BRM Reviews the 2/5/2019 Smackdown (so Becky has to be a heel now, right?)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- TERRIBLE!
They showed us a replay of the opening segment from last night, Graves highlighted that Steph kicked Becky in the knee “in self-defense.” Tom Phillips responded that Becky “might question whether that was self-defense.” If Becky thinks Steph kicking her in the knee wasn’t self-defense then Becky is a certified delusional heel, not a babyface.
Charlotte came out and cut a promo on Becky, then offered herself up as a replacement opponent for Ronda if Becky isn’t healthy. Becky showed up in the crowd. Charlotte said “it’s one thing to steal my dad’s catchphrase, but it’s another to steal Roman Reigns’ entrance.” I thought this line was hilarious, but it got absolutely no reaction from the live crowd.
So Becky hops the barricade, and thankfully several security guards were right there. Of course, they just let her walk right past them. Way to do your jobs, fellas. Adam Pearce and his squad of referees showed up. Charlotte and Becky continued to yell at each other. Becky also somehow got a working microphone. Triple H came out and ordered Becky to go home. He even sent Charlotte away to stop her from flicking matches at this powder keg with her mocking antics in the background.
Becky tells Hunter that she “doesn’t trust” this, to which Hunter responds “you don’t have to trust it; it is what it is,” and once again orders her to see the doctor or go home. If Hunter’s line here sounds unnecessarily ominous and evil to you, that’s by design, but the problem with that design is that the line itself is so unnatural. It’s way too evil for babyface Hunter, and it’s too overtly evil for heel master strategist Hunter. A much more normal response to Becky’s comment would be to ask why Becky doesn’t trust the company/doctors, and the reason Hunter can’t ask that question is because Becky’s only response is the same one she gave to Steph last night, which makes her sound like some sort of conspiracy theorist because we haven’t seen any kayfabe evidence that there is any sort of plan for either Charlotte vs. Ronda at Mania or just to keep Becky down.
After giving Becky the ultimatum to see the doctor or go home, Hunter goes to leave. Becky gets his attention again by asking “how’s Steph?” Because “hey, remember when I assaulted your wife last night?” totally isn’t a heel thing to say. And that smirk on Becky’s face isn’t making it any better.
Hunter accuses Becky of being “a self-destructor, afraid of failure” and “a martyr looking for a way out.” He frames the entire invasion of Raw as a “way out” of the Survivor Series match and says Becky was hoping to get hurt, and says that she is not seeing the doctor so that she can have a “way out” of facing Ronda, and wonders if her knee is really even hurt at all. This seemed to me like an excellent tactic to motivate Becky to go to the doctor and get checked out by painting her as a coward if she didn’t do everything in her power to get the Mania match.
Becky responded to this by slapping Hunter in the face. Meanwhile, Adam Pearce and the referees (excellent wrestling-related band name) just stand there and take no action to restrain Becky even after she has proven herself to once again be physically violent. And oh my G-d that smirk on Becky’s face is such a heel smirk. That’s the smirk of someone thinking “I know you can’t touch me because you don’t want to lose your deal with Mattel, and also because you know I’m actually hurt to some degree and actually want me on the WrestleMania card because you know I’m a valuable asset to the company and thus don’t want to risk exacerbating my injury.”
In TWO SEGMENTS, they have made Becky Lynch into a complete and total heel and destroyed my desire to see her defeat Ronda Rousey- or anyone else, for that matter- at WrestleMania.

LUKE GALLOWS & KARL ANDERSON vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA & RUSEV (w/Lana)- 4.75/10
The heels worked well together and won. After the match they seemed amenable to teaming together in the future.

MUSTAFA ALI PROMO- fine

PAIGE PLUGS HER MOVIE- it’s the same clip we see every damn time

USOS PROMO- fine

RANDY ORTON vs. MUSTAFA ALI- 7/10
Randy cut a decent in-set promo, but one that felt like it required Ali to either win or get a major and uncharacteristic post-match show of respect from Randy or else it will come across as a burial.
They had a great match in which Ali got in a lot of offense but Randy pulled him off the top rope and into an RKO.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Samoa Joe assaulted both men after the match. I have a feeling we’re going to be getting a lot of this sort of thing until Elimination Chamber, because G-d forbid we put some actual effort into building stories for the individual wrestlers about their desire to win the title going into the title match. Daniel Bryan came out afterwards (w/Erick Rowan) and had a stare-down with Joe.

SAMOA JOE PROMO- AWESOME!
“Physics work a little different in my world: for every action, there must be an opposite and overwhelming reaction.” LOVED IT!

DANIEL BRYAN & ERICK ROWAN PROMO- Bryan was a total babyface to the hometown crowd, and made almost no effort to change that. Rowan got to talk and was perfectly fine.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS JEFF HARDY- AJ showed up to be a jerk to Jeff for seemingly no reason.

NAOMI & CARMELLA PROMO- fine
Naomi responds to Mandy Rose’s comments from last week and Carmella explains why Naomi picked her to be her tag team partner.

IICONICS PROMO- Holy crap they weren’t a joke for once!

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS MANDY ROSE & SONYA DEVILLE- Both Mandy and Sonya were great here. Also, I think Sonya referred to their team as “Fire & Desire” which is a name I wholly approve of. Pro wrestling in 2019 is suffering from a lack of “Vicious & Delicious” type of team names (and no, “Fabulous Glow” does not count. It’s too lazy. If it were anywhere near as cool-sounding as Totally Buff I’d give it a pass, but it’s not.)

THE IICONICS vs. CARMELLA & NAOMI vs. FIRE & DESIRE (Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville)- 4/10
The story of this match was Mandy dodging Naomi. She eventually hit Mandy with the delayed double-underhook sit-out facebuster. Given Mandy’s character and the way Graves fawns over her, if they’re going to have her do a delayed double-underhook sit-out facebuster, they might as well just have her do the spinning version and call it Angel’s Wings. It works with the gimmick, and I enjoy having that sort of continuity in move names across promotions when possible.

ANDRADE ALMAS & ZELINA VEGA PROMO- great!

ASUKA VIDEO PACKAGE- this was her only appearance on TV since her big win over Becky Lynch at Royal Rumble. She is the SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S CHAMPION.


JEFF HARDY vs. DANIEL BRYAN (w/Erick Rowan)- 6.75/10
Hey were having a great match and Jeff hit the Swanton on Bryan… and Rowan pulled him out of the ring for the f*cking DQ. In the main event. AGAIN. Four out of the last five WWE TV main events have now ended in a DQ (SD this week and two weeks ago, and Raw both this week and last week). And in between then, we had a DQ in a PPV world title match with Bryan and AJ.
Cue a series of run-ins by Joe, Orton, Ali, Rowan, and AJ. Bryan and Rowan escaped to the back, where Bryan cut a delusional heel promo insisting that he defended his title all by himself and that Rowan is his “intellectual peer” and not his “bodyguard.” The show then closed with AJ standing in the ring and pointing at the WrestleMania sign.
I wonder how much it costs them every year to build the sign and then schlep it everywhere they go for over two months.

Aside from the horrible Becky segment this was a pretty good episode of Smackdown, let down by a frustrating ending. That being said, it was more than a little weird that only one of the four champions appeared on the show, and of the ones who didn’t, only one of them had an excuse (R-Truth was injured from last week’s attack).

[KILLdozer]

That HHH shit was ridiculous. If anything it was just a super long, drawn out heel turn. He just literally repeated himself for 20 minutes. I'd hit him too.

[XIV]

I’m still rooting for Becky, but instead of letting her continue as the “anti-authority doesn’t care babyface” they’ve shown once again that they don’t really know what to do with it and meddle with it so that she has now said and done heeling things.

Did Steph provoke Becky into attack? No.
Did Hunter provoke Becky into attack? Maybe, but a smarter person would have found a way around just slapping him.

But the fact that the segments ended up being about Steph and Hunter was a huge step backwards in my view because Becky has no real beef with either of them, except them wanting her medically cleared so she can rightfully claim her match at the biggest event of the year.

If my bosses gave even 25% of the concern they’ve given Becky, I’d be chuffed and motivated to work.

[Big Red Machine]

I’m still rooting for Becky, but instead of letting her continue as the “anti-authority doesn’t care babyface” they’ve shown once again that they don’t really know what to do with it and meddle with it so that she has now said and done heeling things.

Did Steph provoke Becky into attack? No.
Did Hunter provoke Becky into attack? Maybe, but a smarter person would have found a way around just slapping him.

But the fact that the segments ended up being about Steph and Hunter was a huge step backwards in my view because Becky has no real beef with either of them, except them wanting her medically cleared so she can rightfully claim her match at the biggest event of the year.

McMahons always revert to being heels. Vince just can't conceive of doing things any other way.

[KILLdozer]

With the above said ...it's now obviously going to be "Heel authority v Becky Lynch Road to WM."

Because sure, why not. There's obviously no other story in WWE when it comes to the hottest face in the company the people are behind when the title is involved.

[XIV]

With the above said ...it's now obviously going to be "Heel authority v Becky Lynch Road to WM."

Because sure, why not. There's obviously no other story in WWE when it comes to the hottest face in the company the people are behind when the title is involved.

Instead of maybe going with a better story of having Becky doing everything she can to be fit to face Ronda after having the chance taken away from her before. Instead they show her as stubborn and probably going against her contract (as all performers will be subject to medical clearance).

It’s just a bit silly and avoidable.