BRM Reviews the 10/25/2016 Smackdown on Nickname Tuesday!

[Big Red Machine]

T-Minus 14 days until Alexa Bliss! becomes the WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion:

T-Plus 16 days since Alexa Bliss! should have become the WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion:

DEAN AMBROSE & JAMES ELLSWORTH BACKSTAGE- very bad.
Douchebag Dean brags about his reckless driving. Clearly he is a role model for small children everywhere. Also, he was an asshole to Ellsworth. Ellsworth, apparently being a good guy, wants to help Dean against AJ tonight, but Dean wants him to stay far away.
If Ellsworth beat AJ against last week, why is he not getting a rematch for the WWE World Heavyweight Title?

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Bray Wyatt vs. Kane- DUD!
Harper is not out here at ringside with Bray. I assume this is being done specifically so that he can “shock” us by magically teleporting to ringside. Mauro refers to Kane and Bray as “two of WWE’s scariest entities.” I can’t deny that. Kane is Kane, and every time Bray shows up on the screen I worry something that is about to happen will cause me to have an aneurysm.
This went exactly as you’d think it would. I even correctly predicted when the magical Wyatt bullsh*t would begin. Harper’s new gimmick appears to be that he mimes shooting arrows. Also as I was able to predict, Randy “Bad Friend” Orton was not at ringside to help Kane when we got back from our commercial break. Bad Friend Randy finally shows up during a double-down. When Harper backed down from Randy for no reason I sarcastically said “and now he’s going to RKO Kane.” And he did. “Bad Friend” Randy indeed. This angle has now descended to the depths of being so bad and so hackneyed that I predicted a supposedly shocking and dramatic moment via sarcasm. Between the magic and the stupid and the boredom I have decided to take the kid-gloves off and gives this a DUD!

CHARLY INTERVIEWS AJ STYLES- No, Charly, what we just saw wasn’t unexpected.
I sure hope I get to see Awesome AJ beat up Douchebag Dean and Jobber James tonight.

Becky Lynch will return to cut a promo tonight. I assume she’ll be handing the belt over to Alexa Bliss! because she failed to make her scheduled title defense, proving herself to be an unworthy champion.


You know what? I want to actually have some way to enjoy this show, so I hereby officially declare today to be NICKNAME TUESDAY!



WOMEN’S SEGMENT- great
We start off with Competent Renee interviewing the returning Unworthy Becky. Before she can start to say anything of substance, Uncrowned Champion Alexa showed up to save this segment.
I can see other people not liking the promos, but I thought they were pretty good. All of the stuff after that, with the spray-paint, though… that was some old-school sh*t right there.
(Where I’d probably go from here is have Becky be out for a week due to Alexa ramming her injured back into the post. Next week Alexa can cut promos saying that Becky is once again faking it and insisting that she won’t show up to defend the title next week, and if that does happen that Bryan and Shane strip Becky of the title and award it to Alexa. Obviously Becky will show up for the title defense, but this will also let us get over that Becky’s back is a weak-point that Alexa can target.
In the match Alexa will do something that so infuriates Becky that Becky doesn’t break a five-count and gets DQed. The build to Survivor Series would continue with Alexa attacking Becky from behind and stealing the belt, declaring herself to be the rightful champion. This would build to a match at Survivor Series where Becky can lose the belt on a DQ or a count-out. Becky would retain her title.)

ASCENSION PROMO- they want to be on the Smackdown Survivor Series team. The promo was fine.

HYPE BROS. PROMO- fine.

SURVIVOR SERIES QUALIFYING MATCH: The Hype Bros. vs. The Ascension- 3/10
OMFG QUALIFIERS! A system that makes sense! Unfortunately, this whole big dumb match is at the expense of the tag titles themselves, which won’t be defended on the PPV, as the champs will already be qualified. Annoying Babyfaces pin Annoying Heels to win.

CHARLY INTERVIEWS RANDY ORTON- Bad Friend Randy might have just joined The Wyatt Family. I assume he’s just going to turn back on them and it will be a ruse all along because Bad Friend Randy is a bad friend.

BRYAN & NATTIE BACKSTAGE- who could possibly care?
Actually Shows Up To Work Bryan talks on the phone with Absent Shane. Inexplicably Babyface Nattie shows up and really wants to be on the Women’s Survivor Series team. This was a clever way for the to plug Raw’s PPV on Smackdown, but it led me down the following line of thought: If this is really the “war” they want us to think it is, why wouldn’t Smackdown just book a bunch of HIAC matches on free TV tonight to screw with Raw’s PPV? Wouldn’t that be a perfect way for Raw to “steal their thunder” or whatever Nattie was concerned about Raw doing to them?
Nattie says the best way to do things is to have Nattie be the captain of Smackdown’s team, because apparently that’s a thing that matters. Bryan makes tonight’s Inexplicably Babyface Nattie vs. Independent Nikki match for the captaincy, but says that whoever loses won’t get to be on the team at all. WHY? If these are the two who are most qualified to be captain, wouldn’t you want both of them on you team, regardless of who the captain is? If you need to cut someone, why not cut Bad At Wrestling Carmella or Useless Eva? Trying To Be Smart Otunga tried to come up with a reason for this (that Nikki and Nattie would never be able to coexist), but shouldn’t that apply even more so to Nattie and Becky, or Becky and Alexa, or Nikki and Carmella?

SURVIVOR SERIES QUALIFYING MATCH IN WHICH THE WINNER BECOMES THE TEAM CAPTAIN: Nikki Bella vs. Natalya- 4/10
Independent Nikki defeats Apparently Just Faking Being A Babyface Nattie with Super Boyfriend Cena’s submission finisher, to win her the worthless captaincy of a team that will compete in a pointless match.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
Dastardly Carmella attacks Independent Nikki from behind for the 835th time in this two-month feud. Then she hits Nikki with a move that Nikki hasn’t used as a finisher in years. Did WWE just forget that Nikki isn’t Brie?

CURIOUS CHARLY INTERVIEWS DOUCHEBAG DEAN- lame

MIZ PROMO- Suave Miz (yeah, these are getting lame. I know I’m out of ideas) cuts a promo saying that Ziggler as champ buries the belt. Fighting Champion Dolph comes out and says that he is a fighting champion so he will give Miz his rematch right now. Miz says he will have his rematch when he is good and ready. He and the Spirit Spirit Squad threaten to attack Dolph but Dolph is reinforced by Annoying Heath Slater and Running Mate Rhyno.
Honest Miz then says many true things that result in us getting a…

WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Heath Slater & Rhyno(c) vs. Spirit Squad- 3.75/10
Doing His Job Daniel made this match official during the commercial break. Miz and Dolph both decided to do the announcers’ jobs so for this match we had five people doing commentary. Forcibly-Mute Maryse did not get to do commentary. Whether this is because she is a girl or because she is French Canadian is debatable, but either way I’ll assume one of Kevin Dunn’s prejudices is at work.
Honest Miz said nothing untrue while burying Dolph on commentary. They had a confrontation. Running Mate Rhyno ran into My Least Favorite Wrestler Mikey with the GORE for the pin.

DOUCHEBAG DEAN & JOBBER JAMES BACKSTAGE- Jobber James wants to help Douchebag Dean defeat Honest AJ. They are so totally the heels here.

IF DEAN WINS HE BECOMES #1 CONTENDER: Dean Ambrose (w/James Ellsworth) vs. AJ Styles- 7.5/10
They had a great back-and-forth match until the heels tried to cheat by having Jobber James attack Honest AJ, but keen-eyed Chioda caught it and rightfully disqualified Douchebag Dean.

A meh episode of Smackdown, though mostly saved by a strong main event and a strong women’s segment.