BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 2nd, '17, 00:53

THE WOMEN CUT PROMOS TO HYPE UP THE MAIN EVENT- We open with short, pre-taped promos to hype up tonight’s five-way elimination #1 contendership main event. I love the idea but the execution here was G-D AWFUL.
We started off with Charlotte, who is wearing some sort of utterly ridiculous green get-up that looked like something a mermaid would wear except that it also had a goofy feathered back like Billie Kay or Sienna would wear (hey! Wait a minute… Sienna’s non-TNA name is Allysin Kay! Maybe they’re related and one of them wears the other’s hand-me-down goofy feathered things?). She looked like idiot. Like she was playing the role of a plant in a play at a community college. She said she was “genetically superior to any woman in the world” and therefore she would win tonight’s match. It sounded so unnatural it might as well have been astro-turf.
Then we got to Carmella. While she wasn’t dressed like an idiot (well… not more than she normally is), she got the following line to recite: “I’ve got so much class you might as well address me as ‘the teacher.’ And tonight I take my opponents to school.” Did WWE Creative hire the announcer from Wrestlicious?
Nattie recited her (uncle’s) catchphrase… then gave us all an awkward wink. Becky told us that “I represent the fighting Irish,” which she had to say in case there was somehow someone watching this too dumb to figure it out based on the red hair, green background, and strong accent. She then continued, saying, “but I don’t need the luck of the Irish to be victorious.” Whoever wrote these should have been flogged and then fired and then doused with spoiled milk.
Tamina’s promo was something that didn’t sound atrocious, but her delivery was a reminder of why she has spent the large majority of her WWE run NOT talking.
So yeah. These were all just terrible. The only one that wasn’t terrible was Nattie’s (until the wink) and that was the only thing that WWE Creative didn’t come up with… because it originated well before there were these so-called “writers” back when Nattie’s much more famous uncle was wrestling. And these were pre-tapes, too, so the fact that they made air like this means that Vince thought these were actually good. That’s a scary thought.

KEVIN OWENS’ HIGHLIGHT REEL- He’s hosting the Highlight Reel and also doing Jericho’s slow talking. You know… not the stuff that got him over as a heel. The slow-talking is made even worse by him having to speak in awful WWE-speak. If he wins Money in the Bank *points to hanging briefcase* he’ll get a “championship opportunity” at any time. I know they this dumb sh*t every week but it’s really bothering me tonight and I don’t usually comment on it so tonight’s I’m going to wind up doing that, likely in a very annoyed manner, because I honestly cannot fathom how Vince came to the conclusion that forcing everyone to say the words “championship opportunity” instead of “title shot” or “title match” was a good idea. It sounds completely unnatural and it’s not like there is any technical difference between them, is there? I can almost understand the “sports entertainment” branding as something for the corporate side of the company, and same with “WWE Universe.” Those are terms for outside consumption. The problem comes when you are forcing them into the TV product when they either don’t sound natural or when it would just make more sense to say “wrestling.” But “championship opportunity” is something that only people already watching the show will hear. The people hearing you say “championship opportunity” are not the people who you need to call yourself “sports entertainment” around because they have a negative view of and/or don’t understand professional wrestling. The only people hearing you say this are your own fans! And it’s not like it there is even any difference between “title match” and “championship opportunity” (unless you’re doing something stupid like that Lockbox Challenge that Russo booked where Angelina Love won the Knockouts Title by opening the correct box in a game of random chance) so why would you force everyone to use this horrible, unnatural phrase instead of saying the thing that has been said for years?

Bad writing (theirs, obviously, not mine. Mine is excellent) is going to be a theme of this review. This whole “United States of America Champion” thing falls into that category, too. It’s SOOOOOOO dumb. The name of the belt is the “WWE United States Championship.” There is absolutely no need to add in the word “America.” All it does is make Owens sound dumb when he says it and make it sound worse when he calls himself “the new face of America.”
Owens then brings out his guest, “WWE’s resident rockstar; the artist known as Shinsuke Nakamura.” Why can’t he just be Nakamura? You don’t have to tell us how cool he is. We can see it for ourselves! And the “artist” part of that is just terrible. If you’re not, like, painting or something, then that shouldn’t be your nickname. I’m not just talking about Nakamura here. This is also aimed at Kyle O’Reilly and anyone else who has been using it as part of a nickname.
Then Owens actually started to talk like himself and this got much better. Nakamura didn’t get two whole words out before Baron Corbin came out to interrupt him. He shows clips of himself assaulting Sami Zayn last week (he didn’t show the part where he lost, which was good- and the announcers did their jobs by making sure we all knew about it). More talking happened. Owens was good and Corbin was terrible. One of his promos could put a hyper six year old to sleep in the middle of a heavy metal concert. I guess calling Owens “Cartmen” is going to be a thing now because AJ said it once and it was kind of funny, so of course that means it will get funnier every time someone says it, right?
Then Nakamura got to talk. He was pretty good. I’m not sure if his odd pauses are him trying to do a quirky Nakamura thing or just him trying to remember the right English word and covering for it by turning it into a quirky Nakamura thing. I actually had forgotten that he pinned Owens last week- or that they had even wrestled.
Fighting happened. Nakamura held his own against two heels for a moment but got overwhelmed. Sami Zayn showed up to make the save and cut a very good promo. He wants a tag team match right now. Shane apparently authorized it during the commercial so we got…

SAMI ZAYN & SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. KEVIN OWENS & BARON CORBIN- 6.75/10
JBL has got lots of facts for us tonight. He is fond of pointing out that Dolph is the only one of these guys who has ever been in a Money In The Bank Ladder Match before which 1) isn’t true, as Owens and Zayn were in last year’s, and 2) doesn’t explain why a Money In The Bank Ladder Match is different from any other Ladder Match. You’re climbing a ladder to pull down a MacGuffin. What makes the MITB distinction matter at all when you’re talking about experience?
A very good tag team match with Zayn as the babyface in peril. Credit where it’s due: the story of this Corbin vs. Zayn feud made every Zayn roll-up on Corbin feel like a real false finish. The actual finish was the heels arguing after one accidentally hit the other costing them the match, which does a fine job of building some heat between those two guys, but I’m worried that we’re going to spend the next three weeks (or however long it is) getting this exact same sort of thing over and over again with none of it really feeling like it means anything because it has no consequences.

USOS PROMO- good heel stuff. Then New Day showed up showed up to ruin my day (okay. Fine. That opening segment already did that. But they did show up to make it worse).
Tom Phillips said that New Day was “an incredible acquisition for Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan” which feels like such a bullsh*t thing to say because the utter lack of explanation for anything that happened in the Superstar Shakeup makes it feel like Shane and Bryan didn’t do a thing to “acquire” New Day. New Day just fell into their laps by random chance. Talking happened. I think The Usos’ “Uso crazy” gimmick works for me because they have started to slowly add this inflection their voice as their rants go on that sounds like Roberto, the violently insane robot from Futurama.
Anyway, words were exchanged until New Day revealed that Shane McMahon has granted them a shot at The Usos’ titles at Money in the Bank because earning a title shot is only something that you have to do if you are in a segment where Shane is giving a speech about it.

Apparently AJ vs. Ziggler with no build and no consequences is tonight’s main event over a five-woman elimination #1 contendership match. Long live the Divas Revolution!

They’re advertising that after this commercial break they are going to recap last week’s Punjabi Celebration™ in which neither Jinder nor the Singh Brothers did or said anything new or interesting. I guess those plans to show us paint drying or a Bray Wyatt promo fell through.

RECAP OF JINDER’S CELEBRATION- they showed clips of last week’s boring promo plus some coverage from what I assume are mainstream media outlets in India covering Jinder’s win.

FASHION FILES- now they’re going a noir thing. Tyler Breeze was in drag again (though I’m certain the silhouette in the shadow on the wall was Lana). If I had to guess, they’re going to feud with the Colons next. I cannot possibly think of anything I could give less of a sh*t about.

FIVE WAY ELIMINATION #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Charlotte Flair vs. Tamina vs. Becky Lynch vs. Natalya vs. Carmella (w/James Ellsworth)-
The ring announcer forgot to mention the #1 contendership part. Tom Phillips referred to this match as a “tremendous opportunity,” which reminds me that I still need to watch Lucha Underground before I go to sleep tonight.
Naomi got to cut a pre-match promo during Tamina’s entrance, which tells you what Tamina’s chances of winning are.
So all of the women made their entrances and they all got into the ring and they starting shouting at each other and shoving each other and all started fighting… and instead of call for the bell the referee just keeps trying to get them to stop… why, exactly? So he can order the bell to be rung so that they can just start doing this all over again? Why not just order the bell to be rung and start the match right now like used to be standard practice? It’s not like someone jumped someone and thus there is an unfair advantage or anything.
Anyway, there was some good action in this non-match. Eventually two more referees came out to aid their comrade in stopping the violence. And when I say “stopping the violence” I mean “waving their arms around and frantically shouting at the women to stop.” Seems to me that at some point they should actually try to get between the combatants. After many teases of someone going through the announcers’ table, Charlotte finally put Nattie through it.
Then Shane comes out and jovially puts all of the women over for providing us with this great action. Well then why didn’t you come out and order the referee to just ring the bell to start the match? The reason for that is because someone backstage thought it would be a good idea to do “the first-ever women’s Money In The Bank Ladder Match.” Oh my G-d where do I even start?
1. So Naomi, who hasn’t defended her title in over a month at this point (you know, in violation of the Thirty Days Rule that they made such a big stink about a mere three months ago… when they used it as a reason to strip the title from Naomi) will have to wait almost three more weeks before she even gets a new #1 contender?
2. Well… this seems like a waste of the first women’s Ladder Match in WWE history because…
3. Why even have storylines if you’re just going to book whatever dumb bullsh*t gimmick matches you want, anyway? If you want to do a Ladder Match you’ve got to build your way there. Just having one because Shane comes out and books it because he wants to do something that has never been done before is idiotic.
Phillips would later plug this as part of a “women’s evolution,” because as we all know, coming up with branding so that you can tell people that you are doing something they should pay attention to is much more important to WWE than actually doing something that will make people pay attention.


Also, does anyone else think that Shane always comes off like a complete and total tool on Smackdown? Because I do. He feels slimy. Like he doesn’t care about running a good wrestling promotion so much as he cares about being in situations where he will get cheered. And I’m talking kayfabe here. Outside of kayfabe I’m sure that he is only being put in situations to get big cheers, but from within kayfabe it feels to me like he is trying to manipulate the fans into liking him more than they should (his frequent absences from the show going completely uncommented-on doesn’t help, either).




THE COLONS vs. TYLER BREEZE & FANDANGO- DUD!
Wait… am I supposed to believe that The Colons really did mess with the Fashion Police’s locker room and the Fashion Police decided to let everyone know about this via a silly video?
The Fashion Police are apparently allowed to use water-guns. Fandango pulled his out of the trench coat he was wearing. Didn’t the referee check him for foreign objects? How the f*ck did he miss that? The Fashion Police won when Breeze showed up in his janitor’s costume.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS AJ STYLES- AJ gave a good answer to a dumb question. Then Ziggler showed up to be extremely annoying. They teased that we would get the match right now, but instead we’ll just have to wait a few minutes until the end of Randy Orton’s promo. Good job trolling us there, Dolph. You really made us angry by making us wait a few minutes.

RANDY ORTON PROMO- wow. He sure brought up how American he was very often for someone who insists that no one cares that his opponent is a foreigner. Jinder & the Singh brothers showed up on the TitanTron with an Indian flag a backdrop. Jinder said absolutely nothing new. Then the Singh Brothers clapped.

AJ STYLES vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER- 7.5/10
Yeah. Come back from commercial with a zoom-in on the stupid briefcase instead of the on-going main event. People are definitely tuning in for the briefcase and not the wrestling.
G-d dammit. I forgot about the hometown babyface rule. F*cking idiot Vince.

Another frustrating episode of Smackdown. Even the great main event had a frustrating finish. I didn't see a Lana video tonight. Maybe they're scrapping the gimmick and just letting her be Rusev's manager? Yeah. I know. Wishful thinking.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Byron Saxton- “Some people think outside the box. Sometimes I think James Ellsworth thinks outside the Earth.” If I were Vince I would have stormed down the ramp and physically dragged him to the back.

2. JBL described the pre-Superstar Shakeup Smackdown tag team division as “one of the best in the world. The best we’ve have in years and years.”
It was The Usos, American Alpha, three teams of comedy jobbers and one team of regular jobbers.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
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DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 3rd, '17, 02:23

They could've at least put Naomi in the mitb match.
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cero2k
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by cero2k » Jun 3rd, '17, 08:19

KILLdozer wrote: Jun 3rd, '17, 02:23 They could've at least put Naomi in the mitb match.
then it's just a ladder match for the title
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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 3rd, '17, 12:02

cero2k wrote: Jun 3rd, '17, 08:19
KILLdozer wrote: Jun 3rd, '17, 02:23 They could've at least put Naomi in the mitb match.
then it's just a ladder match for the title
Why can't the champion also have a shot I mean for the case?

I think it would open up some fresh new possibilities that I don't think we've seen before from Mltb.
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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 3rd, '17, 12:22

It's also better than these strange 5-ways they're doing lately.
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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jun 3rd, '17, 12:22

There's really not another woman capable of being in this on SD?
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 5/30/2017 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 4th, '17, 14:21

I greatly enjoyed Bryan and Vinny burying Shane for dancing down to the ring and high-fiving fans while his wrestlers are all writhing in pain and then booking them all in a dangerous gimmick match, just like a scumbag promoter.
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

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