BRM Reviews the 11/6/2018 Smackdown (Becky. F*cking. Lynch.)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- bad
Paige comes out to get the home country pop, then introduces Shane. She happily calls him “the best in the world,” so apparently she is perfectly fine with the bullsh*t he pulled at Crown Jewel. The fans booed loudly when Paige referred to Shane as such, but Paige just keeps smiling away and has Shane take a picture with the trophy.
Shane insists that he is not the best in the world, and that the “trophy belongs to everyone here on Smackdown Live.” He says that after Miz got hurt he, “acted on instinct” because he “couldn’t fathom that Smackdown would not be the superior brand.” Dude… you’ve lost two years in a row. You need to grow up and understand that losing is a real possibility.
Shane now starts to talk about Survivor Series, and then he and Paige ran down the matches for us. A new match signed is Big Show, Sheamus, & Cesaro vs. the Authors of Pain, apparently including Drake Maverick. I think. Paige actually said “AoP vs. Big Show & The Bar” as if Big Show wasn’t part of the group, which he had to be in order for the gimmick they’ve done the past two weeks (“a member of New Day vs. a member of The Bar”) to make sense, and the graphic only said AoP vs. The Bar, but Big Show was much farther back than Sheamus & Cesaro were- equidistant with Drake Maverick, in fact- so it’s also possible that Paige screwed up and the match is actually going to be AoP (w/Drake Maverick) vs. Sheamus & Cesaro (w/Big Show), which would make a bit more sense as it would be the people who are actually the champions facing off.

Once again we come to the key failing of WWE’s Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series format that they repeat year after year, which is the following. Shane says “it is so important that Smackdown has the bragging rights.” Why? Because “the worst thing in the world is that my sister and anybody from Raw can claim them.” They are going to spend the entire program telling us that Smackdown winning at Survivor Series is THE. MOST. IMPORTANT. THING. IN. THE. WORLD. And why? Because Shane will get upset if Stephanie’s team beats him. And then on Raw it we’ll hear them spend three hours telling us how imperative it is that Raw win at Survivor Series, and the only reason they’ll give us is Steph will be upset if they don’t. Well pardon me for not giving a sh*t which McMahon child will have to be sad because the other sibling’s side won.
I don’t care about the McMahons. I really don’t. I can be persuaded to care about Steph when she is allowed to fully be a character and utilized in an unprotected manner (by which I mean they just let her be a TV character without trying to make sure that nothing that happens on the TV in any way makes Stephane Marie McMahon-Levesque the shoot businesswoman look bad), but that’s not what they ever do with her anymore, and I don’t care about Shane at all. Yes, I find him obnoxious as hell, but I don’t hate him the way I’m supposed to hate a heel and want to see him disappointed (granted, part of that is the fact that I know that just like after the past two years, this supposed worst thing ever will happen to him and he’ll just move on with his life a week later).
But do you know who I do care about? Daniel Bryan. AJ Styles. Samoa Joe. Alexa Bliss! Becky Lynch. Charlotte. Seth Rollins. Drew McIntyre. Braun Strowman. Cesaro. Sheamus. Sasha Banks. Rusev. Jeff Hardy. Rey Mysterio. The Miz. Randy Orton. The Riott Squad. The Usos. Asuka. Ember Moon. The Bella Twins. Nattie Neidhart. The Revival. The Authors of Pain. Mickie James. Dean Ambrose. Finn Balor. Bobby Lashley. Even Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers and Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. If you want me to care about this Raw vs. Smackdown crap, you need to put something on the line for them. You need to make the outcomes of these matches matter for the wrestlers.
And I mean real, tangible effects; not this “brand supremacy” bullsh*t. That crap doesn’t work because I know it’s completely phony. And the way I know this is that the other eleven months of the year when they see each other it’s all hugs and smiles instead of this “f*ck you, b-show losers!” “Nah-ah! You’re the b-show losers, not us,” and thus when you put it on only for the month proceeding the Raw vs. SD gimmick PPV, it feels phony and forced.
They name Bryan the captain so he comes out and puts Shane over for his humility. Miz comes out (still selling his leg) and says that he not only deserves to be team captain, but also that he deserves two thirds of the WWE World Cup trophy because he won two thirds of the matches. Shane concedes that Miz deserves to be a co-captain of Smackdown with Bryan. So after telling us that Smackdown winning at Survivor Series is of the upmost importance to him, Shane assigns captaincy of one of his teams to a pair of men who everyone knows will bicker constantly. What a f*cking moron.

WE’RE GETTING MYSTERIO VS. ALMAS TONIGHT!
Also Advertised is New Day vs. Usos, which should be an awesome match, but they announced that the wining team will get to captain the Smackdown tag teams Survivor Series team. I had kind of hoped we’d be able to avoid that match this year, but apparently we must again be subjected to a match that will only serve to bury 90% of the teams on the roster because everyone will have to get pinned, but they won’t give the match much time because they really don’t care about it.

BRYAN, MIZ, & SHANE BACKSTAGE- idiotic
It hasn’t been five f*cking minutes and Miz and Dragon are already bickering. Miz, echoing myself, asks Shane “what on Earth made you think this would work?” Shane’s response was “I need a team to bring this home. I need a team with urgency. I don’t want people to be feeling comfortable; I want people to be feeling uncomfortable, and you guys make each other very uncomfortable. But what you also do is you bring out the best in each other, and that’s truly what I’m counting on.”
NO, Shane, that’s not how you win! You don’t win by making people uncomfortable. No manager turns to his team before the game and says that everyone now has to use the bats of the person whose name comes after theirs in alphabetical order. The reason players have their own gear and go through their own usual routines is comfort. You don’t win by purposely making your team uncomfortable.
Shane then tells them they have until the end of the night to pick the remaining three members of their team. I like how Miz has a f*cked up knee so bad he had to pull out of a major match when (as he pointed out before) he has never missed a match due to injury before in his entire career, and he still can’t walk on it properly four days later, and yet Alexa Bliss! had to be pulled out of an advertised PPV match and hasn’t wrestled in weeks and we have gotten no explanation of any sort for why she isn’t wrestling.
Miz tells Shane that he picks him to be on the team. Shane tries to turn it down, but Bryan says he agrees with The Miz. Bryan claims that “it makes sense. Nobody has more on the line than you do at Survivor Series. And you showed at the World Cup Tournament how much you care about Smackdown Live.”
No, Bryan. It does not make sense. The only reason that “no one has more on the line” than Shane is because no one else has anything on the line at all (and all Shane has are his pathetic little man-child feelings). Empirical facts, on the other hand, prove that Shane will only be a detriment to a Survivor Series team. In 2016, he eliminated no one, and was eliminated himself via a spear from Roman Reigns that left him unable to continue. Last year, his only pin came after Triple H Pedigreed Kurt Angle and dragged Shane’s carcass onto Kurt for the pin before quickly Pedigreeing and pinning Shane himself. Shane has also lost every single match with a clean finish he has had since his big return to WWE, with the exception of the WWE World Cup finals (where he defeated an opponent who had already wrestled twice that night while he himself was fresh), and the tag team match at WrestleMania, in which Daniel Bryan got the winning fall in for their team. Unless you’ve got a match where the stipulation is “the first person to jump off the TitanTron wins,” Shane McMahon is going to be a detriment to your team.
Bryan claim that Shane’s World Cup victory is evidence that Shane “cares about Smackdown” so much is I guess technically true, but that’s because Shane seems to be the only person that cared what show the winning wrestler was from. And even so, I’d think that if he really cared about Smackdown, he wouldn’t have threatened to fire a top star (thus freeing that person up to jump to Raw) for losing one match. Bryan bringing Shane’s behavior up as a positive also seems to contradict the idea that this was the beginning of a Shane McMahon heel turn. Shane is, of course, convinced by this appeal to his ego and decides to join the team.
Miz said he’d let Bryan have the next pick, and then WWE engaged in random self-parody by leaving the camera on them for an awkwardly long time as they stared at each other and having Bryan comment on the awkwardness of it.

WINNERS GET TO BE TEAM CAPTAINS AT SURVIVOR SERIES: The Usos vs. The New Day (w/Xavier Woods)- 7.75/10
The announcement of this match was the first we had heard of there being a traditional Survivor Series Elimination Tag Team Match for the tag team division. While The Usos were making their entrance, the announcers told us that earlier today, New Day had Tweeted out “if there were to be a tag team elimination match at Survivor Series” they deserved to be the captains. This all seems to suggest that this match was not announced until sometime today. Did Steph/Corbin and Shane/Paige really sit down and decide to book all of these other matches (all the champion vs. champion matches, plus the men’s and women’s elimination tags), but they didn’t decide to also do a tag team match at that meeting? You’d think they would hammer out the whole card, right? And that if the match previously existed, WWE would announce it as soon as possible, in front of the biggest possible audience- i.e. last night on Raw.
I know this will seem like a nitpick to a lot of people, but this sort of thing bothers me because it feels like an indication that Creative has completely forgotten what the premise of their show is. This is supposed to be a sporting league, and if Raw vs. SD are to be two different promotions coming together to fight, then that will require representatives of both sides sitting down and agreeing on what the matches will be, and promoting them in a manner that makes sense within that context. Instead, WWE seems to like to announce these matches in whatever staggered way is most convenient for the way they have decided to put the build together.
Similarly, we all spent two thirds of last night’s Raw unaware that last night’s show was going to feature our babyface hero Finn Balor get his chance for revenge on big, mean heel Bobby Lashley after Lashely and his manager Lio Rush attacked and disrespected Balor last week. In a logical world, if this was supposed to be a combat sports league, they would have been hyping that match from the beginning of the show. Fox has said they want a “more sports-based” presentation of Smackdown when it moves to their network next year. When I see stuff like this, it makes me question whether WWE (read as: Vince, Dunn, & Steph) has any idea how to present a sport anymore.

Oh. Right. The match. These two teams almost always deliver together, and this match was no different. They basically set out to kill themselves having an awesome match, and Big E. almost succeeded. The Usos won cleanly, and showed New Day respect after the match by not only putting them over on the mic, but by announcing them as their first picks for Team Smackdown. Handshakes and hugs all around, and some actually believable mutual respect.

MIZ & BRYAN BACKSTAGE- Miz is on his phone and is upset that talk-show hosts only want to book Becky Lynch and not him. Bryan shows up and says he has picked Rey Mysterio Jr. to be on their team. Miz resists it because he doesn’t like Rey, but agrees to let Rey be on the team if Rey “impresses” him against Almas later tonight, so they’ve basically spoiled the match for us. Wouldn’t it have been better to give us the match with Rey winning, and then have Bryan come out and pick Rey because Rey impressed him so much by beating Almas?
Bryan then suggests that they determine the fifth team member by each picking one guy and having those guys fight each other to determine who gets on the team. Miz agrees with this.

BECKY LYNCH PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME. AGAIN.
I’m going to give Graves a pass for claiming that Becky had already “clean out” the women’s division because he’s a heel and thus it could be intentionally BS heel bragging, but based on some other stuff he said about Becky, I’m really not sure I should.
Becky cut yet another F*CKING AWESOME babyface promo on Ronda, and more than anything else, she pointed out that Ronda was a real asshole in her promo last night. Becky really, truly, feels like she’s bordering on megastar right now, and if I were them, I’d throw whatever I have written down out the window and I’d have Becky beat Ronda clean. I don’t care about whatever you might be planning on doing at Mania with Ronda and Charlotte or Ronda and Nattie or whatever you have planned for Ronda. Ronda being undefeated going into that match is nowhere near as important as Becky getting this win because Becky Lynch CANNOT lose this match. This is an opportunity to make a megastar. Connor McBecky is a real thing, and this is not an opportunity you can afford to blow. Change those plans right now, and then start asking yourself “what is Becky Lynch doing at WrestleMania and what do I need to do to get her opponent ready for her?”

What I would do is at the Royal Rumble have some kind of angle after Becky’s match that immediately sticks her in a really heated feud heading into February (the best I can come up with is that the IIconics do something heinous to her so she is obsessed with revenge. Unfortunately SD really doesn’t have any heels who would be at that level). Meanwhile, I’d put Sasha Banks over in the women’s Royal Rumble. At the February PPV Becky would win her feud (if we’re doing the IIconics I’d have her beat them both in a handicap match, maybe even a no DQs one) in a grueling blow-off, after Sasha wins some random match earlier in the night. Then, the next night on Raw, I’d promote that Sasha is going to announce who she will challenge, but I’d have Becky Lynch show up unannounced and get in Sasha’s face and demand that Sasha pick her. Why? Because Becky Lynch has NEVER beaten Sasha Banks in a singles match. Not in NXT and not on the main roster, and this is one thing Becky needs to do to prove to herself to herself. Showing up on the other show will hopefully make Becky a bit more of a renegade, as will the idea that she is the champion calling out a challenger. This will also hopefully result in some heated promos that will allow Sasha to cut loose on the mic a bit more. And, of course, it should make for an awesome WrestleMania match, and an awesome story for Becky.
(And, for some bonus booking, after Mania I would move Charlotte to Raw where she can have a run with Alexa, and move Sasha to SD where she can do the frenemies thing with Becky before turning heel after being frustrated by her inability to beat Becky. Or, if the “Fox wants Ronda on SD” rumors are true, you can swap Becky and Ronda so SD gets Ronda but Raw gets it’s new badass female top babyface, you can still have the same dynamic with Becky and Sasha, and some fresh feuds for Becky with monster heels Nia Jax and Tamina).

Anyway, Becky decides that she wants to fight tonight so she makes an open challenge, which results in…
BECKY LYNCH vs. NIKKI CROSS (w/SAnitY)- 5/10
So yeah. They took a potential major star in Nikki Cross and put her on TV before they were ready to call her up and had her lose in her debut, simply because they were in her home country and knew the fans would pop upon seeing her. There are a million other British women under contract to WWE, but they had to beat the one with the most potential to be a star in the near future.

MIZ & BRYAN BACKSTAGE- They reveal that their picks for the final member of Team Smackdown will be Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy respectively. So one of these guys won’t be on the team, but f*cking Shane McMahon will be?

NAKAMURA SELFIE PROMO- Oh my G-d they’re still doing this stupid “Naka-merica” thing. Did they not learn their lesson with “Mex-America?”

REY MYSTERIO JR. vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS- 7.5/10
Zelina Vega was not there because she was “attention to other managerial duties.” Good. They actually gave us an explanation. I was certain they just wouldn’t mention her absence.
These two had a GREAT match, but it felt like it was destined for something fantastic and just cut off in the middle.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Randy Orton hits Rey with an RKO out of nowhere, so I guess this going to be a feud now.

MIZ & BRYAN BACKSTAGE- bad
Bryan was watching the monitor backstage when Miz came up to him. Bryan immediately asks Miz “did you sent Randy out to sabotage my pick?” This question makes NO SENSE. The deal was that Bryan wanted Rey on the team but Miz was ambivalent, so Miz would watch the Rey vs. Almas match and decide if agreed that Rey should be on the team. If Miz wanted to turn Rey down, all he’d have to do was come up with some bullsh*t reason why he didn’t think Rey should be on the team (“didn’t show enough heart,” “got beaten down too much,” etc.). He wouldn’t need to have Randy attack Rey after the match (unless, of course, Bryan thinks that this one RKO will prevent Rey from being able to wrestle a week and a half from now at Survivor Series even though Rey took a lot more than one RKO at Crown Jewel and was able to wrestle tonight, just half a week later), and even if Miz did instruct Randy to attack Rey to give him an excuse to nix Bryan’s choice, it would have made a lot more sense for him to have Randy attack Rey and cost him the match rather than attacking him after it.
Miz trolled by teasing that the he didn’t want the match, but he actually did because,- as he pointed out- it would be totally irresponsible of him not to, and he said he had no problem with Rey being on the team. Then they bickered some more just for the sake of bickering. This whole thing made them both look completely unlikable.

AJ STYLES PROMO- He cut a very good promo vowing to beat Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, even stealing Paul Heyman’s line that “that’s not a prediction; that’s a spoiler.”

PAIGE INTRODUCES THE SD WOMEN’S SURVIVOR SERIES TEAM- Carmella (who came out with R-Truth, rapping for her), Naomi, Sonya Deville, Asuka, and Charlotte.
Except Charlotte didn’t come out when her music played, and then Mandy Rose’s music played and she came out and cut a pretty good heel promo. Paige told Mandy that she wasn’t taking Charlotte’s place, and Mandy completely accepted that. The reason she came out here was to ask Paige why she chose Sonya instead of her. Mandy insisted that she was happy for Sonya, but couldn’t help but notice that she actually eliminated Sonya from the battle royale at Evolution, so maybe Paige could be making better decisions.
Mandy then cut heel promos on Asuka, Carmella, and Naomi, and ended by insinuating that Naomi… isn’t enough for Jimmy Uso to get it up anymore. Naomi took obvious offense t this and attacked Mandy, and the others jumped in to break it up. The babyfaces pulled Naomi away while Sonya- the other heel, Mandy’s tag team partner, and best friend- pulled Mandy away. When things calmed down and Sonya let Mandy go, Mandy was upset at Sonya for not siding with her. Sonya tried to give the obvious explanation but Mandy was not hearing it and walked off.
I thought this segment was GREAT! Mandy has rarely had the chance to cut promos, but her delivery here was very good. They turned Sonya babyface (or at least started a soft turn), gave Mandy a more defined character, and set up a feud between Mandy and Naomi that will lead to tag team matches which will then hasten the split between Mandy and Sonya in a completely natural manner.
The only two problems I had with this segment were how little concern everyone seems to be showing for Charlotte, who is apparently missing, (although they could follow this up with some sort of thing based on last week’s segment where Charlotte later tells Paige that she didn’t come out because she really doesn’t think she should be on the team), and the fact that this heel turn means that the only heel women on the show are The IIconics (comedy dorks), Mandy Rose (green), and Zelina Vega (mostly a manager).

WINNER GETS TO BE ON TEAM SMACKDOWN AT SURVIVOR SERIES: Samoa Joe vs. Jeff Hardy- 6.75/10
The match was disappointingly short for a main event (less than ten minutes). Bryan and Miz both did guest commentary, and managed to actually be good rather than being annoying. Joe won clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Joe got in Bryan’s face. Miz kept obnoxiously yelling at Bryan to keep his cool so Bryan wound up getting annoyed and attacked Joe. Miz ran in to pull Bryan off so Bryan punched Miz as well. Shane McMahon ran down and tried to pull Bryan off from behind but Bryan threw him down. When Bryan realized that he had thrown Shane and not Joe, he walked off in frustration while Shane looked at him questioningly. If you absolutely must do an angle where you’re worried about Bryan’s ability to get along with everyone than this was fine, but do we really have to do that tired angle?

This was a very mixed-bag show The wrestling was all pretty great, and yet two major matches were still disappointing due to lack of time. A fair number of the segments were great as well, but the insufferable stuff with Miz, Bryan, and Shane, which was the show-long storyline, was terrible and dragged the whole thing down, and the whole SAnitY thing was a huge mistake.
Also, has anyone located Charlotte yet, or should I file a missing persons report?

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Corey Graves put Becky Lynch over for having the most victories of any wrestler on Smackdown this year. Then he referred to this impressive feat as a “lucky streak,” completely burying it by attributing it to luck rather than skill.

[KILLdozer]

Becky is not a face. No matter how you size the kayfabe reasoning, story, or crowd reaction. Within their universe...she IS heel. I agree entirely though...she's the best they've got right now, by far. Under no circumstances should she lose to Ronda "shitass" Rousey. Ever.

[KILLdozer]

I'd call her a tweener heel at best. Does bad things that she shouldn't, all while not giving a fuck about anything or anyone and says very sensible relatable stuff so the crowd loves her.
Plus she's always been very over anyway.

[Big Red Machine]

I'd call her a tweener heel at best. Does bad things that she shouldn't, all while not giving a fuck about anything or anyone and says very sensible relatable stuff so the crowd loves her.
Plus she's always been very over anyway.

Since Evolution she hasn't been a heel at all. Or at least hasn't done anything heelish. I guess she is more of a tweener right now than a babyface, but Ronda is the one coming off like the jerk so far in this feud.

[KILLdozer]

Ronda Rousey always sounds like a giant fuckin' jerk...because they don't realize the way the whole *giant fuckin' tough guy who says offensive things over and over.* thing ends up absolutely arrogant and obnoxious every single time.

[KILLdozer]

I'm still not sure how or why they didn't actually do a Shane McMahon full heel turn here. I didn't even catch the part with Bryan...seemingly solidifying furtherly his..."face-dom." I was just going by Cole completely throwing his actions at Crown Jewel in the garbage. The way he put it over...Idk how you couldn't end up with a turn...

[Big Red Machine]

I was just going by Cole completely throwing his actions at Crown Jewel in the garbage. The way he put it over...Idk how you couldn't end up with a turn...

Cole is a Raw guy.

[KILLdozer]

I was just going by Cole completely throwing his actions at Crown Jewel in the garbage. The way he put it over...Idk how you couldn't end up with a turn...

Cole is a Raw guy.

I understand that and he's the last one I'd ever pay any attention to...it just seemed like a clear cut way of signifying it at the time.

[Big Red Machine]

I was just going by Cole completely throwing his actions at Crown Jewel in the garbage. The way he put it over...Idk how you couldn't end up with a turn...

Cole is a Raw guy.

I understand that and he's the last one I'd ever pay any attention to...it just seemed like a clear cut way of signifying it at the time.

At the time it did, but if that was ever the plan (and it was reported that it was), they have clearly decided not to go that way, and they came up with a way to spin it that makes sense (I mean babyfaces Cole and Renee being unhappy with it makes sense. The idea that Shane is somehow a hero for doing this does not, but Shane has been acting like a heel the whole time he has been GM, and they thought they were booking him as a babyface, so that part of it doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion).

[KILLdozer]

He'll probably turn officially at Survivor Series during the match actually and cost SD.

[KILLdozer]

That topic I posted about this show was actually brief thoughts how they actually DIDN'T do the turn lol.

[cero2k]

Becky will be a face for the next weeks at least for the Smackdown vs RAW build

[KILLdozer]

Yeah, because it's like that old show...."Everybody Hates Rhonda Rousey!"

[KILLdozer]

Did anyone else notice how the survivor series team is literally just the same dudes from the World cup and whatever else that we've been seeing....over, and over, and over again . Is there only like, 5 main eventers on SD?

Where was Rusev btw instead? Injured at Crown Jewel or something?

[Big Red Machine]

Did anyone else notice how the survivor series team is literally just the same dudes from the World cup and whatever else that we've been seeing....over, and over, and over again . Is there only like, 5 main eventers on SD?

There are more than five. Nakamura, Orton, and Jeff all aren't on the team, and that's me not including guys like Rusev as main eventers (even though I think he has the talent to be one).

[KILLdozer]

Did anyone else notice how the survivor series team is literally just the same dudes from the World cup and whatever else that we've been seeing....over, and over, and over again . Is there only like, 5 main eventers on SD?

There are more than five. Nakamura, Orton, and Jeff all aren't on the team, and that's me not including guys like Rusev as main eventers (even though I think he has the talent to be one).

Yeah I was exaggerating a bit saying 5...it just feels like these are the same guys we've been saying in the same spots.