BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

Post by Big Red Machine » Jul 11th, '17, 23:20

Can I please get an explanation for why the match scheduled to take place at the PPV happened at a random house show instead?

AJ STYLES PROMO- good babyface new champion stuff. He’s bringing back John Cena’s US Title Open Challenge. He makes one right now that is answered by… JOHN CENA. Which is funny because when he was talking about bringing back the open challenge just a few moments ago, all I could think about how much better of a way for Cena to return that would have been instead of doing the cliché crap they did with Rusev last week. But don’t get your hopes up, guys. There is no way this match doesn’t wind up in a DQ with Owens and/or Rusev running in. We’re probably going to wind up with a tag team main event instead.

WWE US TITLE MATCH: AJ Styles(c) vs. John Cena- good segment
Well… at least they were nice enough to not both waste our time and taunt us by giving us ten minutes of the match and then doing a run-in. Instead we got Owens coming out right away to complain about this, then Rusev coming out of the crowd to jump Cena from behind. AJ saved Cena from Rusev but then got attacked by Owens, and the heels laid the babyfaces out, with Owens giving AJ a pop-up powerbomb while Rusev put Cena in the Accolade. Good heat segment and after the commercial we learned that we were getting the theorized tag match as our new main event.

TYE DILLINGER vs. JINDER MAHAL (w/the Singh Brothers)- DUD!
Either the volume the crowd has been heavily lowered, or people don’t care about a one-note dork like Tye Dillinger once the joke gets old. Probably the latter. The match was slow and boring, and they did nothing that was in any way interesting or exciting. They did, however, give Jinder his very first clean win since his push started. It came against a jobber, several months after he became champion, but at least it’s a start.

JINDER MAHAL PROMO- hey! He said something different this time. It was still boring, but at least it was new. Jinder says he is bringing the Punjabi Prison to Smackdown next week.

JEY USO (w/Jimmy Uso) vs. XAVIER WOODS (w/New Day)- 0.5/10
Why would you cut a video recap AFTER both competitors have made their entrance?
This match was kind of a mess. Xavier started out wrestling in a way that felt very heelish. Then Big E. seemed to purposely distract the ref for no reason so that they could do the spot where Woods got tripped up by Jimmy, after which Xavier stayed down for a lot longer than you would usually expect just so they could have Jimmy Uso, Big E., and Kofi ejected from ringside. Then they did one or two quick nearfalls before Xavier got the clean win. This was very weird. It was an odd combination of feeling forced and having odd vibes, but the few spots they did after the ejection saved it from being a dud.

SHANE TALKS TO DRAGON ON THE PHONE- this did serve as a reminder that Ellsworth has been suspended.

SHANE & THE WOMEN BACKSTAGE- ATROCIOUS!
Compare the completely natural way that Ellsworth was brought up Shane’s conversation with Bryan to the way Naomi reminded us that Carmella has the MITB briefcase and the rules of it.
Naomi wants to know who she will defend her title against. All five of the other non-Carmella women on the roster just randomly wander into the room, with the babyfaces each getting to say one quick line upon their appearance to give the fans the chance to pop. Shane then announces that there is going to be a five-way elimination match at Battleground to determine who will get a title shot a Summer Slam. Yes, really.
Then Charlotte points out the obvious: why is Lana in this match after losing three straight title matches, all at least arguably cleanly? Shane has no answer for this. Fortunately for Shane he is bailed out by Tamina’s completely unexplained maternal instincts towards Tamina causing her to yell at Charlotte, which cause an argument to erupt in the horribly-scripted WWE style where one person says something about someone and then a third person and jumps in and says something about the second and then a fourth person comes in to say something about the third etc. Shane books a tag match.
A few things here:
1) Shouldn’t we be scheduling a title shot for earlier than SummerSlam, seeing as how waiting until then would put Naomi in violation of the Thirty Days Rule?
2) You can’t call out Lana’s losses without creating the question of what ANY of these women have done to earn this shot. Four of the five of them just lost two straight MITB matches.
3) This, of course, also goes on to ignore the fact that several people are actually due title matches. Charlotte had one get ruined by the heels running in that she never had made up to her, Tamina pinned Naomi last month, and Carmella has actually pinned Naomi TWICE in the past few months and has never gotten a title shot. And speaking of Carmella…
4) Why is she not in this match? So what if she has MITB? We’ve seen people who have the MITB briefcase wrestle in title matches (Rollins at Royal Rumble 2015 immediately springs to mind) never mind #1 contendership matches, and there is no logical reason why she couldn’t, so why isn’t she in this #1 contendership match? After all, unlike the rest of these women, she has actually won a match recently!

SHANE, CARMELLA, & NAOMI BACKSTAGE- also atrocious.
Carmella shows up, and the first things Shane says is “Carmella, listen: you know you can cash this Money in the Bank in anytime you want.” Is Shane just being an asshole, or does he really think she doesn’t know how the f*cking things works?
Carmella gave him a petition from her attorney to have Ellsworth reinstated. While Shane was reading this Naomi and Carmella tried to have a dramatic face-off, staring at each other while Carmella held up her MITB briefcase and Naomi held up her championship belt, but it was completely undermined by Shane McMahon standing between them and completely ignoring them to read a piece of paper. Shane finished reading the paper, and then tore it up and handed the pieces back to Carmella like a f*cking asshole. He could have just said “I’m sorry, Carmella, but the ruling is final,” but instead he dismissed her in a completely condescending manner. More proof that the McMahons’ need to assert their dominance over the people who are supposed to be the actual stars is a trait that knows no gender.

Also, I did some checking, and do you want to know how many times in the ten months of this title’s existence we’ve had a huge match for either the title or for #1 contendership?
1. Crowning a new champion
2. When Alexa won #1 contendership right after that.
3. The “every woman on the roster” title match at WrestleMania
4. The match that never got started and ended with Shane announcing #1 contendership
5. MITB at the PPV
6. MITB on TV
7. This match now at Battleground.
They have no ideas whatsoever other than “throw everyone in a #1 contendership match!” At least with the tag teams they have the courtesy to change it up and do a battle royale one time and then a gauntlet match the next time, etc. And the saddest part is that the reason they’re doing is that they’re just too f*cking lazy to try booking an undercard (unless John Cena’s girlfriend is involved, of course. Think about it. The only two undercard women’s feuds that Smackdown has had were the same “Nikki Bella gets everything because she’s John Cena’s girlfriend” feud. Oh. And those two weeks where Becky Lynch and Mickie James were feuding, so there’s that).

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BARON CORBIN- Corbin’s promo was okay until he tried to get witty by saying “it’s gonna be ‘sayonara, Nakamura.’” That line was utterly terrible. And I’m pretty sure it was something written for him, because Byron Saxton was immediately forced to repeat it while hyping up the match.

BARON CORBIN vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA- no rating, meh segment.
Nakamura charged Corbin on the ramp and they brawled around. It was a pretty decent brawl, but once it got broken up the referees just let Corbin leave and not have the match. I’m starting to get really pissed off at them not delivering on matches or giving us disappointingly short matches for the circumstances. If you don’t want Nakamura to wrestle on TV then have him just a promo challenging Corbin to match at Battleground, have Corbin accept the challenge later in the show and then have them brawl on next week’s go-home show, and use the leftover time to ACTUALLY BOOK A MIDCARD. We haven’t seen Harper, Rowan, or Sin Cara in forever, Rusev disappeared for months with no explanation, Tye Dillinger was off TV for a while, (and these same things would happen to Kalisto and Apollo Crews when they were on SD) you’ve got Mike Bennett now… and he’s been here for almost a month and literally done nothing. BOOK A F*CKING MIDCARD!

AJ STYLES & JOHN CENA BACKSTAGE- a good segment, but if it doesn’t lead to AJ vs. Cena at SummerSlam then I’m going to be pretty annoyed.

BECKY LYNCH & CHARLOTTE FLAIR vs. NATALYA & TAMINA- 4.75/10
Becky was the babyface in peril. Lana came out and eventually caused a distraction, which led to Charlotte not realizing that Tamina was the legal won so she went after Nattie and then got hit with a move by Tamina and pinned. This feels like the third time we’ve seen this finish in a week.

MARIA KANELLIS IS LOOKING FOR SAMI ZAYN- she wants an apology from him. She went to the male locker room to look for him. Chad Gable said he wasn’t there. I would have been fine with this if they hadn’t decided to make Gable a dork by having him have some idiotic nickname for Sami.

MIKE & MARIA ENCOUNTER SAMI ZAYN BACKSTAGE- mostly bad until the end.
Sami’s memory is shoddy. Yes, Mike and Maria seem to be around whenever he has something to do, but each time that this happened, Mike and Maria were the ones with the cameras focused on them, doing WWE-approved activities for a live WWE TV show.
They argued. Maria slapped Sami, then Bennett hit him in the back of the head with a vase of flowers, knocking him out. That part was good.

FASHION FILES- skipped it. I don’t have time for this sh*t right now.

AJ STYLES & JOHN CENA vs. KEVIN OWENS & RUSEV- 7.5/10
Rusev is proudly waving his Bulgarian flag, but wearing his Russian-colored tights.
Someone decided that after Rusev hit Cena with an early shoulder tackle, he should go outside and wave his flag instead of following up. This resulted in Cena having to spend a long time selling a freakin’ shoulder tackle like he was badly hurt by it.
These guys had a pretty great match. Cena pinned Owens, which I guess is the right finish, as Owens is entitled to a rematch no matter what. You could argue that it might have been better to have Rusev cheat to beat Cena, but personally I would have found a way to add two other guys into this match (Ziggler and Harper?) and have one of them take the fall to either Rusev or Cena. AJ and Cena teased a post-match confrontation before showing each other respect.

This was a frustrating episode of Smackdown that kind of saved itself by giving me a nice, bullsh*t-free main event.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1 & 2. Tom Phillips asks Byron Saxton why Jinder chose the Punjabi Prison Match, and Byron responded by starting us off with a double whammy!
“It’s a two-pronged mission here for Jinder: Number one, to put closure to the legacy or Randy Orton,”
As if losing this one match will somehow mar the legacy of a thirteen-time world champion.
“but also to use that structure to empower his nation. “
I don’t even know what to say about this one. It has got to be one of the dumbest ever. It combines the worst of WWE with the worst of Matt Striker, a combination that should strike fear into the hearts of anyone who has both a working brain and working ears (or a working hearing aid). After stretching my brain for a few minutes, the best explanation I could come up with is that Punjabi Prison cages are actually made in India, and Jinder hopes that having the match on such a grand stage will make promotions all over the world want to book them so they will all start ordering them, thus stimulating India’s economy.
But the more likely explanation is that Vince learned a new buzzword today and mandated that it be used to hype this feud.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
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ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jul 12th, '17, 08:47

This Jinder Mahal promo...

Just stop this already!

He is really bad and Is not one of the ones you want to elevate lol.

Not at all.

He's bringing the Punjabi prison though... meaning he's obviously going to carry it in piece by piece and put it together.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jul 12th, '17, 08:58

Yeah that was another silly repeat of what we've seen lately with the women and Charlotte is aggravating as usual. Naomi was very bad as always lol.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jul 12th, '17, 21:57

I'm still trying out how Cena seemingly became such a legendary figure overnight.

That guy is one the biggest deals around lol.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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Serujuunin
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

Post by Serujuunin » Jul 14th, '17, 15:40

KILLdozer wrote: Jul 12th, '17, 21:57 I'm still trying out how Cena seemingly became such a legendary figure overnight.

That guy is one the biggest deals around lol.
I don't think it was overnight... He's been around for like, 15 years!

I think it's one of those situations like, when you're around someone every day, but then someone sees them for the first time in months and says "Wow! You've lost weight!" But because we see that person every day (or every week with Cena), we don't really see it so drastically.

I'm sure there's a name for that phenomenon.

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/11/2017 Smackdown

Post by KILLdozer » Jul 14th, '17, 16:56

Well it seems that way to me because I've never cared nor bought into the hype at all and now he's back and it's "Look at one of the greatest legends of all time."

Gtfoh lol.
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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