BRM Reviews the 5/29/2018 Smackdown

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/29/2018 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » May 29th, '18, 21:00

Naomi and Lana are having a dance-off tonight. Long live the Women’s/Divas’ R/Evolution!

OPENING SEGMENT- GREAT!
Samoa Joe came out and cut an AWESOME promo. During the course of it, he climbed a ladder and actually the briefcase down. Joe’s promo so enraged Bryan for mentioning Bryan’s family that he wants to fight Joe right now (not like, as Shane might do, just assault Joe with no warning) but Big Cass comes out wearing a suit and using a crutch. He cuts a promo on both guys, calling them juvenile. He then claimed that Paige told him that instead of the Joe vs. Bryan match we’re getting him vs. Joe “when I am cleared. When will I be cleared? That’s a good question. I already am cleared!” He then swung his crutch at Bryan but Bryan ducked and he hit Joe (I don’t think he cares, though). Bryan went after Cass, who managed to whip Bryan into a ladder, then laid both guys out with the briefcase that Joe pulled down. Everyone involved here did an excellent job. This has to be the best opening segment on WWE TV in recent memory.

PAIGE, MANDY, & SONYA BACKSTAGE- once again, Mandy & Sonya have legitimate criticisms of Paige’s booking and she responds by being snarky. We’re getting Asuka vs. Mandy tonight because of this.
Then we followed as Paige continued on her walk. Renee Young ran up and joined her, trying to conduct a moving interview. What is this? The West Wing? Anyway, Paige is upset that Cass “spoke for” her. Seems to me that if she made a ruling pertaining to tonight’s matches then she really should have told the other wrestlers involved. Cass’ actions have apparently caused her to rethink things and she now realizes that maybe it was unfair to take this chance away from Bryan so now we’re going to have a three-way qualifier instead. None of this made Paige come off well to me.

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. TYE DILLINGER- 4.5/10
The idea here was that Nakamura was being a dick by counting Dillinger down every time he went down, but in reality the ref should have been counting Dillinger down anyway because a TKO is part of the rules of wrestling (as we saw in the AJ vs. Nakamura match at Backlash). Similarly, it would have made a lot more sense to have Nakamura just win by TKO after a Kinshasa rather than to have him hit the Kinshasa, get the pin, then hit another one and do the count after the match.

DASHA FUENTES INTERVIEWS AJ STYLES- good promo by AJ.
AJ’s hair has gotten long enough that he looked vaguely like Kevin Nash at some odds camera angles. It was disturbing.

We got a brief shot of Rusev apparently giving Lana a pep-talk and/or advice for her dance off. Either of these would have been an awesome backstage segment.

DANCE-OFF: Lana (w/Aiden English & Rusev) vs. Naomi (w/The Usos)- no rating, bad segment
Hey, look! Someone in Creative actually remembered that Naomi and Jimmy Uso are married!
After they both danced and Naomi won, they started to dance together to some music that randomly started to play. Then Lana hit Naomi with a neckbreaker. Rusev pulled her off of Naomi but then she went over and slapped Jimmy. Naomi got up and attacked Lana, and this ended with the heels being laid out, getting rid of all of the heat that Lana had just gotten. Is it really that hard for WWE to do this right and let the heels lay the babyfaces out with a sneak attack and have that be it?

SHEAMUS, CESARO, & THE MIZ vs. THE NEW DAY- 7.25/10
An exciting six-man tag.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS GALLOWS & ANDERSON- They were cutting a fine promo when they were interrupted by the Bludgeon Brothers cutting into the feed on a nearby monitor, and soon onto our TVs as well. They cut their standard goofy Bludgeon Brothers promo. Among other things, they claimed that “bodies will be liquefied.”

ASUKA vs. MANDY ROSE- 2.5/10
Carmella was on commentary for this match. She appears to have only had time to put on one side of her overall before coming out to the announcers’ table. The presentation of Mandy’s entrance is pretty good (everything from the music to the camera effect to especially the voice whispering “Mandy” at the beginning).
Sonya Deville jumped Asuka from behind on her way to the ring. This was used to create a way for Mandy Rose to ever have the advantage on freakin’ Asuka. In other news, when Byron asked Carmella if she truly believed that she was twice as good as Asuka, Carmella responded by saying “Byron, are you sh*tting me?” Whoops. She’ll have to get that out of her system before the move to Fox happens. Asuka and Carmella had a stare-down afterwards.

CHARLOTTE & BECKY BACKSTAGE- They argue over which of them will win MITB. Paige strolls through the background and overhears their discussion so she books these two babyfaces in a friendly match against each other.
No. Not really. That’s what would happen on a good show. Instead Paige showed up to say that she loved their “competitive spirit” because said competitive spirit would ensure that someone from Smackdown won MITB. Then she brought up PCB and wanted to do their stupid “tea time” thing.

We’re getting Jimmy Uso & Naomi vs. Lana & English next week. Also, we’re getting Becky vs. Charlotte. Maybe they should have just had Paige f*cking SAY THAT in the segment we just saw, rather than say something indecipherable about Becky and Charlotte’s stupid handshake?

SIN CARA, ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS, & ZELINA VEGA BACKSTAGE- good
Sin Cara says that he and Almas are friends from back in CMLL (well… they never said “CMLL” but that was the implication). Zelina Vega tells Almas never to talk to Sin Cara because Sin Cara is a nobody. I’m sure this was intended to come off as her being bitchy and controlling- and she definitely was- but she is his business manager, and being associated with Sin Cara has never done anything good for anyone’s career in WWE, so I can’t say she was in any way wrong here.

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING MATCH: Samoa Joe vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass- 8/10
Good three-way story. Bryan and Joe manage to carry Cass to the best match of his career. The finish saw Bryan hit Cass with the Busaiku knee but Joe pulled him off of Cass and choked him out for the win. Cass laid Bryan out with the big boot after the match and stood tall at the end of the show.

A pretty good episode of Smackdown.
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

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cero2k
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2018 Smackdown

Post by cero2k » May 29th, '18, 21:11

Sin Cara was never in CMLL and he only really worked AAA for about a year, but Sombra never worked AAA, so I highly doubt they crossed paths. So without further research I'm just going to assume WWE writers are talking out of their ass
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/29/2018 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » May 29th, '18, 21:24

cero2k wrote: May 29th, '18, 21:11 Sin Cara was never in CMLL and he only really worked AAA for about a year, but Sombra never worked AAA, so I highly doubt they crossed paths. So without further research I'm just going to assume WWE writers are talking out of their ass
It was me who said CMLL. For some reason I confused the current Sin Cara with Averno. WWE only said "Mexico."
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

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