BRM Reviews the 1/10/2017 Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

AMBROSE ASYLUM WITH SPECIAL GUESTS THE MIZ & MARYSE- bad
Why would Miz agree to be a guest on Dean’s talk show? Even if they weren’t feuding, Miz seems like the kind of guy who would insist on Ambrose coming on his show instead.
They both announce that they’ll be in the Royal Rumble. Miz says that the result of last week’s match should have been Dean winning by DQ because of Maryse’s slap and thus the title should not have changed hands. Stupid stuff ensued until Miz was fed up with Dean’s crap and attacked him. Maryse tried to join in with a slap but Dean ducked and Miz accidentally got slapped instead. Dean the put Miz down with his finish, gave the Maryse the participation award and left.
Also, because this show is now good, we have things happening like Daniel Bryan fining Maryse for attacking a non-wrestler.

NATALYA vs. NIKKI BELLA- no rating, bad segment.
Before the commercial break Nattie had jumped Nikki backstage and attacked her neck. When it was time for Nikki’s entrance she just charged at Nattie and they started brawling and apparently we had to wait for these two women to stop fighting before they could begin their professional fight. It ended with Nattie taking out Nikki’s knee when refs were holding Nikki back and locking her in the Sharpshooter.


JBL said that one of the reasons Nattie was jealous of Nikki was because people give Nikki credit for starting the Divas Revolution. Hey John! 2015 called. They want their bullsh*t back. No one gave a f*ck who started it then and we care even less now. Last week Nattie cut, like- a two minute promo of all of the things she was jealous of Nikki over, and not once did she mention that Nikki supposedly gets credit for starting the Divas Revolution. We even got a recap of that video package a few minutes ago… but f*cking JBL has to go and make up this bullsh*t as why Nattie is jealous instead of one of the fifteen things Nattie actually said she was jealous about. We’re not even twenty minutes into the show and this is already about the third time I was wondering if Otunga is strong enough to knock JBL out with a good, hard punch to the back of the head.

DASHA INTERVIEWS DOLPH ABOUT HIS “ACTION LAST WEEK”- he isn’t talking. This was good. I thought Dolph did a great job of looking conflicted. Like he knows that what he did was wrong an unfair and yet he doesn’t want to publicly admit it because this would be just one more humiliation he would have to suffer.

KALISTO vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER- 6/10
Kalisto wins with a roll-up. Dolph attacks him in frustration, then beats him up with a chair. Apollo Cres shows up too late to make the save, but in time to fight Dolph. Dolph manages to get his hands on the chair and beats up Crews with it, too. Very good stuff.

AMERICAN ALPHA PROMO- fine.

JOHN CENA PROMO- GREAT!

WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: American Alpha(c) vs. The Wyatt Family (w/Luke Harper)- 7/10
American Alpha win because Randy and Harper have a miscue. They argue afterwards and come to blows and a one of Harper’s strikes accidentally hits Bray. Bray walks off, followed by Harper.

BARON CORBIN VIDEO PACKAGE- meh

DANIEL BRYAN & BECKY LYNCH WATCH SOME FOOTAGE OF EL LUCHADORA- Alexa Bliss! showed up with a fantastically ridiculous explanation for why she was in the La Luchadora costume last week then she tapped to Becky. Bryan books a title match for next week, and to prevent “these Las Luchadoras” from interfering, it’s going to be in a steel cage.

CARMELLA (w/James Ellsworth) vs. A NAMELESS JOBBER IN A ONE-PIECE BATHING SUIT- -1/10 (our first negative rating of 2017)
If you need help visualizing this, I think David Otunga put it best when he said that “Carmella is beating up someone’s aunt.”
This was a squash that went on for way too long. The jobber didn’t actually get any offense in, but Carmella still needed help from Ellsworth to win. Or the finish Carmella tried to do a reverse STO to set up the Code of Silence but the jobber fell backwards instead of forwards and landed on her butt. It looked horrible. Being an ass, JBL tried to go out of his way to point this out. Being a professional, Mauro tried his best to deflect from JBL’s attempt to do so.

CARMELLA & ELLSWORTH BACKSTAGE- amusing. They’re going shopping next week. Also, apparently Ellsworth is not only a virgin, but also a high school drop-out.

BARON CORBIN PROMO- decent.
After Corbin was done speaking, AJ Styles showed up to be entertaining and to tell us that he would be on commentary.

NOAM DAR PROMO- snore

JOHN CENA vs. BARON CORBIN- 6.75/10
This was a strong win for Cena, which is what he needed. Does it hurt Corbin? Yes, a little bit, but there is also no shame in losing to John Cena, and Corbin isn’t actually doing anything right now. He was the guy with the biggest push and/or history who was also expendable (well… I guess there is Kane, but this actually feels bigger to me that Cena beating Kane would have).

A pretty good episode of Smackdown.