BRM Reviews the 3/21/2017 Smackdown (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

AJ STYLES & DANIEL BRYAN BACKSTAGE- Bryan did a great job getting Shane over as a babyface. AJ was also great. I loved the fact that now that he has a match at WrestleMania he is all decked out in WrestleMania XXXIII gear.

Apparently Mauro is out sick this week. I’m scared.

AJ STYLES PROMO- GREAT heel stuff!

Apparently Miz and Maryse have some footage that will “exposure John Cena and Nikki Bella for who they really are.” Um… isn’t this the exact same thing we got in the Owens vs. Jericho feud last night on Raw?

DANIEL BRYAN & BARON CORBIN BACKSTAGE- We’re getting Orton vs. Corbin, which will either be great or terrible, with no possibility for a middle ground.

SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: American Alpha(c) vs. The Usos- 7/10
The Usos win the belts mostly clean less than two weeks before the PPV, presumably just so American Alpha can win them back at WrestleMania.

LUKE HARPER PROMO- he has decided to come back from nowhere just so he can say weird stuff. He’s facing Bray Wyatt next week.

“TOTAL BELLAS” FOOTAGE- Miz & Maryse are the best heels ever.

RANDY ORTON vs. BARON CORBIN- 5.25/10
Ambrose shows up on a forklift to distract Corbin, allowing Randy to hit him with a RKO for the pin. We all knew something like this was coming. After the match Dean accepted Corbin’s offer for a title match at WrestleMania, then hit him with Dirty Deeds.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS RANDY ORTON- we’re back to Bray doing stupid magic tricks to try to scare Randy. I hate this sh*t. Randy wound up getting surrounded and beaten up by Wyatt cultists. Then Bray showed up and touched his head with something with a big goofy red X on it. Bray then spouted off more gobbledygook.
JOHN CENA (w/Nikki Bella) vs. FANDANGO (w/Tyler Breeze dressed up as Nikki Bella)- DUD!
Did we really need a second person dressing up as Nikki in one show?
I would have rated this as a squash but we had a bunch of other people running around in the ring without the referee doing anything to even try to get them out. Also, Nikki Bella beat up Tyler Breeze, completely killing any credibility he had left.

BECKY LYNCH vs. CARMELLA (w/James Ellsworth)- DUD!
Nothing of consequence happened, then Nattie, who was on commentary, ran in for the DQ. Then Mickie James ran in, then Alexa Bliss! ran in blah blah blah. This was painfully lazy build for an equally lazily booked WrestleMania match. Alexa stood tall at the end so at least that was good (for me, anyway).

“TOTAL BELLA BULLSH*t” PART 2- even funnier than last time.

AJ IN THE PARKING LOT- um… why is AJ trying to jump Shane again? What does he get out of it?
Anyway, they swerve us, and it turns out that Rhyno and Slater were the ones in the car. Why are they allowed to show up to work so late?

SHANE MCMAHON PROMO- dull
He says nothing new, then calls out AJ. AJ comes out… and all of a sudden he’s f*cking afraid of Shane. It’s that damn last name again. The fans boo this heavily. They have a brawl in which the 47-year-old executive Shane McMahon beats the man who spent most of the past six months as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

This was a very bad episode of Smackdown. Once the opening match ended everything sucked aside from the Miz & Maryse stuff. WWE is clearly in lazy build up mode this week, and that's not a good thing.