BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 23rd, '17, 09:43

OPENING SEGMENT- meh
This was your predictable fallout from the US Title match. AJ comes out to talk about his win, Owens comes out to complain about Shane’s officiating. Shane comes out to defend himself. His smugness while Owens was talking made me want to punch him in face. This wasn’t bad or anything (Owens and Shane were given good arguments), but it did feel a little dull until Owens and Shane got in each other’s faces. The end result of this was AJ offering to give Owens another title shot tonight and Shane saying okay. So much for title shots needing to be earned, I guess.
Owens points out that he has been screwed by referees twice in title matches recently, so he demands to be allowed to pick the referee. AJ and Shane are okay with this, because I guess they’ve never seen any sort of heel screwjob before. Shane tells Owens that this will be his last title shot as long as AJ is champion.

There is a guy a few rows back with a shirt that says “In Shane We Trust,” so we know he hasn’t been watching the show. Well… either that or the back of his shirt says “to bungle everything given to him” in which case, if he reads this, I’d love for him to tell me where he bought it.

DANIEL BRYAN & JINDER MAHAL- boring
As always, we walk in on Bryan’s phone conversation, in which he’s always talking to someone about Smackdown. Shouldn’t this person already be watching? And if so, why does Bryan have to tell him or her about the upcoming surprises that they have tonight? It’s so transparently intended to tease us… except if they think surprises are going to make people tune in, why wouldn’t they advertise “we have many surprises” on last night’s Raw so that it will be able to draw more people? It’s like they understand how things work but then choose to purposely do them a less efficient way for absolutely no reason.
Anyway, the Singh Brothers show up in order to give Jinder an intro with lots of clapping. Jinder says that he’s the best and deserves all of the credit, etc. Bryan says that Jinder “can’t win without the help of the Singh Brothers.” I’m glad you finally noticed that, Bryan. It’s only been four months.
Jinder insists that he is the hero, but Bryan lectures Jinder that “a hero doesn’t take shortcuts.” Bryan says that Nakamura deserves some revenge tonight. Jinder claims that it’s in his contract that he doesn’t have to wrestle Nakamura tonight. I’m calling bullsh*t. Unless Jinder renegotiated his contract between now and the beginning of his push (which would almost certainly have been some sort of kayfabe news item, considering that Rusev holding out was a months-long storyline and he wasn’t even a champion), I highly doubt that the contract Jinder signed when he returned to WWE gave him the right to refuse to do ANYTHING because considering his win-loss record he was extremely lucky to have a contract at all.
Bryan goes along with this, though, and instead books Nakamura vs. The Singh Brothers, who are scared sh*tless even though there are two of them, so they’re jokes just like Jinder. Bryan says that Jinder will face Nakamura a different week.
KEVIN OWENS IS LOOKING FOR A REFEREE- he appeals to Sami Zayn. I didn’t like this. These two are not anywhere near far enough removed from their very personal issues to be having a conversation like this. They should be snarling at each other and barely able to resist throwing punches, and someone has paranoid as Owens certainly shouldn’t trust Zayn not to screw him.

ADRIAN ENGLISH SINGS- he’s a less entertaining version of The Drifter. Let that sink in for a moment.
BOBBY ROODE MAKES HIS GLORIOUS DEBUT!
He interrupts English’s singing. If Kevin Owens is looking for someone willing to help him out, Bobby Roode seems like a much better choice than Kevin Owens. Owens, Zayn, Roode, Jinder, the Singh Brothers, Nattie, Dillinger, Breeze, Viktor, Rene Young, technically Jericho… I just realized that there are a hell of a lot of Canadians on this show. Compare that to Raw with its much larger roster, which has… only Maryse.

BOBBY ROODE vs. AIDEN ENGLISH- 2.25/10
This should have been a squash but wasn’t because someone decided it had to go through a commercial break. JBL makes a horribly forced Beer Money reference. I hope Vince is screaming in his ear right now.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BOBBY ROODE- blah
Roode says that he is on Smackdown because Bryan and Shane ponied up a lot of money for him so he chose to sign with them, specifically saying that he had been a “free agent.” I know most people don’t think about this, but it REALLY bugs me that there has been no explanation or consistency in how the mechanics of the new brand split work, both in regards to guys changing shows and in regard to NXT. If all NXT wrestlers are just free agents, you’d think that both shows would have been going head over heels trying to sign someone like Asuka or DIY or Roode or Galloway or Aleister Black.
Roode said that he will make NXT glorious and so on and so forth.

DANIEL BRYAN MEETS WITH CHAD GABLE BACKSTAGE- I’m quite ambivalent.
He tells Gable “I know it must be really difficult with your tag team partner getting moved over to Raw. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” Maybe we could have had some sort of segment in the past two months showing us that Gable wasn’t dealing with this move well? You know. To flesh this out and make it feel like you didn’t just pull it out of your ass. Like it’s one of those… what do you call them, again? Oh yeah! AN ACTUAL F*CKING STORY! Gable says that all everyone wants to talk to him about is Jason Jordan and Kurt Angle and no one cares about him anymore. Once again… maybe actually SHOWING US that would make this more effective?
Bryan says that he is worried about Chad Gable’s future as well, “so I didn’t just give Jason Jordan to Raw; I made a deal with Kurt Angle: Jason Jordan goes to Raw, and in exchange, Kurt Angle helps me to sign one of his friends.”
I’ll go back to this wording in a moment, but first, Bryan tells Gable that he thinks this person will be a good tag partner for him. It’s Shelton Benjamin. I burst out laughing, as all of the Team Angle/WGTT jokes about American Alpha from NXT have become a reality. Shelton got a big pop and the crowd was quite happy to see him. Bryan says they’ll debut as a tag team next week. I… don’t know how I feel about this. It seems like a good fit in theory, but the aforementioned jokes from NXT make it hard to see them as anything other than an a pale imitation of both American Alpha and WGTT.
Now back to the above wording… I didn’t like it. Shouldn’t Shelton want to work for Smackdown because working for Smackdown is working for WWE? Why would Bryan need Kurt’s help to sign Shelton unless Shelton was reluctant to sign with Smackdown? I would have liked this better if they had said that Jordan had been traded for a player to be named later, with the understanding between the two GMs that said player would be Shelton, once Kurt got his deal done. That would make it feel more like a sports trade and less like the GMs are super-chummy with each other and always glad to help each other out. It also really bothers me in general that we were given absolutely hint that there even was a trade involved in Jason Jordan going to Raw until this very moment. They’ve got general managers and they’re trying to portray Raw and SD like two separate teams that are competing with each other, so they need to do things that create such a feel. I guess overall what I’m saying is that the lack of established rules for how guys switch shows is really bothering me, and I think it totally craps on the idea that WWE is trying to portray that these are two competing brands rather than one company that just split its wrestlers up and is moving them around as needed even though it makes no kayfabe sense.

KEVIN OWENS & SAMI ZAYN BACKSTAGE AGAIN- Zayn emphatically says no. Once again, I just can’t buy that Owens didn’t jump Sami from behind when he turned his back to him, especially after rejecting his offer.

THE HYPE BROS. vs. THE USOS- 3/10
Did anyone else forget that the Hype Bros. existed? Because I sure did.

USOS PROMO- good

HANDICAP MATCH: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. The Singh Brothers (w/Jinder Mahal)- no rating, meh segment.
For no adequately explained reason, the Singh Brothers don’t even have to make tags in this match. If the goal here to allow Nakamura to get some revenge then you’d think they wouldn’t have rules that are so lopsided against him.
Nakamura easily defeated both Singh Brothers. Jinder tried to attack him after the match but Nakamura quickly made a comeback and laid Jinder out with the Kinshasa. This did a decent job of showing that Nakamura can easily beat Jinder without the Singh Brothers there to bother him, but a guy in Jinder’s position can’t afford to be constantly laid out so easily if the goal is to actually push him (which it should be because they’ve already put the title on him).

OWENS FINALLY FINDS HIS REFEREE- good.
The Fashion Police want the job but he tells them to f*ck off. Corbin shows up and he and Owens make a deal: if Corbin helps Owens win the belt, Owens will give Corbin the first title shot.

HEEL WOMEN’S SEGMENT- bad
Nattie comes out and says that “SummerSlam will forever be known as ‘the day the glow was unplugged.” Then she copied Uncle Bret’s catchphrase. The rest of her promo was a bit better, but mostly because it’s hard to cut a bad promo when you’re talking about replacing a title modified to look like a nightlight with an actual championship belt. Nattie would be a million times better if they just let her cut her own promos and not had her talk and act like cartoon character.
Then Carmella and Ellsworth came out and cut a promo where they were deliberately antagonistic towards the woman Carmella had to team with in a few moments. The joke here was that dumbf*ck Ellsworth gave the plan away, but to be honest, Carmella doesn’t come off much smarter because while she didn’t give the exact plan away, her even mentioning MITB and reminding Nattie that she can cash in at any time does nothing put remind Nattie to be on guard around her at all times.

BECKY LYNCH & NAOMI vs. NATALYA & CARMELLA (w/James Ellsworth)- 2.25/10
The story here was that Carmella wouldn’t tag in so she and Nattie got into an argument. Nattie tagged her in while she wasn’t looking and Naomi pinned Carmella with the split-legged moonsault. Maybe some people would rate this higher but I am just so sick and tired of the women on Smackdown constantly bickering that I’m just annoyed that I have to see it during a match now, too.

DASHA FUENTES INTERVIEWS DOLPH ZIGGLER- he’s clearly having a mental breakdown, but I enjoyed him burying the stupid sh*t that the fans and the company seem to love despite it having almost no real value. Next week should be a hilarious disaster.

TAMINA & LANA BACKSTAGE-
Lana gets off the phone with someone and tells Tamina “your ravishing journey to the title begins next week.” The rest of this was pretty good. Lana basically tells Tamina to focus on all of her anger from various things to propel her to victory. Seems a lot like my Team Anger gimmick in my fantasy booking, doesn’t it? #BRMBookedItFirst.

BARON CORBIN & AJ STYLES BACKSTAGE- bad.
Corbin basically offered AJ the same deal that he offered Owens… which makes Corbin an idiot. He already has the deal in place with Owens so he has nothing to gain from making the same offer to AJ because the whole idea is that he and Owens are conspiring to screw AJ out of the title. All Corbin did here was reveal to AJ that he’s about to get screwed. What an idiot!
AJ rebuffs the deal, saying that he is going to have open challenges instead, because that’s all they can do with the US Title, I guess.

WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH WITH BARON CORBIN AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: AJ Styles(c) vs. Kevin Owens- 5.5/10
Stuff happened. Shane showed up to complain about Corbin’s biased officiating, which made sense on one hand, but on the other hand, interfering with Corbin doing his job seems to me to be breaking the terms of his deal with Owens. Corbin is tired of Shane yelling at him so he quits as referee, and Shane takes over for him. Owens and Shane yell at each other, allowing AJ to recover and beat Owens, with Shane making the count.
I don’t like this whole situation. I see how it builds to where they want to go, but at the same time, it strains credulity for me that Shane could have been so dumb as to allow Owens to pick his own referee in the first place. He and AJ are just lucky that Corbin didn’t outright screw AJ. A more logical blow-off to me would be one where the referee is a non-factor, such as an I Quit match.

Another bad episode of Smackdown, but at least this one feels quite newsworthy, with some clear changes to the landscape going on. The lack of both Orton and Rusev was startling, and the utter lack of Mike & Maria doing anything makes one wonder why WWE even signed them in the first place.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 23rd, '17, 11:58

So Corbin did nothing with the Mitb, lost the cashing in probably the most ridiculous way ever, then lost against Cena pretty decisively , now is right back into the US scene. They obviously said fuck that guy and pulled the rug.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by cero2k » Aug 23rd, '17, 13:22

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 09:43

ADRIAN ENGLISH SINGS- he’s a less entertaining version of The Drifter. Let that sink in for a moment.
BOBBY ROODE MAKES HIS GLORIOUS DEBUT!
He interrupts English’s singing. If Kevin Owens is looking for someone willing to help him out, Bobby Roode seems like a much better choice than Kevin Owens. Owens, Zayn, Roode, Jinder, the Singh Brothers, Nattie, Dillinger, Breeze, Viktor, Rene Young, technically Jericho… I just realized that there are a hell of a lot of Canadians on this show. Compare that to Raw with its much larger roster, which has… only Maryse.

BOBBY ROODE vs. AIDEN ENGLISH- 2.25/10
This should have been a squash but wasn’t because someone decided it had to go through a commercial break. JBL makes a horribly forced Beer Money reference. I hope Vince is screaming in his ear right now.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BOBBY ROODE- blah
Roode says that he is on Smackdown because Bryan and Shane ponied up a lot of money for him so he chose to sign with them, specifically saying that he had been a “free agent.” I know most people don’t think about this, but it REALLY bugs me that there has been no explanation or consistency in how the mechanics of the new brand split work, both in regards to guys changing shows and in regard to NXT. If all NXT wrestlers are just free agents, you’d think that both shows would have been going head over heels trying to sign someone like Asuka or DIY or Roode or Galloway or Aleister Black.
Roode said that he will make NXT glorious and so on and so forth.
i don't know how i feel about Roode's debut. On one side, as a babyface, you can't ask for anything better i guess, especially since they probably have nothing for him while Owens/Styles and Nakamura/Mahal are still on and Cena is gone. On the other side, I kinda feel this could have been much bigger and Roode is not really someone that needed to wrestle on his debut, he could have come in, song in place, and do a talking segment.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 23rd, '17, 14:04

cero2k wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 13:22
Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 09:43

ADRIAN ENGLISH SINGS- he’s a less entertaining version of The Drifter. Let that sink in for a moment.
BOBBY ROODE MAKES HIS GLORIOUS DEBUT!
He interrupts English’s singing. If Kevin Owens is looking for someone willing to help him out, Bobby Roode seems like a much better choice than Kevin Owens. Owens, Zayn, Roode, Jinder, the Singh Brothers, Nattie, Dillinger, Breeze, Viktor, Rene Young, technically Jericho… I just realized that there are a hell of a lot of Canadians on this show. Compare that to Raw with its much larger roster, which has… only Maryse.

BOBBY ROODE vs. AIDEN ENGLISH- 2.25/10
This should have been a squash but wasn’t because someone decided it had to go through a commercial break. JBL makes a horribly forced Beer Money reference. I hope Vince is screaming in his ear right now.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS BOBBY ROODE- blah
Roode says that he is on Smackdown because Bryan and Shane ponied up a lot of money for him so he chose to sign with them, specifically saying that he had been a “free agent.” I know most people don’t think about this, but it REALLY bugs me that there has been no explanation or consistency in how the mechanics of the new brand split work, both in regards to guys changing shows and in regard to NXT. If all NXT wrestlers are just free agents, you’d think that both shows would have been going head over heels trying to sign someone like Asuka or DIY or Roode or Galloway or Aleister Black.
Roode said that he will make NXT glorious and so on and so forth.
i don't know how i feel about Roode's debut. On one side, as a babyface, you can't ask for anything better i guess, especially since they probably have nothing for him while Owens/Styles and Nakamura/Mahal are still on and Cena is gone. On the other side, I kinda feel this could have been much bigger and Roode is not really someone that needed to wrestle on his debut, he could have come in, song in place, and do a talking segment.
Agreed that it could have been saved for a bigger moment (like the final member of someone's Survivor Series team). As for him being a babyface, I think he's actually going to be a heel but they knew the crowd would cheer him anyway so they put him against English. The heel side definitely needs the help, too.
Babyfaces:
Cena
Orton
Nakamura
AJ

Heels:
Jinder
Owens
Corbin
Rusev (and Rusev has been protrayed as basically a mid-carder, whereas all four babyfaces have been portrayed as main event guys)

And it actually carries over to the other divisions, too (especially if Nattie is now turning babyface). The guys who come off as the biggest stars and usually the best workers are almost all babyfaces.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 23rd, '17, 15:04

So that Ziggler stuff was actually pretty funny and entertaining... though something just went off that made inevitably think "Ok , here we go with ANOTHER form of more Ziggler stuff"...
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 23rd, '17, 17:19

KILLdozer wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 11:58 So Corbin did nothing with the Mitb, lost the cashing in probably the most ridiculous way ever, then lost against Cena pretty decisively , now is right back into the US scene. They obviously said fuck that guy and pulled the rug.
I'm surprised no one else really said anything about the whole latest addition to the booking fiasco of Corbin actually.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by cero2k » Aug 23rd, '17, 18:00

KILLdozer wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 17:19
KILLdozer wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 11:58 So Corbin did nothing with the Mitb, lost the cashing in probably the most ridiculous way ever, then lost against Cena pretty decisively , now is right back into the US scene. They obviously said fuck that guy and pulled the rug.
I'm surprised no one else really said anything about the whole latest addition to the booking fiasco of Corbin actually.
i don't think anyone has cared about Corbin since his feud with Bull Dempsey
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 23rd, '17, 18:52

cero2k wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 18:00
KILLdozer wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 17:19
KILLdozer wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 11:58 So Corbin did nothing with the Mitb, lost the cashing in probably the most ridiculous way ever, then lost against Cena pretty decisively , now is right back into the US scene. They obviously said fuck that guy and pulled the rug.
I'm surprised no one else really said anything about the whole latest addition to the booking fiasco of Corbin actually.
i don't think anyone has cared about Corbin since his feud with Bull Dempsey
He had a good moment or two in his feud with Ambrose.


Still, I think the best thing he ever did was when he shouted "you should have stayed in Ring of Honor" at Apollo Crews, who never once worked for ROH.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by cero2k » Aug 23rd, '17, 21:16

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 18:52

He had a good moment or two in his feud with Ambrose.


Still, I think the best thing he ever did was when he shouted "you should have stayed in Ring of Honor" at Apollo Crews, who never once worked for ROH.
comes to show that I completely forgot those two feuded, only thing that came to mind since was him hitting his finisher on Joe which looked impressive, other than that his career so far is blurry. I'm trying to remember if he won the Andre thing or not
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by XIV » Aug 24th, '17, 05:11

cero2k wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 21:16
Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 23rd, '17, 18:52

He had a good moment or two in his feud with Ambrose.


Still, I think the best thing he ever did was when he shouted "you should have stayed in Ring of Honor" at Apollo Crews, who never once worked for ROH.
comes to show that I completely forgot those two feuded, only thing that came to mind since was him hitting his finisher on Joe which looked impressive, other than that his career so far is blurry. I'm trying to remember if he won the Andre thing or not
Yeah he won it when Strowman should have.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by cero2k » Aug 24th, '17, 09:40

XIV wrote: Aug 24th, '17, 05:11

Yeah he won it when Strowman should have.
true, in my head the Mojo one and the Corbin one blur into the same one
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 24th, '17, 10:42

cero2k wrote: Aug 24th, '17, 09:40
XIV wrote: Aug 24th, '17, 05:11

Yeah he won it when Strowman should have.
true, in my head the Mojo one and the Corbin one blur into the same one
The one I had the most trouble remembering was the 2015 winner:
Hidden text.
Big Show
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 24th, '17, 13:40

^ Why did you hide that text? Lol
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Re: BRM Reviews the 8/22/2017 Smackdown (bad, but also newsworthy)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 24th, '17, 21:29

KILLdozer wrote: Aug 24th, '17, 13:40 ^ Why did you hide that text? Lol
So people could try to guess it for themselves.
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