BRM Reviews the 4/9/2015 Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- pretty good set-up for what would become the new main event. It seems that WWE has stolen the “I’m a big guy, so I don’t respect little guys” gimmick I came up with for Ryback in my fantasy booking and given it to Sheamus. This whole thing took ten minutes because everyone was concise and to the point. Why can’t they do that with their opening segments on Raw?

THE NEWS DAY (w/Xavier Woods) UPPER-CATS (w/Natalya)- 5.75/10
New Day (well… really jut Big E.) did a good job doing their thing on the way down to the ring. It will be so great when they finally turn. The match itself was also quite fun.

CURTIS AXEL PROMO- he wants a rematch with Neville. He also says that Axelmania will live forever, which is a maddening thought because it has already outlived its welcome.

NEVILLE vs. CURTIS AXEL- 2/10
Okay. Are we done with this match-up forever now? Please?

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS NATTIE, CAMERON, & ALICIA FOX- She asks them if them asking Kane for a #1 contendership battle royale has cheated Naomi out of the #1 contendership. Why would it? If Naomi has earned a title match (and logic dictates that she has, by virtue of pinning the champ), then it’s up to the Authority to book the match. Even if this battle royale happens first, there is no reason why Naomi still can’t get her title shot.
This resulted in a bickering and a shoving match between Nattie and Fox, which was broken up by referees.

Wow. That was quick. Apparently over the course of the commercial break they booked Nattie vs. Fox with Cameron as the special guest referee, found a referee-striped version of Cameron’s gear (complete with her catchphrase on the back!), and gave both Cameron and Alicia entrances. That seems a little suspect. Did they really need to do this right now? Or if ty had to do this right now, couldn’t they have just given Cameron a normal referee’s shirt? You know… to not throw in our faces that this is a work?

SINGLES MATCH WITH CAMERON AS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Natalya vs. Alicia Fox- 3/10
Good for what it was. It definitely felt a lot more like a brawl than any women’s match in WWE that I can remember seeing for a long time. Good post-match angle with Cameron attacking both of them to put over the idea that it will be “every woman for herself” in the battle royale.

ERICK ROWAN VIDEO PACKAGE- good- until you remember that he’s been booked like a glorified jobber for most of the past six months.

Byron tries to hype the Wyatt vs. Rowan match up as Rowan taking on his former “father figure,” which pissed me off simply because WWE had a chance to make us care about the Wyatt Family break-up and completely squandered it for no reason, resulting in no one giving a sh*t about either Rowan or Harper, and in Bray meandering around as a direction-less jobber to the stars. Sorry, WWE. You don’t get any do-overs. I will never care about former Wyatt Family members facing off because you already told me that it wasn’t important by not even caring enough to come up with something that even resembled a reason for the break-up.

BRAY WYATT PROMO- see above comments.

BRAY WYATT vs. ERICK ROWAN- 5.25/10
Two big men running into each other a lot in an entertaining fashion.

MIZ, SUMMER RAE, & SANDOW SEGMENT- Pretty darn great (aside from Summer’s “I’ll speak when I choose to” line, which felt really scripted. There MUST have been some more natural response than that), but Summer being a babyface all of a sudden was extremely awkward. I’m not even sure she has ever been a babyface before, and she’s such a great heel that this just seems like a big mistake.
Miz and Sandow both rocked here, but the sad part is that everything Miz was saying about Sandow being forgotten about in three months if he doesn’t go back to being with Miz is completely true, except that it won’t be the fans who forget about it: it will be management.


BIG SHOW, WADE BARRETT, & SHEAMUS vs. DANIEL BRYAN, ROMAN REIGNS, & DOLPH ZIGGLER- 7.5/10
Great match, but the wrong guy got the win and the wrong guy got pinned.
- Before this match they announced that Barrett was getting his rematch at Extreme Rules, so he needs to be built up.
- Big Show and Roman aren’t realty doing anything right now, so what happens to them doesn’t matter (although they should protect Roman when possible because he is their star of the future).
- Bryan is the champ, so he shouldn’t get pinned unless it is to directly set-up a title match… but it’s still preferable to avoid pinning him if you can (especially if the idea is to use him to raise the prestige of the title). Barrett already has a title owed to him through other means, so you don’t need to have him beat Bryan here, therefore Bryan shouldn’t lose.
Sheamus is just coming back from an injury with a new heel persona, so he shouldn’t lose.
Dolph is feuding with Sheamus in a feud whose whole big deal is that Sheamus is picking on guys who are smaller than he is because he thinks his size advantage will allow him to win. This necessitates setting Dolph up as an underdog of sorts, and as a result, because Barrett needs to win and Bryan and Roman both need to be protected, the correct finish would have been for Wade to pin Dolph (possibly after a big move by Sheamus).
Instead, for some strange reason, they had Wade eat the pin from Roman, which doesn’t kill the title match the way that having Wade get beat by Bryan would, but Wade being pinned/submitted in any form really hurts that match.

A very good episode of Smackdown. We had a lot of fun little matches and a great main event.