BRM Reviews the Smackdown 15th Anniversary Show (10/10/2014)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- a HUGE waste of fifteen minutes
Steph comes out and says stuff. She points out that Triple H beat Rock on the first Smackdown. Johnny Ace comes out. The fans actually chanted “PEOPLE POWER!” I had totally forgotten that was a thing. He thinks he has booking power for some reason.
Then Teddy Long came out to an inexplicably big pop. He books a tag team match, playa!

Sorry. Force of habit.

He comes out and argues with Johnny Ace over who was the greatest Smackdown GM of all time. Teddy says that “the proof is in the playa.” Get it? Instead of “the proof is in the pudding.” Because Teddy Long says “playa” a lot?
As I’m sure you can tell, this instantly reminded me of why I was so happy when Teddy lost his job as Smackdown GM.
Anyway, the great irony of all this is that at that very moment, they were both standing there in the ring with the best Smackdown GM of all time. These two, meanwhile, are the two worst.
Johnny decides to show how good a GM he is by booking a tag team match: Swagger & Sheamus vs. Miz & Cesaro.
Teddy, also under the delusion that he still has booking power, one-ups him by making it a SIX MAN tag team match. Cole made sure to let us know what a brilliant strategic move this was. Teddy wants the match to be: Swagger, Sheamus, & Mark Henry vs. Miz, Cesaro & Bo.
Johnny Ace adds in Goldust & Stardust on the heel side and the Usos on the babyface side. Because it is the fifteenth anniversary of Smackdown, Teddy then makes it a fifteen man tag team match. Johnny complains that such a thing would be impossible, because apparently he is an idiot. Maybe all of those forearms to the head from Kobashi and Misawa are finally taking effect.
No one points out that a fifteen man tag team match would leave one side at a disadvantage.

The final teams are: Cesaro, Bo Dallas, Miz, Goldust, Stardust, Heath Slater, The mini-Gator, and Titus O’Neil, who he only referred to as “gator” vs. The Usos, Sheamus, Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, Los Matadores, El Torito, & Tito Santana. Teddy can’t count, because that makes this nine-on-eight, which would be a seventeen man tag team match. Or even with their dumb midget joke, tht would be sixteen. Apparently Tito Santanta isn’t here, so it will only be fifteen.

Anyway, I can’t help but notice that in their efforts to impress both Steph and the fans, neither one of these guys made any attempt to book anything with main event stars like, say, Cena vs. Rusev, or something that would be totally awesome like Rollins vs. Ziggler. In fact, they didn’t use any of the most over guys on the roster.
Anyway, Steph suggests that they each pick one team to captain, and the guy whose team wins will become the “greatest Smackdown GM of all time.” You could tell from Steph’s tone of voice that she was just humoring them.

There is good nostalgia and there is bad nostalgia. This was long, boring, and stupid, so you can place it firmly in the bad nostalgia category.

Steph then transitions into talking about something totally different. Miz will host Miz TV tonight with Cena and Ambrose as guests.
Then, totally randomly, Adam Rose and the Exotic Express came out. I spotted Rosita, ROH’s Mandy Leon and also, I think, Billy Kidman. Adam Rose wants Steph to be a Rosebud. Instead, Steph books him against Kane. JBL and I had the same reaction: “I LOVE IT!” Steph then ordered the sound guy to play Rose’s music. Steph danced, while Adam and the Rosebuds all stood there, sad and concerned. Johnny Ace and Teddy Long danced, too because someone thought it would be a good idea to ruin this moment of glory.

A GREAT SMACKDOWN MOMENT: the first ever (non-pilot) Smackdown- Sure. Why not?

KANE vs. ADAM ROSE (w/the Rosebuds)- squash.
When we came back from commercial, the Rosebud were all partying again. That was dumb. Kane cut a promo on his way down to the ring, claiming to not be a lemon or a rosebud, but rather a party pooper. It would have been SO MUCH BETTER to have him just walk down to the ring, silently and menacingly like a specter of death approaching Adam Rose.
Okay, I will admit that I was amused by the Rosebuds cheering and dancing when Rose hit a move, but immediately stopping whenever Kane got offense in. Kane squashed Rose. When the Rosebuds went to check on him, Kane came back to kick their asses. They teased a chokeslam to the bunny but he/she/it escaped. I’m not advocating intergender violence or anything, but this would have been a lot more awesome if Kane just chokeslammed all forty-three Rosebuds in a row, regardless of size, gender, or costume.
Hopefully this beating ill convince Leo Kruger to stop using drugs.

A GREAT SMACKDOWN MOMENT: Cena’s debut.
Definitely a great moment, and the video package was well done, but I can’t help but notice that they never once showed or even mentioned the fact that Cena lost that match. CLEANY. In barely five minutes. It’s not that the fans need to be reminded of this, but rather it is the creative team who need the reminder. Cena was a nobody. He went just FIVE MINUTES with a top star, and then lost entirely cleanly. And THAT made him a somebody. THAT, along with the FOLLOW-UP to it- stuff like backstage vets like Ron Simmons congratulating him, and the Undisputed WWE Champion The Undertaker offering him a handshake (and they had, for the past few months, made a HUGE deal out of what it meant for Taker to show someone respect, and how picky he was with the people he would show respect to)- is what started to get Cena over. No bullsh*t. No DQ’s not crappy runs with a midcard title that the writers don’t pay any attention to and don’t build up well. Just a simple, clean loss and good follow-up is what started to get John Cena over.

AJ LEE vs. ALICIA FOX (w/Paige)- 0.25/10
Cole told us that if Alicia beat AJ tonight, she MIGHT find herself in the Divas Title picture. She already beat AJ once and nothing came of hit. Hell… Eva Maria beat the Divas champ twice in a week and never got a title shot for it.
AJ wins clean. Paige attacks her, but AJ fights off both heels by herself.

SETH ROLLINS vs. KOFI KINGSTON- 4/10
Oh yeah! Kofi! I had forgotten about everyone’s favorite midcarder-for-life (and there’s nothing wrong with that. He will always be over and will probably have a job and a match on most PPVs for the rest of his career if he wants it).
They did what they could with the time they were given. Rollins worked over Kofi’s head and basically kicked his ass all match. Some guys who had brought a 9.99 sign flipped their numbers over and all of a sudden it became 666. This amused me.

LUKE HARPER VIDEO PACKAGE- I still have no idea what the point of these is.

A GREAT SMACKDOWN MOMENT: Some MITB cash-ins. Snore.

RUSEV (w/Lana) vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER- 5.5/10
Lana got a blue suit because it’s Smackdown. Lana cut a prom in which she called The Rock a coward. Rusev said The Rock would pay… then he challenged BIG SHOW to a match… on Raw. Why are they not saving this for the PPV?

GREAT SMACKDOWN MOMENT: Austin assaults Booker T in a grocery store.

PRE-TAPE WITH ROCK, HUNTER, & STEPH-
They teased a match between Rock and Hunter for Wrestlemania. Does anyone really want to see this? I’m sure it will be great and all, but there MUST be better uses for both guys. Personally, I’d like to see Orton vs. Rock and Hunter vs. Sheamus.

Then they tried to do comedy about the fact that they were in each other’s faces. It sucked. They joke about going out for food together. Rock says he’d want Hunter to pay the bill. Hunter bitches to Steph about this. Yeah. Rich people getting into a dumb fight about which one of them should pay the bill. I cannot think of anything I could possibly care less about.

Tom Phillips gets a cake in his face.

They brought Booker T out to be on commentary, because they hate me personally.

GIANT TAG TEAM MATCH THAT NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY GIVE A SH*T ABOUT- 3.5/10
Lillian introduced this as a “sixteen man tag team match.” I guess she didn’t get the memo. Either that or she had the good sense not to make the idiotic midget joke. Or maybe she just doesn’t give a f*ck. She called Los Matadores “the Matadores.”
Wait. Is Miz-dow in the match?
It was so important for them to show us Teddy and Johnny watching that they gave us shots of them instead of showing us the first physical exchange of the match.

Okay. I did enjoy the spot Sheamus did with the Ten Beats of the Bowren (sic?) Other than that, I just did not give a sh*t about absolutely anything that happened.

WYATTS VIDEO PACKAGE FOR ERICK ROWAN- same comment as the Harper one

GREAT SMACKDOWN MOMENT: the first show after 9/11

MIZ TV FEATURING AMBROSE AND CENA- boring.
Miz first announces that the Cena vs. Ambrose match to determine who will face Cena inside the cell will be a “no holds barred, contract on a pole match.” Sure. Why not?
Cena respect Ambrose. Ambrose says he won’t let Cena stand in his way. Miz tries to get them to fight each other, but they beat him up instead. Then Cena gives Ambrose an AA as payback for the DDT from Raw.

This show sucked. It didn’t feel like a fifteen anniversary of Smackdown so much as it felt like a show they realized they could bill as the fifteenth anniversary of Smackdown and thus not put any effort into writing it, and that’s exactly what we got. Even the Smackdown moments were all eh, aside from Cena’s debut (admittedly, many of Smackdown great moments are ones that WWE won’t use because they involve either Chris Benoit or people WWE won’t focus on because they are under contract to TNA (specifically Jeff Hardy and the Dudleys), or guys they are kind of pissed at like Rey Mysterio, or guys they are really pissed at like Punk). Either way, it came across as very half-assed.