BRM Reviews the 9/5/2017 Smackdown

Post Reply
User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

BRM Reviews the 9/5/2017 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 6th, '17, 15:48

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF NO MORE JBL- good riddance. I think we can all agree that it is better for absolutely everyone that JBL is out doing charity work rather than bullying his coworkers and ruining wrestling shows with terrible announcing.

RANDY ORTON & SHINSUKE NAKAMURA PROMOS- these opened the show and were both filmed from different backstage locations. Neither promo was bad (though neither was good, either), but I think what really killed them was the way the combination of their words and the settings (and, generally, the whole presentation) made them feel overly dramatic.

OPENING SEGMENT- didn’t like it
Carmella is in the ring for her match against Nattie but Kevin Owens comes out and declares himself to be Special Guest Referee. Shane McMahon comes out and- after making sure to get a cheap pop by asking the crowd “how is everybody doing tonight” (his tendency to always acknowledge the crowd first, no matter what the situation, really annoys me)- immediately says that Owens doesn’t have the authority to do that.
Well… that’s kind of what he said. He said it an extremely condescending way that made it all about himself (“you have defied me at every turn”). This is clearly a genetic trait for McMahons, but the difference between Shane doing it and Vince or Steph doing it is that Vince and Steph are supposed to be heels. It’s not good for them to condescend to the wrestlers (especially if they’re not going to get their comeuppance), but at least the idea there is to make them unlikeable, and it does succeed.
Shane is supposed to be a babyface, though, and the way he addresses the wrestlers, both babyfaces and heels, is often infuriating. I think part of the problem lies in his tone. I get what he’s trying to go for, which is calm, cool, and collected, but it almost always comes out as a condescending lecture.
The other part of the problem is, of course, the words. I’m not sure if they let Shane wing it, if they heavily script him, or if they heavily script him and he just screws it up by forgetting things and marble-mouthing (we know he often does marble-mouth), but in addition to making his speeches feel like condescending lectures, Shane often feels like he is dragging the focus onto himself, no matter what the original situation was. For example, in this very segment he immediately started talking about himself and Owens, making the issue about Owens “defying” him, without in any way acknowledging the match that is supposed to be happening right now. I think it would have been much better to have Shane start out by saying something along the lines of “Kevin Owens, you will not be refereeing this match between Natalya and Carmella.” A little line like that makes this feel more like Shane needs to deal with Owens here and now so that our scheduled opener can happen rather than it feeling like Shane saw an opportunity to confront Owens and he doesn’t care if he is pulling the attention away from this important women’s match that is supposed to be taking place.
After Owens made some solid points, things took a giant left turn, with Owens randomly claiming that Shane never wanted him on Smackdown (so I guess the Superstar Shake-Up was a draft and not a series of trades? Then why didn’t they just say so instead of leaving it frustratingly ambiguous?). Shane, master of diplomacy that he is, confirms this. Shane brings up Triple H “handing” Owens the Universal Title. Then things take yet another crazy, random turn, as Owens talks about Shane not getting enough love from his father and that’s why he jumps off of high places, and saying that everyone would have been better off if Shane had died in that helicopter crash. Shane had warned Owens earlier in the conversation “don’t talk about my kids,” after Owens had accused Shane of exploiting them for his WrestleMania entrance, and so when Owens said that Shane’s kids would have been better off if Shane had died in the helicopter crash, Shane started a brawl.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a parent, but I don’t understand Shane’s reactions here. It’s not like Owens made fun of his kids or threatened them or even threated to beat their father up in front of them a la Noelle Foley at Royal Rumble 1999. He merely Shane of exploiting them (although to me it felt more like Shane exploiting his position within the company to get his kids some brief and yet totally pointless spotlight at last year’s WrestleMania). Then he set Shane off when he said that his kids would be better off if he had died. I can understand why this set Shane off, but I don’t understand why this would set Shane off when Owens saying that his mother, father, sister, and wife being better off if he were dead didn’t.
This came off to me like total hack writing. Like they decided that they wanted Owens to say something that would provoke a reaction from Shane so they ran down their mental checklist and said “if he insults Vince that will just get a pop, insulting Linda will probably get a pop, insulting Steph will get a pop, we can’t have him call Shane’s wife a whore because that will get us in trouble with the feminists, so I guess the only people left are the kids… but they’re just kids so we can’t really have him say anything bad about them.” I don’t doubt that Kevin Owens would say these things, but the idea of him saying such personal things to Shane (particularly the parts about this kids and everyone being better off if he had died) felt like it came out of nowhere, and like the only reason Owens said it was because the writers wanted Shane to have reason to respond in the desired babyface manner.
It’s not impossible that Owens had this planned all along to provoke Shane into doing something that should lead to Shane losing power, but this is Smackdown, so until it is actually portrayed this way (by which I mean that Owens said these things specifically for that purpose), I’m not going to give them credit for it.
Anyway, Shane charged at Owens and beat the absolute sh*t out of him, with Owens not landing a single blow. It took many referees, road agents, and Daniel Bryan to pull Shane off.

We get back from commercial, and here is Corey Graves telling me that Owens insulted Shane’s family. No he didn’t! I was listening. He insulted SHANE. Saying “they’d be better off if you were dead” means you are the one being insulted because it is your presence that is supposedly have a detrimental effect on them.

OWENS & BRYAN BACKSTAGE- Owens is coughing and can’t stand under his own power all because Shane punched him a lot. Other than that, this was very good. Bryan was apologetic and condemned Shane for his wrongdoing without trying to play the blame game. Owens said that he was going to either press criminal charges against Shane or possibly sue Shane personally as well as WWE in order to “turn this into the Kevin Owens show. Literally.” Hmmm… a heel uses the mention of a McMahon’s immediate family member to provoke said authority figure McMahon into physically assaulting him and using that to file a lawsuit as part of a plan to take over the company? #BRMBookedItFirst (way back in the very beginning. It’s kind of scary that it has been over five years since then).

NATALYA vs. CARMELLA (w/James Ellsworth)- 2/10
Byron Saxton referred to Nattie having to face Carmella tonight and defend the title against Naomi next week as “Natalya’s two-week equation.” WHAT?! Having to wrestle two matches in two weeks is an equation? HOW?!
These two had a slow, basic match (basically, Nattie tried to idiot proof this match for Carmella), and then we got a bad finish. Said finish was Ellsworth, thinking that Carmella was about to win, tried to cash in MITB for her. This distracted Carmella, allowing Nattie to roll her up for the win. So they’ve added to this friction they have between Carmella and Ellsworth… but what’s the endgame here? Babyface Carmella? Yuck. Babyface Ellsworth? Also yuck. If the act is working then why are you aiming to break them up?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Carmella yells at Ellsworth. She said he “wasn’t even a human,” (horrible line) called him a “genetic defect” (not much better), and then asked the question that I’ve been asking for almost a full year now: “How do you still work here, James?”
She noted that he must be “a charity case” and said “your mother should have given you away at birth.” Ouch. She dumps Ellsworth. I’m happy if this means that Ellsworth is off of my TV (though I doubt he will be), but it doesn’t make Carmella any more likeable, and as I said above, why would you break up an act that is working?

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. ?
This was billed as “the re-debut of Dolph Ziggler” after his apparent breakdown a few weeks ago. Instead we got Dolph ranting and saying the fans “don’t appreciate what I can do in that ring” and “you don’t want me! You’d rather just have some dumb gimmick.” Dude… you’re the one who keeps choosing to re-sign with WWE.
Then Dolph walked off and Cena’s music hit and I was about to get excited that they actually remember that Cena is supposed to be on both shows now not just Raw, and were fixing this plot-hole, but instead it was just Ziggler doing Cena in an extremely half-assed manner. Then he came out and did a half-assed Macho Man with a much more attractive Miss Elizabeth (it’s nothing personal. The entirety of the 1980s is ugly, and Elizabeth is that). Then he does Naomi’s glow in the dark entrance. Then Dolph launched into a standard tirade about how he doesn’t care about the fans because they don’t care about him, etc. etc. Then he just walked to the back. Isn’t he supposed to have a match now? Or did Bryan and Shane really tell Dolph “sure. Take six minutes to introduce your ‘new Dolph Ziggler’ shtick” when they were laying out tonight’s show?
This was bad, but in that special way where I’m almost more disappointed than annoyed, because there is a good idea in here. Take a look at part of Dolph’s closing bit:
“So this is what it’s come to, huh? Dumbass hand gestures, dancing like an idiot, lasers, costumes… that’s what you want? ANYONE could do what I just did. Anybody.”
This has become, in my opinion, a real issue in wrestling, but John Cena and Randy Savage are not the problem (though Naomi is certainly symptomatic of it). The problem is guys like Marty Scurll, the Young Bucks, and Dalton Castle. Guys who waste a bunch of time doing goofy shtick instead of wrestling. And on another level it’s people like Naomi, Bray Wyatt, The Cabinet, who are one-note characters, only someone of whom are even propped up by special effects. There is a gimmick out there for someone to do where you are the ultimate parody GIMMICK. Imagine a guy who cuts Bray Wyatt promos while talking about “glow” all the time, and then when they get in the ring they only do flips and superkicks while shouting “TOO SWEET!” and “SUCK IT!” and doing crotch chops, flapping your arms like Marty Scurll, and doing goofy Dalton Castle poses.
Unforutnately, WWE is not the place for that gimmick because 1) it probably violates their rules on acknowledging others, 2) doing Scurll’s arm-flapping things will probably hurt the legal basis for them sending the Bucks “Cease & Desist” letters over their use of D-X and nWo stuff, and 3) they really shouldn’t mock their own gimmick while they are trying to push said wrestlers (Naomi and Wyatt in particular) and 4) they’re not smart enough to think of it.

SAMI ZAYN vs. AIDEN ENGLISH- 0.5/10
Last week Kevin Owens ruined this match so Shane declared it stricken from the record, so this week we’re having a rematch. Excellent. This is the sort of attention to detail that I want. This is the sort of thing that makes this feel more like a televised sporting league and not a TV show.
Sami loses clean in just over a minute. These guys did the absolutely best they could with the time they were given, but the really problematic part here is Sami losing. Why would you have a popular babyface do a job to a guy who is basically an undercard comedy heel and who probably wouldn’t survive the next round of cuts if he didn’t happen to be married to Eddie Guerrero’s daughter?

DANIEL BRYAN & THE TAG TEAMS THAT MATTER BACKSTAGE-
The New Day showed up and Bryan was happy to see them because they will make him happy. Coincidentally, the Usos happened to walk in a through a non-door on the other side of Bryan’s… office-set thing. Bryan says “oh goody. You’re here, too. This seems like a good time for you to announce the stipulations for next week’s title match. The Usos announce that it will be a “Sin City Street Fight” because next week is “Sin City Smackdown” and WWE absolutely adores alliteration. The Usos walked away. Only then did New Day start talking very lame trash.

DANIEL BRYAN GETS A PHONE CALL- someone who he calls “sir” is telling him he has to go out to the ring to do something, so that’s got to be Vince on the other end of the line.

BRYAN DOES THE MYSTERIOUS THIG HE HAS BEEN ORDERED TO DO- fine
He calls out Shane, who takes a while to come back. Neither guy came out with music, which was good for setting the mood. It turns out that Bryan was ordered by Vince to suspend Shane indefinitely. The ideas here were good and a lot of what they said was good, but there were some lines that felt painfully scripted “Kevin Owens is a vindictive man” immediately leaps to mind), which really brought this down. They tried to present a moment of grand dramatic theater when this called for something more realistic. They were trying to write a play when what they should have been aiming for was a more realistic, human interaction.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS JINDER MAHAL- boring.
No one cares whether or not he “represents Asia” better than Nakamura, and that “It will be Randy Orton’s RKO against Shinsuke Nakamura’s Kinshasa” line read like the worst of generic dreck off of the atrocious late 2000s days of WWE.com.

BARON CORBIN vs. TYE DILLINGER- 4.5/10
AJ is on commentary. Corbin immediately bails to get into his face, so Dillinger dives onto him. Great opening spot! Corbin took over almost immediately after that first flurry, but Dillinger was a good babyface throughout and they actually got me to bite on that one roll-up.

AJ STYLES & TYE DILLINGER BACKSTAGE- goofy.
AJ complements Dillinger on his efforts both this week and last week, then tells him that “next week, the US Title Open Challenge will only be open to you.” Then it’s not much of an open challenge, is it? And does AJ even have to power to do that? He has to get approval from Bryan and/or Shane for these things, doesn’t he?

ELLSWORTH BEGS CARMELLA TO TAKE HIM BACK- and she does, and they make out. Then she slaps him. This is horrifically dumb.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Randy Orton vs. Shinsuke Nakamura- 7.75/10
This is the second time in six months that they have taken a first time ever Randy Orton matchup that could easily main event WrestleMania and thrown it away on free TV as a #1 contendership match.
Cutting away from the match to show us Jinder sitting in his private box is obnoxious enough, but at one point they actually had a camera that was focused on the action pull away from the match and then track all the way over to Jinder. To make things even worse, they did this not three seconds after having just cut away from Jinder. You know, in case there was a goldfish watching at home who might have forgotten that Jinder was there.
The match was really great and told a great story, but the time they got here is nothing close to what they should have gotten, especially on a PPV. Nakamura wins, which makes you wonder why they had Randy beat Jinder in Canada at all? All that did was reinforce that Jinder is a chump by having job cleanly to Orton after never being able to beat him cleanly, and thus put Randy back in the title picture which forced this money-burning showdown with Nakamura for #1 contendership when all they needed to do to give Nakamura another title shot was point out that Jinder cheated to beat him.

They ran down the card for next week’s show. So far we know three matches:
1. Naomi challenges Nattie for the Smackdown Women’s Title- the only build this match got this week was five seconds of Naomi watching Nattie’s match on a monitor
2. New Day challenge the Usos for the Smackdown Tag Team Titles in a Street Fight- the only build this match got this week was one quick backstage talking segment which might well have been shorter than three minutes.
3. Tye Dillinger challenges AJ for the US Title- the only build this match got last week was Dillinger losing cleanly but AJ put him over for trying hard.
WHAT THE F*CK?!

BRYAN & OWENS BACKSTAGE- bad.
Owens says that he is going run next week’s show and make it Bryan’s worst nightmare and no one can “legally” do anything to stop him. HOW? The only way this makes sense is if Vince agreed to it in exchange for not being sued, but if that’s the case then 1) he should have let Bryan know right away, and 2) why is Vince coming to the show next week to deal with all of this? That would seem to imply that either Vince can stop Owens or that they haven’t finished negotiating yet, right?


Another disappointing episode of Smackdown, even with such a huge main event.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Byron Saxton- “Now that Nakamura knows what the RKO feels like… he might not fear it as much.”
As if this wasn’t stupid enough on its own (and on its own it should be a firing offense), he said this about two seconds after Nakamura made a big deal out of blocking an RKO.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

User avatar
KILLdozer
Posts: 5930
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 22:54

Re: BRM Reviews th 9/5/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Sep 6th, '17, 19:30

I'm pretty they "Made up" , and not "made out"....lol. Maybe she's just gonna start beating him down when he fails. That would be a really interesting change. I don't really feel that shit's working. He's just ugly and annoying, heel or not. I don't feel needs him or he adds much. She's come a good ways since coming up and turning heel.

I'd just rather see her alone at this point. In the singlet without pants she wore a couple of weeks back lol.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

User avatar
Big Red Machine
Posts: 27378
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 15:12

Re: BRM Reviews th 9/5/2017 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 6th, '17, 21:19

KILLdozer wrote: Sep 6th, '17, 19:30 I'm pretty they "Made up" , and not "made out"...
They did both.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests