too short. Gulak makes the mistake of being from 205 Live, so naturally he eats a pin to somebody more important.
The referee counts the three & not a second later Riddle is in the ring to pounce on Corbin. I like that little wrinkle of Riddle having the match finish before getting directly involved as there’s some integrity to letting the match play out fairly (coming out & distracting someone with your music is… less so, but still). Hold up though, as Chad Gable is out here trying get that sweet sweet King money. Grab the Chili’s Gift Card kid! Make yourself famous! One Chaos Theory to Riddle later & Corbin looks like he has a new Hired G(un).
I’m going to wait & see how this plays out between Corbin & Gable before I pass a final judgement. Gable was a nice little jerkbag heel when he was teaming with Bobby Roode (who?) a while back, so this could be fun. Odds are Riddle will go through Gable & Corbin will dump him, but I still need to see what this “King’s Ransom” is all about & anything that gets us more Gable is okay by me. If you want more tv time, attaching yourself to King Corbin is sadly a great idea.
POP: The Power Of Positivit-E
Rolling into day 1 of @WWEBigE's singles run like… #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/QDWsfaZ2u4
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) August 1, 2020
The Big E singles pushed has arrived. It’s real & it’s spectacular. Miz & Morrison are a good starting point for E as they’re credible enough as former champions to count as solid victories, but have been kind of not taking things seriously lately, so Big E can still get more important wins down the line. E survives enough parkour related interference & even a SCF from Miz, to give him a strong win. We’re also witness to Big E’s new submission finisher, The Stretch Muffler, which looks like it hurts a lot:
He tapped him out Bis-quick!
Thank you. I’m here all week.
Great start to the Big E singles run we’ve all been hoping for. The assumed follow up match with Morrison should be a solid outing. After that, we’ll see if the stars align & we get him into the Intercontinental Championship mix in time for Summerslam. I think that’s one of the better aspects of Smackdown right now in that outside of the Universal Title, everything is pretty wide open, so it’ll be interesting to see where we head in the next coming weeks.
BOTCH: Naomi DEFINITELY Deserves Better
I’m starting to come around to the idea that #NaomiDeservesBetter wasn’t about giving her title opportunities, a fleshed out story, or lengthy matches, but just getting her the hell away from Lacey Evans instead. I’ve mentioned in the past that any Lacey Evans match that goes over two minutes feels like a struggle & well…
I’ve watched that gif ten times now & with the three jump cuts for one move (thanks, Dunn!), I’m still not sure what they’re going for or who’s fault it is. Either it’s a Canadian Destroyer & Lacey completely bails on taking it, or it’s a Sunset Flip Bomb & Naomi isn’t far down enough on Lacey to properly throw her back or Lacey starts to fall back too soon. Whichever way, Woof.
And I don’t want to get on either person for a single botch. They happen (although if this is pretaped, I’m wondering how botches make it on air in the first place). This is more about Lacey Evans as a whole, who I think works as a heel character & has potential in the ring. Lacey, who hasn’t earned enough Sass Points this quarter & just “The Southern Belle” now, again goes to defeat Naomi by sticking her hair under the ring steps for a count out, then ties her hair to the ropes to set up a punch like last week. What kind of strategy is that? It’s the chintziest way to a victory & can’t have any sort of tangible long term success rate.
Ditch The Women’s Right completely & have the Mero Sault be her finisher that she actually hits with great accuracy most of the time. Having a punch as a finisher is one of the dumber plays conceptually for a pro wrestler. If you’re Big Show & your hands are like bowling balls, sure, that works. Otherwise, wrestling an entire match to set up somebody standing in front of you makes no sense. There’s no reason to not constantly be trying to punch them the entire contest if that’s how you win. Finishers like submissions or high flying ones require somebody to be worn down. Punching someone doesn’t. So when you try to win by pinning someone’s hair under the ring steps (great time to punch them by the way), you just look like an idiot.
POP: Got A Deville’s Haircut In My Mind
Sonya Deville doesn’t let a grudge go huh?
Back in May (which might as well be 2010 at this point), Fire & Desire split up for the only reason tag teams split up outside of you people, good old fashioned jealousy. Afterwards, Sonya kept beating up Mandy & eventually got wins over her, but that ain’t enough apparently. As Mandy’s getting ready to go to a restaurant with Otis, Sonya correctly stops her from going out to a public place during a pandemic, what a good friend. Just kidding. She beats the ever loving shit out of her & Sonya Beefcake takes some scissors to Mandy’s extensions & ruins Mandy’s plans of watching Otis eat (Side note: WWE, the women don’t need extensions & look ridiculous with them so please get rid. Thank you). Bonus points awarded to Sonya for threatening officials trying to break up the fight with a pair clippers & them being genuinely afraid.
I’m all about Evil Sonya Deville, but I’m not really sure the end game at this point. Sonya’s already beaten Mandy both in & out of the ring, proving she’s better than Mandy in most professional aspects. I guess she’s trying to prove a point about Mandy being vapid & she’ll be distraught about an unwanted haircut, but that theory doesn’t really track when Otis is her boyfriend. Nothing against the ol’ Ham Slammer, but let’s be serious.
I have a Botch in waiting for WWE if they try to push the notion the Mandy Rose will somehow be “ugly” now that she has short hair. That girl could have a Sheamus mohawk & would still be gorgeous. But I won’t give them grief for something they haven’t done. Yet.
POP: The Cross-N-Hug Connection
Bayley & Nikki Cross probably have the best match of the series between the two only this time we get a definitive finish without any extraneous schmozz to bring it down. There’s a nice call back to The BOSS Knuckles from Extreme Rules with Nikki tossing them out of the ring, but Bayley still proves to be too much & gets a clean pin. I would think that puts an end to the Nikki Cross as championship challenger going forward. Bayley’s pinned Cross four straight times now. She’s essentially won a playoff series against her at this point.
Much like Styles, I’m curious where that puts Bayley heading into Summerslam. With Nikki Cross most likely out of the picture, there’s not a lot to work with on this current women’s roster. Sasha will probably be dealing with Asuka. Mandy & Sonya are back to feuding with each other again. Is Bayley vs. Dana Brooke happening? Can it? Naomi & Alexa Bliss seem like the only viable candidates for title contention.
And about that second one…
POP: Lose A Friend, Gain A Fiend
Holy shit.
I don’t know if anybody saw this coming, but it’s genuinely one of the more surprising endings to a show WWE has done in a while. I have to credit whoever is tinkering with WWE’s tropes lately & turning them on their head to pivot into something you don’t see coming.
If you’ve been watching Smackdown lately, you’ve noticed the show the past month or so has been ending anywhere from three to five minutes early, so when they put up the licensing credits with five minutes to go after the Women’s Title Match, it’s enough to make you think “Oh, okay. It’s over”.
The credits fade & they linger just long enough on Cross & Bliss that you then think “Oh, somebody’s turning on the other”. At that point, you’re thinking they break up & Smackdown is ending on a sour note, but oh boy, things get real sourer real quick.
After Cross shoves Alexa down & bails for trying to console her after another loss (I’m taking that more as frustration from losing & not the two breaking up. If Nikki doesn’t feel bad about what happened after she left, I’ll be stunned), The Fiend enters & takes Alexa out with The Mandible Claw to close out the show. I mentioned this in my Extreme Rules review, but shout out to Bray Wyatt’s ability to take a throwaway romance angle from The Mixed Match Challenge & turn it into the focal point of a Universal Title feud. I also like that this is truly the first thing The Fiend has done that’s been fiendish. Prior to that, he gained a ton of sympathy after getting squashed by Goldberg & attempted murdered by Seth Rollins. What’s the worst thing he did before tonight? Choke out Jerry Lawler? That earns you babyface points around these parts.
Not to mention this all circles back to the beginning of the show where Bray Wyatt explicitly said “nobody is safe” until The Fiend gets what he wants & they paid it off with a bang. Combine that with the Corbin/Gable story from earlier on & that’s two easy to follow narratives throughout the show that both had logical, foreshadowed payoffs. This stuff is infinitely more interesting when the stories are being told competently.
Anyway, here’s hoping Alexa Bliss tried to contact Braun telepathically right before her demise & next week’s Smackdown opens like Friday The 13th: The New Blood.
And that’s our show. Pretty upsetting all these people dying on the roster, so here’s a quick pick me up:
Champions salute pic.twitter.com/t0AoDVrEGM
— Cesaro “Espresso” (@WWECesaro) August 1, 2020
*Heart eyes*
Smackdown is really picking up steam lately, so I’m interested in seeing where they go elsewhere on the card with all the titles feuds outside of The Universal heading into Summerslam. A lot of great potential matches out there. Drop a comment below or hit up our Discord & let us know what you think about The Blue Brand these days! Join us next time as Braun Strowman definitely won’t be returning big mad about all this.
