BRM Reivews the 5/27/2016 Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- Good
Cole hypes up MITB and brings Ambrose out as well. Cole says that “fourteen of the sixteen winners of this match have gone on to become champion… which is incorrect! Fourteen of the sixteen people to cash in the MITB briefcase have gone on to become champion… but the 2007 MITB match was won by Ken Kennedy, who then dropped the briefcase to Edge when he got injured, and it was Edge who cashed in to win the title (on Taker just a few days later because Taker got injured… and then Edge himself had to vacate the title because he got injured).
Owens came out to scare Cole away and cut a promo on Ambrose. Sami Zayn came out right before Owens could blame him for costing him the IC Title in the ladder match at WrestleMania. They had a great segment (and also Dean was there).
Then Del Rio showed up and reminded us that he has actually won and successfully cashed in MITB. Sami started to cut a promo on Del Rio to build up tonight’s Ryder vs. Del Rio qualifier (specifically pointing out that Ryder surprised everyone at Mania and thus implying that he could do so tonight against Del Rio as well)… but while Sami’s back was turned, Owens jumped him from behind. Dean tried to make the save but Owens backed him into the turnbuckles. Zayn went for a Helluva Kick on Owens but Owens got out of the way and Sami just barely managed to stop himself from nailing Dean with the kick. Sami turned to face Owens (who had by now scurried to the floor)… and then Douchebag Dean grabs Sami from behind and tries to hit him with Dirty Deeds (but Sami fought it off). What an asshole!

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING MATCH: Alberto Del Rio vs. Zack Ryder- 6.25/10
Zack Ryder cut an okay inset promo. I was into it until that completely unnatural WWE Network plug, at which point the whole thing started to feel scripted. EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT THE F*CKING NETWORK. You can stop plugging it promos.
I like how they actually led Ryder look like a respectable competitor here.

DUDLEYS & ENZO & CASS HAVE A SEGMENT- fine.
They’re going to have a match on Raw.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS LANA & RUSEV- not very good.


WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: Rusev(c) (w/Lana) vs. Kalisto- 6.5/10
Rusev works over Kalisto’s back. Rusev’s wins via super-stretchy Accolade. Rusev goes for a post-match beat-down, but TITUS O’NEILL comes out to make the save. Titus wants a title match right now. Lawler asks why Titus expects to get a title shot right now, and he raises a good question.

RECAP OF THE FLAIRS ANGLE- interesting.
The bits from the current Superstars were really good, especially because they didn’t break along babyface/heel lines the way you would expect them to in a rather… simplistic… promotion like WWE. The two of these I liked the most were Nattie and The Usos. Nattie seemed to have no sympathy for either Flair (and with good reason) analyzing this strictly from her own “I want to be the champion” standpoint, saying that this was a mistake by Charlotte because it has been Ric helping her keep the title. With The Usos you could tell that they had probably gone through the same thing and understood what Charlotte was going through, so they didn’t actually criticize for saying these things to Ric, but rather they said that they were taught that you should only do these sorts of things “behind closed doors” and that Charlotte shouldn’t have aired her dirty laundry in public.

DANA BROOKE vs. NATALYA- DUD!
Charlotte was on commentary. Lawler, of course, criticized her for making Ric cry and being ungrateful. Well… if I recall correctly, the last time we saw Brian Christopher didn’t he cut a similar promo on Jerry? And it Jerry hasn’t made any attempt to try to repair his relationship with his son, because if he had he probably would have had something more constructive to say to Charlotte. But I guess you could count this as a point for long-term continuity, which is something we never see anymore in WWE.

Dana gets her ass kicked quickly and gets put in the Sharpshooter and is about to tap when Charlotte runs in for the DQ. Nattie kicked her ass, too, and was about to put her in the Sharpshooter when Dana made the save. Nattie fought them both off by herself for about fifteen seconds, but then they overwhelmed her. I would have been a lot happier with this if they hadn’t made Dana look like a glorified jobber.

I thought that the video package did a perfect job of doing what needed to be done for Charlotte’s angle and that she (and by extension, Dana) didn’t need to be on this show. I would have used this spot to give a win to whoever will be challenging Charlotte at MITB (they can’t possibly go back to Nattie again, can they?) and have Nattie cut a promo tonight challenging Dana for a match on Raw (at which point they could do what they did here, except without making Dana look like sh*t).

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS AJ STYLES- really good promo by AJ.

GOLDEN TRUTH vs. TYLER BREEZE & FANDANGO- 1.25/10
Golden Truth lose again.

BACKSTAGE SEGMENT INVOLVING JOBBER TAG TEAMS- they are unhappy because they lost. Truth wants to quit. Tyler and Fandango show up and make fun of them, then Goldust convinces Truth to give the team another try. Haven’t I seen this segment already?
(That being said, I didn’t laugh my ass off at Breeze’s line: The dream is over, boys. It looks like Goldilocks fell off the beanstalk and cracked their eggs.” Then he laughed at his own joke, high-fived Fandango and said “nailed it!”)

SETH ROLLINS PROMO- he trolled the fans.

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: The Miz(c) (w/Maryse) vs. Cesaro- 6.75/10
They did a decent job of protecting Cesaro while still giving Miz a win he can brag about without looking completely ridiculous. It keeps Cesaro hot enough that you can restart his title quest after MITB, paying it off either at Battleground or at Summer Slam.

A decent episode of Smackdown. It actually felt important for once, so that was good.

[KILLdozer]

Can we stop all combinations of Cesaro-Owens-Miz -Zayn By now for the title or anything to do with it please? That's beginning to feel like one of their "things" WWE just loves to do...ie constantly having the same guys facing each other.

[Big Red Machine]

Can we stop all combinations of Cesaro-Owens-Miz -Zayn By now for the title or anything to do with it please? That's beginning to feel like one of their "things" WWE just loves to do...ie constantly having the same guys facing each other.

Don't get me wrong: it needs to take a break for a while, but I think they need to blow this one off on PPV, and Summer Slam is an ideal time.