BRM Reviews the 3/24/2016 Smackdown (very bad)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 3/24/2016 Smackdown (very bad)

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 25th, '16, 16:03

We cut immediately to Charlotte getting into the ring with her music playing, despite the fact that we just heard Smackdown opening theme playing in the arena and the Flairs were nowhere in sight. Oh. And Becky is apparently already seated at the commentary table, because I guess WWE has been so happy with their ratings lately that they are just going to keep doing the same damn thing over and over again in every feud.

CHARLOTTE PROMO- she says that by winning at WrestleMania, she will be “putting an end to this Divas Revolution once and for all.” There was a time not so long ago when I would have made a comment here about how glad I would be if this happened and joked that saying this made Charlotte the babyface in my eyes. The reason for that, of course, was that WWE had spent about five straight months making sure they said that term “Divas Revolution” an average of about sixty-eight times per segment. Meanwhile, they were doing such a good job at getting over their slogan, they were completely bungling the actual handling of the whole thing in just about every way imaginable, and the combination of these two things made that term into symbol of everything that was wrong with WWE’s handling of the women (and parallels were quickly drawn between their similar handling of the tag team division). To WWE it was a slogan, but to the fans, it was an epitaph.
Then, about four months ago, they stopped pushing the f*cking term so hard and stopped having women argue about who started this nebulous “revolution” and instead focused on feuds intended to get the individual women over, one at a time, like they should have been doing from the beginning, and things got much better (or at least much more bearable).
And now that the term has barely been used since December, they have Charlotte come out here and expect her to get heat for saying that she will end it?
Not only would a Charlotte victory at Mania be the end of the Divas Revolution, she claimed, but also would mark the beginning of “the WOOOOO! Revolution.” It is called the WOOOO! Revolution, of course, because if not for that old man standing next to her, this female athlete in the prime of her career wearing that title belt which signifies that she is the best woman in the division (and who, out of kayfabe, has earned much praise for her own in-ring skill and accomplishments), would be nothing. That’s the message they’re sending.
Come to think of it, you could certainly argue that the other most prominent female character on the show, Steph, is defined almost entirely by her relationship to her father and her husband. Meanwhile, the woman they wanted to push as the female face of the company as early as last spring, Lana, was stuck in storylines where she was entirely defined by whichever man she was with. Meanwhile, Stephanie McMahon goes around trying to get herself involved with all of these women’s groups in an effort to get herself (and by extension, WWE, since the WWE and the McMahon name are synonymous in the mainstream) some feminist street cred… which actually makes perfect sense as it, just like the “Divas Revolution” and the “Era of the Female Athlete” etc. etc. is nothing more than WWE thinking they can solve their problems with superficial PR bullsh*t while being completely oblivious to the real problem.
La Hija del Ric Flair continued to cut her terrible promo, claiming she would beat Sasha and Becky, and ending by saying that the crowd at WrestleMania would be “chanting one thing:’ WOOOOOO!’” Because G-d forbid they actually chant “CHARLOTTE!”

Oh. Apparently Charlotte is wrestling Sasha Banks tonight. This seems like the sort of match that people might have actually tuned in to see if you had advertised it on Raw.

SASHA BANKS vs. CHARLOTTE (w/Ric Flair)- 6/10
On commentary, Becky said “either I beat the best or I’m beaten by the best. Either way it’s a win-win.” NO IT’S F*CKING NOT, BECKY! If you beat the best, you’ve won. If you are beaten by the best, that means YOU’VE LOST!
Becky followed this up by explaining that “That fact that I’m even at WrestleMania- the biggest WrestleMania of all-time- that’s a win.” This came off as SOOOOO pathetic. All at once it felt like she was sucking up to WWE, giving an obnoxious “who would have thought that poor little me would make it this far” speech, and giving in to Lawler, who kept telling her that she had no chance of winning at Mania.
Of course, because they just had to have Becky at ringside, they had to some spot with her. Said spot started when Charlotte rolled to the outside, and Becky, the babyface, got in Charlotte’s face for absolutely no reason. This eventually resulted in a spot where Charlotte pulled Sasha into Becky and they collided… except this was all while Becky was facing them, so she clearly saw what happened.
Then, to my great surprise, they actually did something resembling the right finish here: Sasha went over clean in her home town (they had her counter a Figure Four Eight with a small package; I would have just had her make Charlotte tap clean in the middle, with Charlotte later stating she was just tapping because the title wasn’t on the line so she decided to not risk an injury going into WrestleMania, when it really does matter).
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad. Then they had Becky run into the ring and jump Sasha from behind and hit her with the Bexploder. So Sasha usually acts heelish, Charlotte is definitely a heel, and now Becky is acting like a heel (she doesn’t have the “she was angry at Sasha for that spot they did” excuse because Becky clearly saw Charlotte pull Sasha into her). Then she gave Charlotte one, too. Then she went to leave, and before she was even half-way up the ramp, both of the other two women were on their feet again, and Sasha attacked Charlotte from behind and hit her with the Back-stabber. I’m certain that, if not for Mauro, the fact that Sasha beat the champ would have been completely forgotten by the time this segment was over.

NEW DAY PROMO- yeah, sorry, I don’t have the patience for a f*cking New Day promo right now.

SHEAMUS (w/Wade Barrett & Rusev) vs KOFI KINGSTON (w/the New Day)- 5/10
Del Rio isn’t out here because I guess to have the sides be uneven would be sporting, and the League of Nations want to be good sports… except that this match is “building to” (read as: “stalling for time until”) a handicap match between these factions at WrestleMania.
Sheamus missed a diving knee drop, so New Day mocked his pain on the outside, just like a heel would do. Then again, my sympathy for Sheamus disappeared because he did a poor job selling.
This was the second straight match where the announcers tried to put over how important it was to have “momentum” heading into WrestleMania. The problem with this is that WWE’s years of 50-50 booking showed us that momentum doesn’t mean sh*t.

There are advertising Zayn & Ziggler vs. Miz & Owens for later tonight, because now that you’ve decided to include three undercard guys in this title match, it’s not like you should actually try to make them look somewhat credible by letting them be in the same pointless tag team match as the real contenders and the champion, right?

THE USOS vs. THE ASCENSION- 0.5/10 Almost a squash.
The Ascension’s completely and total jobber status only makes those years of Ascension squashes we were subjected to on NXT even more worthless and frustrating in hindsight.
After the match, they showed us the Dudleys watching backstage, and Bubba and Devon actually pretended to be paying attention and pointing important things out to each other that they could use in their game-plan to defeat the Usos at WrestleMania, because Bubba and Devon are f*cking professionals.
Then, after that babyfaces decided to put the already beaten heels through tables because I guess they’re just f*cking jerks. It would be one thing if this were the Dudleys, but the Ascension haven’t done sh*t to Usos, so this is really just an unprovoked assault on two innocent men.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS THE DUDLEYS- Good.
Also, can you imagine how much different this interview would have been if this was ECW? I shudder to think of the things that 1998 Bubba and Devon would have said to poor Renee.
Bubba mentioned that he and Devon had, in the past, beaten up both Rikishi and the Wild Samoans… and as fate would have it, Roman Reigns was walking by at that exact moment, and he took offense to this. This resulted in Roman telling Bubba that tonight, “I don’t want a match. I want a fight.” That was needlessly dramatic for two guys who aren’t even feuding. Then we went to a commercial, and we came back, it was announced that they would face each other in a match tonight. I thought this all made Roman look kind of stupid. Would it really have been that hard to have Roman say “you’re damn right I want a match” or something like that. It would have sounded equally tough, less overdramatic, and wouldn’t have resulted in Roman looking silly.

DOLPH ZIGGLER & SAMI ZAYN vs. KEVIN OWENS & THE MIZ- 6.75/10
Zayn got a big pop… but still not as loud as the pop when Steenerico won the ROH World Tag Team Titles here in Boston. I can’t tell how loud Owens’ pop was because there were clearly boos edited in over it.
Lawler reacted to one of his colleagues mentioning that the IC Title match at Mania was a ladder match like it was the first time he’d heard the news.
They had a great match until Owens walked out on Miz… just like he has done every single time they have teamed together for the past month and a half because WWE writers have no idea how to tell a story that actually evolves.
As Owens got to the top of the ramp, the three geeks who lucked into their WrestleMania title shot because Steph got angry at Kevin Owens, decided that they would come out and stop Owens from walking out because apparently they don’t want him to walk out of this match for some unexplained reason. This let Miz catch up to Owens and hit him from behind. They brawled, resulting in Miz laying out Owens, but then Miz got beaten up and pinned two-on-one by Sami and Dolph anyway (Sami got the actual pin), so all this did was give Zayn a less than pure win while building up heat between two heels in a side-angle that no one cares about because instead of a singles match, it was used to build up a seven-person ladder match.
Then, after the match, Stardust jumped Ziggler and Zayn from behind while Zack Ryder and Sin Cara, who are supposed to be babyfaces, just stood there. Only once Stardust had laid Zayn out with his finisher did anyone actually try to do anything. At that point Sin Cara got into the ring and he got to lay out Stardust. Then Ryder got into the ring and he got to lay out Sin Cara.
HAHAHAHAH! No. I’m only kidding. Of course Zack Ryder didn’t get to lay anyone out. He’s Zack Ryder. Cara laid him out, before getting laid out himself by a superkick from Ziggler. Then Owens laid Ziggler out with a pop-up Powerbomb and HOLY SH*T RYDER LAID OUT OWENS AND GOT TO STAND TALL AT THE END OF THE SEGMENT.
Anyway, this was a perfect example of how NOT to book. They decided that they needed to have a mini-schmoz, so they booked a segment in which all of the characters’ actions don’t make much sense unless they were all working together towards the end goal of having said mini-schmoz.

If your end goal was to have a schmoz with all of the guys in the match to build up to WrestleMania (which is a perfectly fine idea), here is how I would have done it:
Book a six man tag of Zayn, Ziggler, & Cara vs. Miz, Stardust, & Ryder (I’d figure Ryder is the most likely babyface to get booed because he is from New York and this show is in Boston). Have Owens on commentary so that he can either complain about how bullsh*t it is that he has to defend the title in a ladder match against all six guys or you have him suck up to Steph in the hopes that maybe she will call the match off (whichever direction you want him to do). I’d let them go for a while and do one of those spots where everyone runs in and we get a big series of dives and everyone is down… and then have Owens run in and start attacking everyone (because he wants to weaken them all before Mania), and have that lead to your schmoz.
BUBBA RAY DUDLEY vs. ROMAN REIGNS- DUD!
Clearly canned cheers for Roman. No Devon at ringside for Bubba. I figured this would lead to Devon coming through the crowd to jump Roman from behind so that the Usos could come out and save Roman… but no. I guess Devon is just in the bathroom or something.
So Roman just beat the sh*t out of Bubba outside of the ring, resulting in a double-count-out (or so I assumed, but Byron later said Roman got DQed for… um… banging Bubba’s head into the announcers’ table too many times, I guess). Eventually Devon (bowels presumably now emptied) ran out to help is partner from jerk who was assaulting him after the match had already concluded, but Roman took him out, too, even hitting him with the ring steps. Roman then got back into the ring and speared Bubba. Well… there goes any heat Bubba and Devon had for their feud with the Usos. And how ridiculous is it going to make The Usos look when it takes them ten minutes to beat guys that Roman utterly destroyed singlehandedly in well less than five?

TRUTH & GOLDUST BACKSTAGE- I will admit that the ending was a little clever, but we certainly didn’t need Truth claiming that Goldust sleeps naked, nor did we need Goldust confirming this fact and being (understandably) disturbed that Truth somehow knew this.

LUCHA DRAGONS BACKSTAGE- They talk about the chances of them both walking out of WrestleMania as singles champions. Good. This is likely as close as we will get to any promo time for Cara, Stardust, or Ryder for this match.
Cara walked away, and then Ryback appeared. Ryback cut a promo about how much bigger and stronger he is than Kalisto. Everyone laughed at him when he used the word “seismic” as an antonym for “microscopic.” I thought Ryback’s promo would have worked a lot better as promo cut into the camera instead of during a face-to-face encounter with Kalisto. Kalisto said he would win.
Also, Ryback claimed to have eaten Kalisto’s weight- which he had earlier estimated to be 125lbs in breakfast food this morning. I so want to see video of this.

AJ STYLES vs. TYLER BREEZE- 3.75/10
They did the best they could with the time they had.
I’m sorry, but that forearm is not finisher material. I’m not saying it doesn’t look great. I’m just saying it looks like the move that you hit to knock the guy down so that you can then hit him with the Styles Clash.

PAUL HEYMAN (& BROCK LESANR) PROMO- Heyman claimed that he prays daily for the deaths of Terry Funk and Mick Foley. That was a little out of nowhere and pretty darn extreme. Other than that, this was very good.
HEYMAN CALLS OUT AMBROSE BECAUSE BROCK WANTS TO FIGHT- everyone wants to see Dean vs. Brock… but they get the Wyatts instead, so everyone boos a match-up that WWE is supposedly trying to build up for later.
So the Wyatts stalk Brock, but then Dean’s music plays. This doesn’t disctract the Wyatts or Brock. Rowan and Strowman try to get Brock while Bray tries to fight Dean on the ramp but eats a kendo stick to the gut. Dean then attacked Brock with the kendo stick but Brock clotheslined him, hit him with the kendo stick, then snapped it over his knee. Then he gave Dean an F-5. This made Dean look like a total chump.

A very bad episode of Smackdown that feels like a great example of the lack of thought put into the booking of the road to this year’s WrestleMania.

STPUID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Mauro Ranallo (I guess no one is infallible)- Charlotte was grabbing Sasha by the throat with both hands and repeatedly slamming the back of her head into the mat. Mauro described this as “toying.” The only person for whom this definition of “toying” fits would be Sid from Toy Story.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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