BRM Reviews the 12/13/2013 Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

DANIEL BRYAN vs. ERICK ROWAN (w/the Wyatt Family)- No rating- PERFECT segment.
Does Dragon possibly have a chance of winning at TLC? After watching this, I think it’s possible.

ZEB COULTER PROMO- He talks about a man dressed as Santa coming up to him, holding out his hand, and saying “Feliz Novidad,” and when he says this, Swagger has this perfect look on his face saying “what does that even mean?!” Zeb assumes this man was asking for a money form a hard working REAL American. Awesome promo.

CODY RHODES & GOLDUST vs. THE REAL AMERICANS (w/Jack Swagger)- 6/10
Real Americans win clean, to post-facto justify their tag title shot at TLC.

CENA-ORTON VIDEO PACKAGE- FANTASTIC!

A REPLAY OF THE ENTIRE DEL RIO vs. CARA MATCH FROM RAW- WHY?!

BAD NEWS BARRETT- stupid, as usual.

DAMIEN SANDOW vs. MARK HENRY- 1/10
Big E. Langston was on commentary for this match and he was a very good babyface.
Sabdow got himself intentionally counted out, This did nothing to make me think he has a chance of beating Big E. at the PPV. Then Big E. through him back in the ring so Henry could beat on him some more, so Sandow has no heat now, either. A completely counter-productive segment.

AJ LEE & TAMINA vs. THE BELLA TWINS- 2/10
On commentary, Nattie puts the belt over, but also says that all AJ does is skip around and therefore she is not a worthy champion. Then AJ does what she has often done as champion… make someone tap out in the middle of the ring… and Nattie comes off looking stupid.
The whole booking of this thing was ass-backwards. You should be putting the babyface challenger in the ring to get her a win and make her look strong going into the title match and you put the heel champion on commentary to take pot-shots at her to increase our desire to see the babyface win the title!
Also, who thought it was a good idea to job the Bellas out in tow minutes right after they won the Diva of the Year Slammy? Some “Diva of the Year” they must be.

JOHN CENA PROMO- he says they made history on Monday night because both the WWE Champion and the World Heavyweight Champion both willingly gave their belts away… while that’s true for the physical belt, that’s not really what went on. As a whole, Cena’s promo was very good.

THE USOS vs. SETH ROLLINS & ROMAN REIGNS (w/Dean Ambrose)- 6/10
Good match. Reigns and Rollins work together perfectly, and Rollins mock’s Punk’s GTS pose.
CM PUNK PROMO ON THE TRON- AWESOME… except for the end when Punk stuck one of his fists out to mock the Shield… and the fist he stuck out was the one that has the “drug” part of “drug free” tattooed across his knuckles. Whoops.

BIG SHOW (w/Rey Mysterio Jr.) vs. RYBACK (w/Curtis Axel)- DUD!
Ryback gets beat in two minutes… and not even with the knockout punch. I guess he’s really not that tough. And now Axel gets made to look like a chump, too. I think the right thing to do here would have been to give Rey and Show a win over a team that wasn’t part of the title match (As for Axel-Back, I’d have them cut a promo saying that they will win the belts because they’ve already beaten the champs)

BRAY WYATT PROMO- okay

ALBERTO DEL RIO vs. KOFI KINGSTON- Miz jumps Kofi from behind on his way to the ring and gives him a Skull-Crushing Finale.

ORTON APOLOGIZES TO HUNTER & STEPH- A good segment, still leaving us with questions about who the Authority will side with.

Overall, this was a pretty good go-home show. It hit all of the points, but some of the ways they tried to hype up some of the matches backfired. A lot of the other hype was great, though. I certainly can’t wait for TLC.