BRM Reviews the 5/8/2018 Smackdown (boring!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/8/2018 Smackdown (boring!)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 9th, '18, 00:17

OPENING SEGMENT- Paige comes out and asks the fans if the Backlash was “a smashing success.” This statement was met with lukewarm applause. These fans are VERY generous. They were much louder for when Paige mentioned Bryan’s win over Big Cass. She says that we’re going to have MITB qualifiers tonight. To ensure that only worthy participants wind up in a match for such a huge opportunity? Of course not! She says that because MITB is a dual-branded PPV that means that wrestlers from both shows will be in the MITB matches and therefore she needs to make sure Smackdown’s best wrestlers are in it, because that will give Smackdown the best chance to win. And all know that Smackdown cannot afford for someone from Raw to win the MITB matches because that would mean… what, exactly?
This entire segment was pointless, as Paige did not tell us anything the announcers couldn’t have run down for us in five seconds.

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING MATCH: The Miz vs. Jeff Hardy- 6.5/10
They had a match that felt very long but only because they had a big commercial break in the middle where nothing happened other than constantly teasing Jeff being counted out. I also really didn’t like the finish. I’m fine with MIz kicking out of Jeff’s finisher, but to be able to kick out of his finisher with a crucifix cradle was too much.

SHEAMUS & CESARO BACKSTAGE- terrible
Sheamus is eating Lucky Charms because he’s sad he lost to woods last week. It turns out someone ribbed them by taking their gear and filling their suitcases with pancakes instead.

RENEE YOUNG TRIES TO INTERVIEW SHINSUKE NAKAMURA- terrible.
Renee informs us that Shinsuke hasn’t been cleared to complete tonight. Really? AJ was the one who got a chair to the face. If Nakamura is so injured at least tell us what the injury is!
Poor Renee was then forced to ask Nakamura if the issue between him and AJ was over. THEY WENT TO A DOUBLE TKO IN A WORLD TITLE MATCH! Whoever wrote this should be flogged.
Nakamura, for his part, not only repeated his “no speak English” gimmick, but when Renee called him on it he was forced to claim he “forgot how” when a much better answer would have been that he chooses not to anymore. He then proceeded to answer some questions in English, which he did by saying “AJ Styles is nuts. And so am I.” Testicle jokes. In the world title program.

CARMELLA SELFIE PROMO- fine
I’m actually fine with Carmella cutting a selfie promo because it fits her narcissistic character. I think her, Miz, and The Iiconics are the only ones I’d let cut selfie promos.
Carmella said she would have a “Royal Mellabration” next week… so basically the same thing she did a few weeks ago. You know what? I don’t actually hate this, as it’s in her character to want one. It’d be a amusing to have her have one after every title defense and always get interrupted and wind up running away from a babyface at the end. And the reason this one is a “Royal” Mellabration is because they’re in the UK, and that’s the first thing that pops into Vince’s brain when you mention the UK.

TYE DILLIINGER SELFIE PROMO- he talked forever, and we all know this f*cker isn’t even going to qualify for MITB, never mind have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning it.

NOAMI SELFIE PROMO- bragged about winning the WrestleMania battle royale, which is like bragging that you were the best participator out of all of the people who were given participation awards.

IICONICS PROMO- terrible.

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING MATCH: Charlotte Flair vs. Peyton Royce (w/Billie Kay)- 4.5/10
The match was pretty dull, aside from the missed moonsault and one good false finish. We were flat-out told that Charlotte was not at 100% tonight because she was still injured from Backlash… and despite both this advantage and having a friend who interfered on her behalf, Peyton Royce still lost. Charlotte has now gotten revenge on both IIconics for costing the Smackdown Women’s Title. Less than one month into their tenure on the main roster, I hereby declare The IIconics completely dead.

During this match I noticed that the white (and, I guess, women’s) MITB briefcase was now hanging above the ring rather than the green one earlier…which means they wasted someone’s time by making them change it in the middle of the show because there was going to be a women’s qualifier, and that after this match they will waste more of that poor person’s time by changing it back before Bryan vs. Rusev.
Never in my life have I seen a company that has had such an obsession with aesthetics in such meaningless and even counterproductive ways! We’ve got to hang the briefcase up so people know MITB is coming… even though we won’t ever go f*cking minutes without bringing it up so there is no way they’d be able to forget! And we’ve got to have different color briefcases for the men and the women rather than just having two identical briefcases, even if that makes more work. And we’ve got to decorate the stage in ladders even though they serve no purpose other than as another pointless reminder that there is a Ladder Match PPV coming up. And the titles all have to have the same design, which is one big, gigantic WWE logo. And we’ll make interchangeable side plates so each champion can have their own dumb little design on the belt when they hold it, even though no one will notice the difference and it will cost us money to make new ones each time. And make sure that the Backlash logo can change colors depending on brand the match is for (because that apparently matters). If this company put even half the thought they put into making sure there’s a WrestleMania sign to point at into MAKING SURE THAT THE SHOW MAKES SENSE, they’d be the ones booming right now instead of the indy scene.

DANIEL BRYAN INTERVIEW- decent
Was that Dasha interviewing him? I know she changes her look weekly, but I don’t remember her ever looking this… chesty. Can we please get some graphics for the interviewers so we know who they are? I don’t think Mike Rome’s name has even been said on TV in the past year, and he shows up so infrequently that I wouldn’t even be able to notice if he got replaced by someone other dude in a suit.

SHELTON BENJAMIN SELFIE PROMO- this seemed a bit out of focus. He said some of the biggest highlights of his career were in Ladder Matches, but I honestly can’t think of a single one. I have vague memories of him giving someone a sunset slip powerbomb in the MITB match at WrestleMania XXV, but it’s possible that was someone else.

ASUKA SELFIE PROMO- on its own this would have been fine, but the WordArt is now back on the screen, which made this impossible to take seriously. And before you ask. Yes they did in fact stoop so pathetically low as to use a dollar sign for the s in the “cash.”

CESARO (w/Sheamus) vs. XAVIER WOODS (w/The New Day)- 5.5/10
Okay… now that I’ve seen that woman about five rows back in the red dress and white polka-dots, my eye keeps getting drawn back to her. If you’re going to sit in front of the hard-cam, please do the rest of us the courtesy of not wearing something that pops like that. Also… it’s 2018, not 1958, so maybe as a general rule just don’t wear polka dots at all.
Cesaro has to wrestle in his street clothes because his gear was stolen by New Day when they filled his and Sheamus’ bags with pancakes. Byron Saxton does not understand how Sheamus and Cesaro can have possibly been angered “receiving the gift of free pancakes.” I am interpreting this statement as tacit permission to do this so someone please go steal all of Bryon’s stuff and replace it all with pancakes and see if he changes his mind.
The fans are chanting “WE WANT PANCAKES!” Fine. So next time instead of going to a wrestling show, go to an IHOP. The match was okay. Pancake-based shenanigans occurred but at least Cesaro won. I HATE THIS CRAP.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS AJ STYLES- Awesome,
This was the BEST THING ON THIS SHOW BY MILES AND MILES AND MILES AND MILES!

BLUDGEON BROTHERS PROMO- lame. This started with the camera panning over action figures of the SD tag team division that I guess were supposed to look broken but most of them just looked oddly posed to me. While this was happening we got some music that was supposed to sound creepy because of how placid it was for this situation but really didn’t. We panned over to the Bludgeon bothers, who took off their masks, making them look a lot less creepy. They said that they had “toys to play with” and invited everyone to “come play with us.” Then they took their hammers and “smashed” the camera they were recording this with so we got a P.O.V. shot of the smashing, except it was obvious that what really happened was WWE using a video effect instead, so it just made it feel phony.
If you’re going to do something like this then GO ALL THE WAY WITH IT. REALLY BREAK THE ACTION FIGURES. Make sure there are identifiable parts like the heads showing (especially someone with distinctive hair like Kofi or Sheamus) or Gallows’ leg with the B.C. logo on it and stuff like that, but really BREAK the f*cking things. Make me feel that this two guys are destructive. Same with the camera smashing. Either smash an actual camera, or don’t do it at all.

BECKY LYNCH vs. MANDY ROSE- 1/10
Tom Phillips referred to Mandy & Sonya making fun of Becky for losing a few weeks ago as “bullying.” Standards are low.
After Becky came out we cut backstage to Sonya giving Mandy a pep talk when Paige came up to them and told them that Sonya was barred from ringside. WHY? The IIconics interfere all the time and Paige didn’t ban Billie from ringside for the earlier women’s match (which had even more on the line than this one because it was an MITB qualifier). The Woods vs. Sheamus match from last week had everyone at ringside get involved but Paige didn’t bar anyone from ringside for this week’s installment of that feud. So why is she barring Sonya from ringside here? And if she was going to do that (which would play into the whole “stand on your own” thing from last week), why did she wait until the last moment to tell Mandy & Sonya this? Is the angle that Paige has a vendetta against these two for no adequately explained reason? Because that’s what it seems like. This was all made worse by the fact that Becky’s music was playing the entire time in the background.
They had a short match in which Becky kicked Mandy’s ass for 90% of it before she got stun-gunned on the rope and then pinned cleanly.

They announced that next week Sheamus & Cesaro will face New Day in a match where ONE member of the winning team is entered into MITB. Face-palm.

Also, Almas debuts next week.

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING MATCH: Daniel Bryan vs. Rusev (w/Aiden English)- 6.75/10
Despite returning to Rusev’s side in a backstage segment last week, Lana was not seen or mentioned here at all. Bryan worked over Rusev’s wrist early, which came into play later because it prevented him from locking in the Accolade. Bryan’s already-injured midsection got worked over but he made his comeback… and then got pinned when Rusev kicked him in the head. They spent a lot of time focusing on Bryan after the loss so I’d assume it will lead to something, but then again… go re-read to opening sentence of this paragraph.
I figured Bryan would lose here because why the hell would you take a guy who has concussion problems and stick him in a Ladder Match (then again, I’m sure I said that in the lead up to WrestleMania XXXI, too, and yet they did it), but I was shocked that he lost clean. I figured Cass would come out and screw him to both protect Bryan and continue that feud. Instead, Cass wasn’t on tonight’s show at all (not even a promo), which I found odd.

This was a really bad episode of Smackdown. Just like last night’s Raw, while it did suffer from some logic issues, the main problem with this show was that it was just plain BORING. I just don’t get it: they’re finally making people EARN things like MITB berths and the show is focused around that fact. These are all things that I should like, and yet I have found the past two nights of WWE programming mind-numbingly dull. Maybe the issue is that they have focused on this stuff too much (it is basically the only thing going on on either show), but it feels like it’s more than that. Between the Greatest Royal Rumble[ /i], Backlash, and now these two shows, there just feels like there is a major feeling of ennui about the product. I wish I could just fast-forward through the next three months of Raw and Smackdown just to get it over with already.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Byron Saxton- “In their short time here on Smackdown, The IIconics have had Charlotte Flair’s number.”
False. They’re 0-2 against her (Billie lost a singles match and they lost a six-woman tag as well).
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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KILLdozer
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Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 22:54

Re: BRM Reviews the 5/8/2018 Smackdown (boring!)

Post by KILLdozer » May 9th, '18, 11:06

Yeah, he took not one but two finishers in a row then IMMEDIATELY in the blink of an eye rolls into the reverse cover...then quickly rolls out of the ring like nothing happened lol.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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