BRM Reviews the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

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

BRM Reviews the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 22nd, '19, 22:13

OPENING SEGMENT- meh
Becky Lynch comes out and cuts a great promo on Asuka. In particular, her comment that Asuka seems completely unbothered that she won due to interference really is something that Asuka needs to respond to.
Becky was interrupted by Asuka, who got in Becky’s face and raised the belt and yelled at Becky in Japanese. Asuka’s yelling was almost entirely drowned out by the arena full of people chanting for Becky.
Charlotte came out to say that she would win the Royal Rumble and then made grandiose comments about how she might wind up choosing to challenge either Sasha or Ronda or Asuka or Becky. Charlotte came off like an attention-started jerk here, but the real heel turned out to be Asuka, who attacked Becky from behind for no reason. Referees and road agents came out to do the usual HORRENDOUS job of separating them. I’ve noticed this tends to happen a lot more with the women, and the only reason I can think of is WWE not allowing male-on-female violence. If that policy is going to extend even to the security guards who job it is to break up fights then shouldn’t they hire some female security guards to break up the fights between the women?
I mean COME ON! We’ve got four referees two road agents, and three announcers (two of whom have been trained as wrestlers), and between the NINE OF THEM the best they can do is to yell at Becky very severely and occasionally have one or two of them gently try to pull her away?
Anyway, they finally got Becky to leave Asuka alone and go backstage and we went to a commercial break… and when we came back, they were fighting again! It was backstage this time. The same group of referees and road agents finally decided to actually try to pull them apart, and eventually did. Why did you do this before?

NAOMI VS. MANDY VIDEO PACKAGE- feud-recap video packages are always nice, but they clealr yput zero thought into this one. They went through the first six weeks or so in about ten seconds, with the only verbiage being “for weeks, Mandy Rose has been taunting Naomi.” *SWITCH TO NEXT IMAGE* “It continued to worsen.” Why are you not using freakin’ clips? It’s your own footage!
The rest of this was written by someone who was clearly REALLY trying to impress his/her high school English teacher. It had lines like “the tables were turned on the temptress.” Uch.

NAOMI vs. MANDY ROSE (w/Sonya Deville)- 2/10
They began by brawling in the aisle. Naomi dominated the entire match until Sonya Deville interfered and gave Mandy the win. This made Naomi look like she has the proverbial glass jaw.

REY MYSTERIO JR. PROMO- An EXCELLENT promo building up both his chances of winning the Royal Rumble and explaining to us exactly why we should think that the outcome of his match against Almas later tonight will be different from what happened last week.

THE MIZ (w/Shane McMahon) vs. CESARO (w/Sheamus)- 4/10
It occurs to me that in most cases, you would get the two partners who didn’t wrestle last week facing off the second week, but instead we’ve got Miz (who wrestled last week) taking on Cesaro. And Shane is the one with booking power, so this feels like Shane having Miz do his dirty work for him instead of stepping up and fighting like a good babyface should. This could have been fixed with a quick Tweet from Miz making the challenge to Cesaro (and then ten seconds of the announcers’ time being spent to tell us about it), but we didn’t get anything along those lines.
We got a tease of a similar situation to last week’s finish but instead of the heel on the outside it was Shane getting knocked down (and by Sheamus, not the legal competitor in the match), and MIz’s roll-up didn’t get him the win. The finish came about ten seconds later, which saw Shemaus kick Miz in the head behind the referee’s back and Cesaro hit the Gotch-Style Neutralizer for the win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent PPV build, I guess
After the match, Shane attacked Sheamus on the outside. Cesaro went to make the heel save but old man Shane beat him up, too. Shane set Cesaro up for a diving elbow drop through the announcers’ table but Sheamus pushed him off the top rope to the floor. Sheamus then took out Miz and the heels beat Shane up, too, then slammed Shane down onto Miz, sending both of them through the announcers’ table. Paramedics then checked on the downed Shane and Miz. I didn’t really care about this due to the fact that I find Shane intolerable, but the mechanics for a decent go-home segment were here, I suppose.

SAMOA JOE VS. MUSTAFA ALI VIDEO PACKAGE- Um… did I hit on the mute button by accident? Wait. No. This part of the video package was just silent because some moron thought that made it more artsy.
We then got Mustafa Ali cutting one of his usual promos in the street, interspersed with clips of the beat-down that emphasized the things Ali was saying. This part of the video package was EXCELLENT.

Paramedics are still tending to Miz and Shane. We were shown Vince watching backstage, because it’s not like he, as the promoter, would have any reason to go out there and check on an injured talent, right (and even more so when one of them is his son)?

VINCE MCMAHON MODERATES A DISCUSSION BETWEEN AJ STYLES AND DANIEL BRYAN- great segment
Vince purposely withheld from making any sort of comment on the attack we just saw other than to say that he thinks Sunday’s tag title match will be very exciting.
They came out and Bryan refused to get in the ring with AJ because AJ attacked him last week. They cut great promos on each other until AJ got fed up with Bryan’s cowardice and went to fight him. Bryan eventually managed to use Vince as a human shield, then take advantage by hitting AJ with a Busaiku Knee.

R-TRUTH & CARMELLA BACKSTAGE- Another segment where the joke is that Truth is dumb.

CAMRELLA & CHARLOTTE BACKSTAGE- terrible.
Carmella angrily asked Charlotte “do you think you can just waltz your way into this year’s Royal Rumble match and win, just like you waltz your way into everything around here?” This was a stupid comment. While Carmella does technically have a point that Charlotte did nothing to earn her Royal Rumble spot, 99% of the other competitors in both the men’s and women’s Royal Rumbles didn’t, either. The only people who did anything to earn their spots where Truth and Carmella, but at the same time, the spot they earned was not just any spot, but the absolute best spot, so it can be argued that they were going to be in the match no matter what and the thing that they actually earned was the advantageous #30 spot.
Carmella followed her first stupid comment up with an even stupider one, telling Charlotte “you weren’t even in last year’s Royal Rumble!” Charlotte wasn’t in last year’s match because SHE DIDN’T NEED TO BE IN IT BECAUSE SHE WAS ALREADY THE CHAMPION!
Carmella then began to lecture Charlotte on how difficult a Royal Rumble match is, including such gems as “this isn’t just a match: it’s a tornado.” Carmella began to gesticulate wildly while doing so, as Charlotte alternated between looking bored and laughing at Carmella’s stupidity. Charlotte then cut a great promo that made Carmella look like a total jobber.

SAMOA JOE vs. MUSTAFA ALI- 7/10
A great bully heel vs. underdog babyface match with Joe getting the clean win via Coquina Clutch.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS THE NEW DAY- bad
She asks if they are prepared to eliminate each other from the Royal Rumble. They complained about always being asked this question, leading to a stupid comedy spot where after Xavier asked if Tony Chimmel was going to ask them the question next, Tony Chimmel did indeed show up with a microphone and was shooed away by New Day.
Normally I would agree that this is a stupid question to be asking, but with all of the promos they’ve cut about this, New Day honestly feel like they’re nutjobs who think that if they count as one person and that “they” can win the Rumble and get a three-on-one title shot at WrestleMania.

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH WITH ZELINA VEGA BARRED FROM RINGSIDE: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas- 8.5/10
I must have watched that Canadian Destroyer in slow motion ten straight times. The fluidity of the movements were just AMAZING. The match was awesome until the finish, which I will get into in a moment, but first I want to share with you my initial thought upon hearing that this match was booked (I promise this all ties in with the finish): Why are we rushing this match?
Use this week for a promo, have Rey eliminate Andrade, then have a post-match attack by Andrade next week, then do something the week after where Rey gets a win but Almas tries to come up with some BS reason to negate it, then the next week have them agree to settle it in a 2 out of 3 Falls Match at Elimination Chamber that Sunday.

But no. Instead WWE decided to give us this match and then give it an extremely frustrating non-finish when Samoa Joe ran in for the DQ because he wants to beat people up before the Royal Rumble. Supposedly this will give Joe some sort of advantage in the Rumble, except that we all know that neither man will be selling this beating one bit come Sunday. Hell… if you’re you going to do this stupid DQ finish then why even make this 2 out of 3 falls? If the same result could have been achieved with neither guy getting pinned, why would you instead choose to have both guys get pinned?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Joe starts to cut a promo but Randy Orton runs in and nails him with an RKO. I don’t even care at this point. I’m so annoyed at them doing that stupid DQ finish. You couldn’t have just had Randy RKO Joe after Joe’s match?

This show was like the opposite of last night’s Raw. That show had mostly meh go-home stuff but they had an EXCELLENT go-home segment in the main event, resulting in me feeling a lot more positive about the show than I otherwise would have. Tonight had mostly good go-home segments, but the final segment left me annoyed and frustrated.
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
cero2k
Site Admin
Posts: 20950
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 11:32

Re: BRM Reviews the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by cero2k » Jan 23rd, '19, 00:03

Big Red Machine wrote: Jan 22nd, '19, 22:13

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH WITH ZELINA VEGA BARRED FROM RINGSIDE: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas- 8.5/10
I must have watched that Canadian Destroyer in slow motion ten straight times. The fluidity of the movements were just AMAZING. The match was awesome until the finish, which I will get into in a moment, but first I want to share with you my initial thought upon hearing that this match was booked (I promise this all ties in with the finish): Why are we rushing this match?
Use this week for a promo, have Rey eliminate Andrade, then have a post-match attack by Andrade next week, then do something the week after where Rey gets a win but Almas tries to come up with some BS reason to negate it, then the next week have them agree to settle it in a 2 out of 3 Falls Match at Elimination Chamber that Sunday.

But no. Instead WWE decided to give us this match and then give it an extremely frustrating non-finish when Samoa Joe ran in for the DQ because he wants to beat people up before the Royal Rumble. Supposedly this will give Joe some sort of advantage in the Rumble, except that we all know that neither man will be selling this beating one bit come Sunday. Hell… if you’re you going to do this stupid DQ finish then why even make this 2 out of 3 falls? If the same result could have been achieved with neither guy getting pinned, why would you instead choose to have both guys get pinned?
because smackdown, and WWE for that matter, doesn't have anything else to fall on to make the show worth talking about. They found a little pot of gold and they're gonna milk it as much as possible like they've done with everything.
Image

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

Re: BRM Reviews the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 23rd, '19, 01:37

cero2k wrote: Jan 23rd, '19, 00:03
Big Red Machine wrote: Jan 22nd, '19, 22:13

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH WITH ZELINA VEGA BARRED FROM RINGSIDE: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas- 8.5/10
I must have watched that Canadian Destroyer in slow motion ten straight times. The fluidity of the movements were just AMAZING. The match was awesome until the finish, which I will get into in a moment, but first I want to share with you my initial thought upon hearing that this match was booked (I promise this all ties in with the finish): Why are we rushing this match?
Use this week for a promo, have Rey eliminate Andrade, then have a post-match attack by Andrade next week, then do something the week after where Rey gets a win but Almas tries to come up with some BS reason to negate it, then the next week have them agree to settle it in a 2 out of 3 Falls Match at Elimination Chamber that Sunday.

But no. Instead WWE decided to give us this match and then give it an extremely frustrating non-finish when Samoa Joe ran in for the DQ because he wants to beat people up before the Royal Rumble. Supposedly this will give Joe some sort of advantage in the Rumble, except that we all know that neither man will be selling this beating one bit come Sunday. Hell… if you’re you going to do this stupid DQ finish then why even make this 2 out of 3 falls? If the same result could have been achieved with neither guy getting pinned, why would you instead choose to have both guys get pinned?
because smackdown, and WWE for that matter, doesn't have anything else to fall on to make the show worth talking about. They found a little pot of gold and they're gonna milk it as much as possible like they've done with everything.
Yeah, I know you're right but... can't we dream that they will eventually find their way back to best practice?
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 the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by KILLdozer » Jan 25th, '19, 09:41

I know I'm not the only who realizes Naomi is literally the embodiment of the stereotypical black woman in every way right.

From the big fake hair, to the verbiage she uses, pretty rascist really.
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 the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 25th, '19, 09:57

KILLdozer wrote: Jan 25th, '19, 09:41 I know I'm not the only who realizes Naomi is literally the embodiment of the stereotypical black woman in every way right.

From the big fake hair, to the verbiage she uses, pretty rascist really.
My guess is that the big fake her is her own personal choice. We haven't heard stories of them micromanaging women's appearances the way they have with men in the past (and we haven't even heard it about men in quite a long time. Even CJ Parker's tattoo story was years ago), and I don't take Vince and Dunn to be the kind of guys who are into women with non-traditional hair colors, and considering that a good third of the roster seems to have it, I'm going to assume that Naomi's "big fake hair" is what Naomi wants her hair to be.

I can't speak to the verbiage, either, but she is on Smackdown, where there seems to be a bit more freedom about such things, so that might be on her, too.
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
cero2k
Site Admin
Posts: 20950
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 11:32

Re: BRM Reviews the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by cero2k » Jan 25th, '19, 10:09

Everyone has big fake hair in WWE, that's why it's always flying around during matches.
Image

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

Re: BRM Reviews the 1/22/2019 Smackdown (well... that was frustrating)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 25th, '19, 10:25

cero2k wrote: Jan 25th, '19, 10:09 Everyone has big fake hair in WWE, that's why it's always flying around during matches.
It's good for selling.
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 15 guests