BRM Reviews the 1/7/2016 Smackdown (1st show on USA)

[Big Red Machine]

So… the first Smackdown on USA. Time for a new start. A chance to take a show that is has been turned into completely useless waste of two hours of TV and turn it into the great show it once was. A chance to give us a second show which can be used to flesh out storylines instead of just filler which will never be mentioned again…
And to signify this new start, we’ve got the same old Smackdown theme that we used to have. And here are the same old announcers, with Rich Brennan and Jerry Lawler talking up our two big title matches. Well… at least the title matches are good.

Jerry Lawler says he wants to be “be the first to welcome you to our new home here on USA Network for Thursday night Smackdown.” Unfortunately for Jerry, Byron Saxton had already did this about ninety seconds ago. If Jerry is getting that senile, he needs to be replaced. If only we could get a new announcer so Jerry didn’t need to be out here…
HEY! It’s Mauro Ranallo! And he’s already made an HBK “boyhood dream” reference! Now if only Lawler would just get up and leave then things would be perfect because Saxton usually keeps his mouth shut, so all we would be hearing is Mauro calling the matches!

JOHN CENA PROMO- Wow. John Cena is actually appearing on Smackdown! If only big stars like John Cena could appear on Smackdown more often. That would definitely make the show seem more important.
Cena starts telling everyone stuff we already know:
- Tonight is the first Smackdown on USA
- Everyone is excited
- The show is taking place in Laredo, TX
- The Divas Title will be defended tonight
- The IC Title will be defended tonight
The “USA” in the “USA Network” come from the often-used abbreviation for the country the United State of America (and this isn’t me making a joke. He actually felt the need to explain this to us! Although if I were going to make a joke it would be something about me wondering why it is that, after so many episodes of Raw on this same USA Network, Cena never got excited about the United States of America connection. The only logical explanation would be that Cena only figured out what the “USA” in “USA Network” means earlier today)
Well… there a few minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
Stupid goofy Cena comedy bullsh*t. At this point I have already given up on anything changing. And now they’ve got Mauro saying their dumb sh*t, too ("maybe it’s a New Year’s resolution? John Cena is being nicer to the United States Champion"). Kill me now.
Cena says that the US Title (oh- sorry: the “USA Title” because that’s what Cena keeps calling it now) should be on the line tonight as well. That’s a good idea, John. And seeing as how last week’s Raw had a US Title match end in the champ getting DQed, maybe we should have a title match tonight. You know what would have been even better? If they had done something to set this match up on this week’s Raw so that instead of wasting time setting it up at the beginning of the first Smackdown on the USA Network, you could have used it as a hook to draw more viewers to this all-important first show.
Anyway, Alberto has seen through Cena’s nearly transparent ruse, and vows that even though Cena has already fooled him like this once (the aforementioned title match that ended in a DQ), Cena will not be able to goad him into a match for a second time.
Del Rio offers to fight anyone but Cena, right here, right now. Cena says that if Alberto was a real champion, he should give someone a title shot right here, right now. Yes… good champions are not afraid to defend their titles, but there is also something to be said for someone earning it.
Anyway, Cena suggests that Del Rio defend his title against Kalisto… and oh boy what a coincidence… Kalisto just happened to be standing at the Gorilla position with his gear on so that someone could immediately play his music and he could show up.
Del Rio doesn’t take Kalisto seriously because he is small. They exchange words. Del Rio slaps Kalisto so Kalisto responds with a drop kick… and even though there doesn’t appear to have been a match scheduled, there just happened to be a referee at ringside ready to slide into the ring and order the bell to be rung to start…

ALBERTO DEL RIO vs KALISTO (w/John Cena)- 5.75/10
Mauro is calling moves! Hooray! It made this match SOOOO much easier to enjoy.
Cena & Del Rio had a stare-down during the match which, of course, resulted in the fans chanting “LETS GO CENA!” and “CENA SUCKS!” instead of caring about the match. To make things worse, this happened right before Kalisto got a surprise roll-up win, which kind of hurt him. Kalisto celebrates with Cena.
At this point, I’d like to point of the differences between the announcers. Lawler (and I think Byron, too), said that this was “an embarrassment for Del Rio” (and they had also mentioned before the match all Del Rio was doing by wrestling here was risking embarrassing himself if he lost). Mauro did cede that Del Rio was certainly embarrassed by his loss, but always made sure to focus on the fact that this was “a big win for Kalisto.” What Saxton and Lawler are doing buries Kalisto as someone Del Rio should be embarrassed to lose to- which buries Del Rio for losing to him as well- and puts the focus on Del Rio’s loss in a match that Cena talked him into (and Saxton tried to claim that Cena’s presence distracted Del Rio). What Mauro does PUTS OVER KALISTO FOR WINNING A WRESTLING MATCH!
The way it actually went down was like this (all paraphrasing except where there are quotation marks):
1. Mauro said that this was a huge win for Kalisto
2. Lawler said Alberto must be really embarrassed
3. Mauro said that yes, it’s probably pretty embarrassing for Alberto, but you’ve got to admit that it’s a huge win for Kalisto, too, and he deserves a title shot
4. Lawler grudgingly agreed that it was a big win for Kalisto and said that “maybe” he deserves a title shot.
It’s like Mauro is dragging the other two kicking and screaming up to a level of competent announcing.
Mauro said the words “WWE fans” instead of “WWE Universe.” Mauro is the best!

So we’ve got a title match between not only two women who have never appeared on Total Divas, but between two of the Four Horsewomen. The women who were supposed to lead the Divas Revolution and bring us the Era of the Female Athlete or whatever… and they’re still playing the Total Divas theme when they put up the graphic to advertise their big title match. *facepalm*

JOJO INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH- Becky was very good.

BROCK IS BACK ON RAW VIDEO- good

MIZ TV ROYAL RUMBLE SPECIAL- Do they think people actually enjoy these segments?
Miz was interrupted by New Day, who whined about Jericho being mean to them. They were interrupted by either Dolph Ziggler or possibly a time-travelling 2010 Heath Slater who was mean for no reason and then tried to say something about the Royal Rumble when he was interrupted by Goldust, who told us that “only one Superstar can win the Royal Rumble.” Before you start talking about what a stupid and pointless statement that was, let me also remind that it is also technically incorrect, as both Lex Luger and Bret Hart can tell you.
Miz got annoyed that people were interrupting his show. Then Neville showed up and told Miz to shut up and cancel Miz TV forever. Miz got more annoyed. Then R-Truth showed up and he’s probably going to say something about something that already happened but Truth still thinks is going on, because once WWE Creative finds a joke they like, they tell it so many times that they ensure that no one else will ever like it again.
Yup. I was right. He wants to answer Del Rio’s open challenge from earlier tonight. Miz made fun of Truth for being an idiot. So did the New Day. Truth attacked Miz, and then, for no reason whatsoever, Ziggler and Goldust attacked Big E. and Kofi. The babyfaces cleared the ring of Miz, Big E. and Kofi, and then they assaulted Xavier and stole his food, even though Xavier had done nothing wrong. He hadn’t even moved to go help Big E. and Kofi in their fight. What a bunch of dicks! This segment was boring, terrible, and pointless.

Oh. I’m sorry. I guess I should technically take back what I said. This segment wasn't “boring, terrible, and pointless.” It led to an eight man tag, so it did actually have a point. It was still boring and terrible, though.

THE MIZ & THE NEW DAY vs. NEVILLE, GOLDUST, DOLPH ZIGGLER, & R-TRUTH- 3/10
Anyway, this match was so important that the announcers started talking about Roman Reigns and Vince McMahon. Mauro brought us back with a nice segue, but Lawler still felt the need to get his dumb joke in.
Lawler, who is usually a babyface, still felt the need to make fun of Neville for no reason. He said “Neville’s the only man who can see his ears without a mirror.” How nice of Jerry to make fun of someone’s looks. I would pop so huge if Neville just grabbed a mic on Raw, totally out of the blue, and announced that Jerry Lawler is the only man who can’t see his penis without a microscope.” Having been a hugely successful star in this business and being best friends with Jim Ross, you’d think Lawler would realize that his job is to help get the wrestlers over, not bury them.
Xavier has his trombone all of a sudden. Where did that come from? Did he bring it down to the ring with him? Because I don’t remember that. The heels got heat on Neville, but otherwise this was boring.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- douchebag Ziggler superkicks Truth for no reason, then tosses Goldust over the top rope. His excuse for this douchbaggery was to say “Just like the Rumble match; every man for themselves, brother. Sorry. Every man for themselves. One man goes to WrestleMania and it’s gonna be me.”
Okay... while it might be true that the Royal Rumble match is every man for himself… THIS ISN’T THE ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH! In fact, this ISN’T EVEN A MATCH AT ALL! Dolph is from Ohio, but this show is Texas. Ohio and Texas were on different sides during the Civil War, but for some reason, I don’t see any of the Texas in this arena trying to kill Dolph. Why? BECAUSE IT’S NOT THE F*CKING CIVIL WAR RIGHT NOW!

RIC & CHARLOTTE FLAIR PROMO- good

WWE DIVAS TITLE MATCH: Charlotte(c) (w/Ric Flair) vs. Becky Lynch- 6.5/10
Lawler says that these are the “early days” of Becky’s career, which shows that he definitely doesn’t watch NXT, because if he did, he would have known that she has been wrestling for many, many years. Mauro immediately corrected him, noting that he had called Becky’s matches when she was just eighteen… and then immediately brought the conversation back to the title on the line, saying “she had a lot of potential then, and now she’s just one match away from being the Divas Champion!”
Lawler responded by saying that if it didn’t happen in WWE, it doesn’t matter. So I guess that would include every single one of Lawler’s championships.
The match itself was good, but after the beating Charlotte gave Becky on Raw, I thought that a stronger heel finish than feet on the ropes was needed. Something like foreign object.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS KEVIN OWENS- awesome!

They spent five minutes on a Raw recap all relating to the Vince/Roman/Sheamus angle. It would have been much better and much less boring to just give Roman a minute or two to cut a promo about the situation, which would not only give us new content, but it would also get the WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION on this supposedly important show.

Well… they did show us a promo from Roman… but it was from right after Raw on the WWE website, because apparently the WWE World Heavyweight Champion doesn’t feel the need to show up to this show because it’s not important.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS DEAN AMBROSE- great!

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Dean Ambrose(c) vs. Kevin Owens- 7/10
The good news is that they went nineteen minutes and the action was great. The bad news is that they ended in a double count-out. They brawled through the crowd and up onto the stage and Dean ran Owens into the big WWE logo, and Mauro said “that was brought to you by the letter W… as in WWE!” and I popped huge. They brawled over to some equipment and both took a big bump onto some tables.

This was not a good show by pretty much any measure. Okay, that’s not quite fair. They didn’t theoretically build to something in three of the four matches they had, so by that measure the show was good. By all other measures, though, the show was bad.
This didn’t feel like new beginning for Smackdown at all. Just a lamer, shorter Raw. It had dumb, pointless sh*t that wasn’t funny and went on for too long, the WWE Champion didn’t even bother to show up, and we had a non-finish in the main event. While being a shorter, lamer, Raw would actually be an improvement from what Smackdown has been, like this week’s new Impact on Pop TV, I didn’t get the feeling that there would be anything new going forward, and that within a few weeks, things will be back to what they were.
All of that being said, Mauro Ranallo is amazing and makes this show SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more tolerable.

So the first thing they did was waste almost an eighth of the show (and that’s without factoring out commercials) on the same boring, unfunny bullsh*t that everyone hates about Raw.