BRM Reviews the 12/27/2013 Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

THE USOS vs. THE WYATT FAMILY (w/Bray Wyatt)- 1/10
About as much as they could do in two minutes. If this was all of the time you could give this match, DON’T BOOK IT!

JOHN CENA PROMO- bad. After his standard futzing around, Cena wants his return match with Orton tonight, but the Shield come out to attack him. Mark Henry comes out to make the save, but aside from one goofy sequence where the Shield guys all ran at him one at a time like a bad AI, they beat Henry down, too, until Big E. makes the save. Then Corporate Kane comes out and announces Cena vs. Rollins, Reigns vs. Henry, and Ambrose vs. Big E. all for tonight.

ORTON & ZIGGLER SEGMENT- bad.
Randy seems to think that the Hall of Fame ceremony takes place the day AFTER Wrestlemania. They had some bad dialogue, then the thing that stole Kane’s body and voice tells them not to fight backstage and makes a match for later.

CODY RHODES (w/Goldust) vs. ANTONIO CESARO (w/Jack Swagger & Zeb Coulter)- 0.75/10
Godust’s ring-jacket looks totally badass. Another extremely short match, but they wasted time in this one doing some stare-downs on the outside.

THE PRIME TIME PLAYERS vs. CURTIS AXEL & RYBACK- 4/10

RANDY ORTON vs. DOLPH ZIGGLER- 6.5/10
Dolph has a lot of pink in his hair. Apparently he did this to match his trunks. This was a very poor idea. He does make great fiery comebacks, though. And he sells beautifully. Orton wins via thumb to the eye followed by an RKO, then assaults Dolph after the match. No one came to help Dolph. Not even Cena… which means that Cena will come out to yell at Orton for intentionally getting himself DQed, but he will not do anything to stop Randy from assaulting someone after a match.

SHIELD PROMO- GREAT!

DANIEL BRYAN vs. DAMIEN SANDOW- 3.75/10
Not bad… just extremely short. After the match Bray Wyatt shows up and cuts a pointless promo. He says he is controlling things or something like that. Whatever. I don’t care anymore. This angle doesn’t feel like it is going anywhere at all.

DEAN AMBROSE (w/the Shield) vs. BIG E. LANGSTON (w/Mark Henry & John Cena)- 4.75/10
Well… at least Ambrose lost to a champion this time.

MARK HENRY (w/John Cena & Big E. Langston) vs. ROMAN REIGNS (w/the Shield)- 2.75/10
WAY too short.

JOHN CENA (w/Mark Henry & Big E. Langston) vs. SETH ROLLINS (w/the Shield)- 7.5/10
Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad that Rollins got to have such a great showing against Cena, but it seems to me like the big news coming out of this series of matches is Reigns pinning Mark Henry, so that really should have gotten the main event spot.

This Smackdown had one MAJOR problem: WAY too many matches… and most of them didn’t even accomplish anything. They tried to stuff too many matches into too little time. By the time they started their big series of three main events, they only had thirty minutes left… and then they decided to give over half of that time to Rollins vs. Cena, making the other matches in this main event series seem unimportant. What was the point of Dragon vs. Sandow or the Wyatts vs. the Usos or Axel-back vs. PTP? If you cut those matches out and give the time to other matches that needed it (like Henry vs. Reigns), this would have been a good show.

[cero2k]

I don't know if they aired it, but Ziggler cut an awesome pre-match promo

[Big Red Machine]

I don't know if they aired it, but Ziggler cut an awesome pre-match promo

Well... they should have put it on the air.

[cero2k]

I don't know if they aired it, but Ziggler cut an awesome pre-match promo

Well... they should have put it on the air.

i just saw it on the website, so it was likely one of those App promos