BRM Reviews the 7/26/2016 Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

The show opened with Shane and Dragon talking to us and telling us that it was all about the superstars, not all about them. Then the camera followed them while they continued talking to us and despite the Smackdown roster all being in the ring, it was Daniel Bryan’s music that played. Yeah… not the best start. When we return from the opening theme, Shane and Dragon are in the ring while the Smackdown roster all stands on the apron. The fans chant “YES!” for Dragon and then chant for “SHANE O’ MAC!” Yeah… still not good.

Shane announces the first Smackdown-only PPV: Backlash, on September 11th. Shane introduces Ambrose and says that they need to find a challenger for him for SummerSlam. Bryan says there will be a Six-Pack Challenge #1 contendership match tonight. In that match will be Cena, Bray, Ziggler, Corbin, AJ… and a sixth person, who will be the winner of a battle royale that starts after this commercial break. Then the fans all chanted “YES!” with Bryan again.
Now… correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a Six Pack Challenge the one that’s basically a game of tag (with pinfall/submissions replacing tags) and you win if you’re it at the end? (It’s either that or they’re going to grease Sean Waltman up, give him thirty second head start, and who catches him first wins). They really should have told us the rules.

BATTLE ROYALE TO FILL THE FINAL SPOT IN THE SIX-PACK CHALLENGE- 4/10
Well… that’s quite swerve. The battle royale started off with half of the guys going after Kane and beating on him in one corner and the other half going after Rowan and beating on him in the other corner… and we didn’t get any sort of roar spot. Kane fought his way free with a weak shove while Rowan didn’t and just kept getting beating up.
The first elimination was Simon Gotch, but it’s okay because he’s used to losing fights. Kane was the one who eliminated him. Then Kane eliminated both members of the Ascension at the same time. Apparently one of the Usos was also eliminated, but I don’t think Kane did it. He would later eliminate both member of FaBreeze at the same time. Kane>tag team division. Speaking of the tag team division, neither America Alpha member was in here. I guess they don’t want the WWE Title?
Your final four are Kane, Kalisto, Crews, and Ryder. Ryder managed to miss a dropkick to the head to a seated Kalisto, but was kind enough to knee poor Kalisto in the top of the head on the way down. JBL pointed out that Ryder missed the dropkick, which made him look dumb because Kalisto was f*cking selling it (or, rather, selling the knee to head he got as a result of the miss). A few moments later, Zack slipped while going for the El-Bro Drop, to the point where landed on his feet near the ropes and just ran over and started punching Crews in the head.
Kane took a nap for a while until it was time for him to sit up and eliminate Kalisto, and then run wild on the other two. GO KANE! Ryder got a brief burst of offense on both Kane and Crews, but Kane eliminated him before he could botch anything else. Then Crews low-bridged Kane and won. I think this was his only elimination of the match.
This was not a good start to Smackdown. Crews won, but Kane was the one who was put over the strongest by far. The final four portion of this match went way too long, and also… Ryder happened.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS APOLLO CREWS- fine.
Renee is on Smackdown because the WWE Champion has stroke.

Up next it will be… Becky vs. Nattie. Again.

SHELTON BENJAMIN IS COMING BACK!- I know Charlie Haas is a crazy old coot, but can we PLEASE have WGTT vs. American Alpha? PLEASE?

DOLPH ZIGGLER PROMO- good.

BECKY LYNCH vs. NATALYA- 5.25/10
Becky’s big… whatever it was that she did… before that attempted running elbow in the corner looked soooo goofy and phony. Nattie got completely blown up here, which I’ve never seen before. It probably wasn’t helped by Becky landing right on her neck with that diving leg drop. Becky wound up winning clean with the Disarmer, basically cancelling out the result of the PPV, in a match was very meh.
If I were booking this, I wouldn’t have gone back to this so soon. I would have had Becky beat Carmella clean and do the post-match show of mutual respect, then, later, have Nattie beat Alexa Bliss(!) and toy with during the match and pretty much treater her like a rag doll (allowing Alexa brief bursts of offense to show off her stuff). I’d then have her be a jerk to Alexa after the match as well (maybe turn a post-match handshake into some sort of arm lock?) and have Becky come out to make the save, with Nattie fleeing and Becky chasing after her.
Next week I’d do Becky vs. Nattie with Nattie getting a cheap win and also attacking Becky afterwards. Alexa would come out to try to make the save but Nattie would use some sort of cheap tactic to get the advantage on her, too, but by this point Becky would be recovered and make the save.
From here, you could build toward some sort of gimmick match blow-off for Becky and Nattie at SummerSlam while also building up the story of babyface Alexa trying to be friends with Becky, and the at this point understandably suspicious Becky saying the equivalent of “hey! Didn’t you used to be a b*tchy heel on NXT?” This would let you establish all three characters: Nattie as the bully, Becky as a babyface, but one who is very much a loner, and Alexa as the ultra-nice underdog babyface she started her career as, while also building up for a future Nattie vs. Alexa feud, letting Alexa explain her babyface turn, and also setting up an angle for down the road with Alexa and Becky where either Alexa really does turn on Becky, or Becky becomes convinced that Alexa is going to turn on her, so she turns on Alexa first and becomes a crazy heel.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Renee Young tries to interview Becky, but it is interrupted by the arrival of Alexa Bliss! She’s a heel, she declared herself to be “Smackdown’s hottest star” (fact!) as well as “the personification of what the new era looks like.” Then Naomi made her return to TV, interrupting Alexa. As if this wasn’t rude enough, she now has the ends of her hair dyed yellow, totally ripping Alexa off. She cuts a promo on Alexa, but is interrupted by Carmella. She cut her promo to the sound of crickets before being interrupted by Eva Marie. Eva has a new entrance with an announcer building her up with a bunch of ridiculous adjectives, claiming she is “mysterious” and “beguiling” and stuff like that. It was actually really great. Instead of letting Eva cut her promo, they just… cut away. That was weird.
This was bad. If they had actually followed up on Naomi’s line to Alexa that Alexa hadn’t even set foot in a WWE ring yet with obvious “so why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” (and then you could have Shane or Bryan come out and say that Smackdown is all about the wrestlers, so if they both want the match, then it’s official) it would have been a good transitioning segment and a fine way to introduce Alexa as an arrogant heel while reintroducing Naomi as a babyface. Instead, what we got was a segment that seemed specifically designed to say “these are all of the women on our roster” with no real rhyme or reason for doing so, and certainly no destination in mind… which was even weirder when you realize that this is the brand that doesn’t have a championship for these women to fight over.

I giggled at the “Make Smackdown Taped Again” sign.

BARON CORBIN PROMO- dull

MIZ TV- good.
Miz made everyone think he was going to interview Orton but swerved everyone by interviewing himself. He was a great heel. Then Orton came out and wanted a match with Miz tonight. He even offered to make it non-title. Miz backs off. Orton insults his manlinesss, but instead of Miz speaking up, it was Maryse who spoke up and accepted the match on behalf of the clearly unwilling Miz. That was great. And speaking of great… BABYFACE RANDY ORTON!

RANDY ORTON vs. THE MIZ (w/Maryse)- no rating, bad segment.
The first spot of the match was Miz tossing Orton out of the ring and Orton appeared land funny on his shoulder. He also appears to have said a word you can’ say on TV. Miz worked the injured shoulder a lot, but Orton managed to drop him with an RKO out of nowhere… and if it had ended here, I’d have been willing to overlook the fact that the Intercontinental Champion lost clean yet again and said this was a great segment that accomplished the dual goals of showing that Randy’s shoulder is very vulnerable and that one RKO is all it takes to drop anyone.
But they didn’t stop there. Instead of pinning Miz, Orton just sat there for a while, then started doing the viper dance even though he has an injured shoulder (didn’t he legitimately injury his shoulder doing the viper dance once?), then hit Miz with another RKO and only then did he get the win. Not only was this a very un-babyface-ish thing for our new babyface to do, but more importantly, it was an OLD thing. Over the past week we’ve seen a very different Randy Orton: a new Orton for the new era. And here is our New Orton doing a very Old Orton thing, and it’s a thing that goes against what the defining feature of the New Orton has been: the RKO out of nowhere.
Also, Randy is now the THIRD wrestler to with an out-standing victory over the IC Champion. Darren can’t get another title shot because of the brand split, but Kane actually got his win over Miz first, but no mention has been made of him getting another title shot, and I’m certain the same thing will happen with this win here.

AMERICAN ALPHA VIDEO PACKAGE- awesome. They’re debuting next week.

They left the camera on Mauro for WAY too long, so he very unsubtly made gesture to tell them to get it off of him.

HEATH SLATER JUMPS THE BARRICADE- he beats up a jobber who was in the ring, then cuts a promo letting out his frustration about not getting drafted. He demands to be in the main event, making it a “magnificent seven-pack challenge.” He then starts a “SIGN HEATH SLATER!” chant, which I guess would be the exact opposite of the “DON’T FIRE ERIC!” gimmick that Eric Young had in TNA a decade ago.
Shane McMahon comes out and tells Heath he should send in a résumés. Even if this weren’t a stupid statement to begin with, the last time we saw people trying to get jobs in WWE by sending in their résumés, it was the former GMs, who were all turned down by Shane and Steph, who told them that sending in their résumés was ridiculous.
Heath cuts a promo reminding us that he was part of not only the Nexus, but also the Corre, which has got to be the first time either of those stables have been mentioned on WWE TV in the past five years. He also brought up both the Social Outcasts and 3MB… two stables where he always lost and/or got beaten up. Those stables should be evidence that Heath shouldn’t be hired. He’s also a three-time tag champion. Really.
This ended in Rhyno showing up and hitting Heath with the GORE! Mauro tells us that not only is Rhyno a former ECW World Heavyweight Champion, but also a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion… which is probably the closest WWE has ever come to acknowledging TNA’s existence on the air.
JBL says that Rhyno is their “first free agent signing,” so I guess he didn’t see the Shelton Benjamin video package.

AJ STYLES PROMO- great!

BRAY WYATT PROMO- meh.

SIX-PACK CHALLENGE FOR A SHOT AT THE WWE TITLE AT SUMMERSLAM: AJ Styles vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin vs. John Cena vs. Apollo Crews- 7/10
Rowan is not at ringside with Bray, even though he was wearing his sheep mask earlier.
Apparently this is just a six way match, one fall to a finish, with no count-outs or DQs. The match was fun (aside form Corbin’s elbow strikes, which went nowhere near John Cena’s head), but like on Sunday, I find my self compelled to ask WHY THE F*CK DID AJ STYLES EAT THE PIN?!
Ziggler victory was quite the surprise, and also felt like a big moment. Ambrose came out to have a stare-down with him after the match. Then Daniel Bryan came out to raise both of their hands, so it was his music playing and not one of theirs. Then Shane came out shake their hands and pat them on the back so now it was Shane's music playing. This was pointless. At least we went back to Dolph's music before the end of the show.

There as a lot of stuff I didn’t like on this first Smackdown of the new era, but I can’t say that the show wasn’t easy to sit through and on the whole enjoyable.

[cero2k]

HEATH SLATER JUMPS THE BARRICADE- he beats up a jobber who was in the ring, then cuts a promo letting out his frustration about not getting drafted. He demands to be in the main event, making it a “magnificent seven-pack challenge.” He then starts a “SIGN HEATH SLATER!” chant, which I guess would be the exact opposite of the “DON’T FIRE ERIC!” gimmick that Eric Young had in TNA a decade ago.
Shane McMahon comes out and tells Heath he should send in a résumés. Even if this weren’t a stupid statement to begin with, the last time we saw people trying to get jobs in WWE by sending in their résumés, it was the former GMs, who were all turned down by Shane and Steph, who told them that sending in their résumés was ridiculous.
Heath cuts a promo reminding us that he was part of not only the Nexus, but also the Corre, which has got to be the first time either of those stables have been mentioned on WWE TV in the past five years. He also brought up both the Social Outcasts and 3MB… two stables where he always lost and/or got beaten up. Those stables should be evidence that Heath shouldn’t be hired. He’s also a three-time tag champion. Really.
This ended in Rhyno showing up and hitting Heath with the GORE! Mauro tells us that not only is Rhyno a former ECW World Heavyweight Champion, but also a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion… which is probably the closest WWE has ever come to acknowledging TNA’s existence on the air.
JBL says that Rhyno is their “first free agent signing,” so I guess he didn’t see the Shelton Benjamin video package.

even if the whole segment was a joke and Heath's promo content can come off as a joke, that was one hell of a promo. I was fired up for Slater, I was rooting for Slater vs Ambrose

[Big Red Machine]

HEATH SLATER JUMPS THE BARRICADE- he beats up a jobber who was in the ring, then cuts a promo letting out his frustration about not getting drafted. He demands to be in the main event, making it a “magnificent seven-pack challenge.” He then starts a “SIGN HEATH SLATER!” chant, which I guess would be the exact opposite of the “DON’T FIRE ERIC!” gimmick that Eric Young had in TNA a decade ago.
Shane McMahon comes out and tells Heath he should send in a résumés. Even if this weren’t a stupid statement to begin with, the last time we saw people trying to get jobs in WWE by sending in their résumés, it was the former GMs, who were all turned down by Shane and Steph, who told them that sending in their résumés was ridiculous.
Heath cuts a promo reminding us that he was part of not only the Nexus, but also the Corre, which has got to be the first time either of those stables have been mentioned on WWE TV in the past five years. He also brought up both the Social Outcasts and 3MB… two stables where he always lost and/or got beaten up. Those stables should be evidence that Heath shouldn’t be hired. He’s also a three-time tag champion. Really.
This ended in Rhyno showing up and hitting Heath with the GORE! Mauro tells us that not only is Rhyno a former ECW World Heavyweight Champion, but also a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion… which is probably the closest WWE has ever come to acknowledging TNA’s existence on the air.
JBL says that Rhyno is their “first free agent signing,” so I guess he didn’t see the Shelton Benjamin video package.

even if the whole segment was a joke and Heath's promo content can come off as a joke, that was one hell of a promo. I was fired up for Slater, I was rooting for Slater vs Ambrose

Heath's delivery at the beginning was good, but as soon as you start bragging about being a comedy jobber, then you lose me.

[cero2k]

even if the whole segment was a joke and Heath's promo content can come off as a joke, that was one hell of a promo. I was fired up for Slater, I was rooting for Slater vs Ambrose

Heath's delivery at the beginning was good, but as soon as you start bragging about being a comedy jobber, then you lose me.

like i said, the content was unfortunate, but give him some serious stuff to say and he could be amazing

[KILLdozer]

I feel like you should stop calling her "Nattie" now that's turned heel. She's not that friendly, personable, of course you can call me Nattie woman anymore.

[Big Red Machine]

I feel like you should stop calling her "Nattie" now that's turned heel. She's not that friendly, personable, of course you can call me Nattie woman anymore.

She'll always be Nattie, just like Bryan will always be Dragon. I've been calling her that for a decade now, face or heel. It takes too much effort not to. You have no idea how many times I have to go back and change "Steen" to "Owens" "TJ" to "Tyson Kidd."

[KILLdozer]

JBL just emphatically talked highly about Mojo Riley...

Got dang it Vince!!!

[KILLdozer]

I really don't feel Natalya's" bun with long hair look" at all btw. Ryder was pretty horrible. Kane is a painful reminder of what he used to be. Even he didn't look so great in that match. He should really get back with the original attire... cover his aged body and face. I just really didn't at all buy into Any of Jbl's attempts at "that monster!"

Plus he was just horrible that whole time... I'm also very tired of this "But oh you've gotta get the big man over the rope!"

Why does Del Rio always have to look like the biggest idiot of them all and insist upon giving a guy a cross armbreaker over the rope?

Gee, idk..."Nope fuck this, you're out of here.* *breaks out and he actually just is eliminated...by gravity....*

[Big Red Machine]

I really don't feel Natalya's" bun with long hair look" at all btw. Ryder was pretty horrible. Kane is a painful reminder of what he used to be. Even he didn't look so great in that match. He should really get back with the original attire... cover his aged body and face. I just really didn't at all buy into Any of Jbl's attempts at "that monster!"

Plus he was just horrible that whole time... I'm also very tired of this "But oh you've gotta get the big man over the rope!"

Why does Del Rio always have to look like the biggest idiot of them all and insist upon giving a guy a cross armbreaker over the rope?

Gee, idk..."Nope fuck this, you're out of here.* *breaks out and he actually just is eliminated...by gravity....*

The armbar over the rope makes use of a lot more leverage than a regular armbar.

Totally agree with you about Kane.

[KILLdozer]

I really don't feel Natalya's" bun with long hair look" at all btw. Ryder was pretty horrible. Kane is a painful reminder of what he used to be. Even he didn't look so great in that match. He should really get back with the original attire... cover his aged body and face. I just really didn't at all buy into Any of Jbl's attempts at "that monster!"

Plus he was just horrible that whole time... I'm also very tired of this "But oh you've gotta get the big man over the rope!"

Why does Del Rio always have to look like the biggest idiot of them all and insist upon giving a guy a cross armbreaker over the rope?

Gee, idk..."Nope fuck this, you're out of here.* *breaks out and he actually just is eliminated...by gravity....*

The armbar over the rope makes use of a lot more leverage than a regular armbar.

Totally agree with you about Kane.

Yeah, his time isn't far away at all.

Should have been "Make Kane Great Again!"

[KILLdozer]

When the botch is so bad the announcers HAVE to mention it. Oh he slipped, got dang ol' sweat all over the place in here!!!

[KILLdozer]

Carmella 's actually very attractive though ...she just once again needs to drop her whole entire act. She's still not Enzo Amore...nor affiliated with him anymore at all , in any way. So I'd really love to who had the idea of her keeping that gimmick.

[KILLdozer]

I'm pretty tired of JBL most times... everything is JERRY AND JACK BRISCO SCOTT AND RICK STEINER!

What happened to that guy from SD commentary 8 years we all couldn't for to come back?

[Big Red Machine]

I'm pretty tired of JBL most times... everything is JERRY AND JACK BRISCO SCOTT AND RICK STEINER!

What happened to that guy from SD commentary 8 years we all couldn't for to come back?

I think this was actually the mention of the Steiners, but I hear what you're saying.

[KILLdozer]

It's ALWAYS a mention of the Steiners. Nigga fuck the Steiners and ancient history call the match.