OPENING SEGMENT- Dean Ambrose came out and rambled a lot, but at least he rambled about relevant stuff. Then he was interrupted by Kevin Owens. They exchanged words and Owens tried to take advantage of Dean being injured but Dean thwarted him, then challenged him to a match. Throughout this whole thing, Dean sold MUCH better than he did on Raw.

THE USOS vs. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (Rusev & Sheamus) (w/Wade Barrett & Alberto Del Rio)- 6.75/10
Really fun match and a good (mostly) clean win for the heels.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- The Dudleys beat up the Usos. They carried a table with them just to troll the crowd, but the babyface announcers try to push that this is supposedly hypocrisy even though they didn’t actually use the table.

TOTAL DIVAS COMMERCIAL- the hook for this week’s show is that Brie has a motor-scooter, but Nikki disapproves. Yes. Really. That’s what they are pushing.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. THE MIZ- DUD!
Miz upstaging Ziggler is an interesting new twist for Dolph. Dolph doing it to Miz not only undoes Monday’s events, but feels dull and tired out because we see Miz get humiliated on almost a weekly basis.

TRUTH & GOLDUST IN CATERNIG- Truth feels bad for being mean to Goldust last week. Goldust is unhappy with him. This was actually really well done, and it’s nice to a see a comedy character’s dickishness coming back to bite him in the ass and make him feel bad. Ideally, the way this would all wind up going is to have Goldust resist teaming with Truth but Truth wears him down week after week until Goldust finally agrees to team with Truth… only to immediately turn on him and we get a feud that brings out a serious side of these two.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch- 7/10
They were having a great match whose flow was completely interrupted by Charlotte and Ric Flair showing up at ringside, music playing and all. I absolutely hate that WWE thinks that we’ll forget who else is involved in this feud if that person doesn’t show up at ringside to watch the match. It’s not like Mauro and Lawler haven’t mentioned the Flairs multiple times so far this match!
OH MY G-D GET THE CAMERA OFF OF THE FLAIRS! YOU DON’T HAVE TO CUT TO THEM EVERY FIVE SECONDS!
Anyway, we had a GREAT match ending in an annoying double DQ. I get that it was necessary for their story, but that doesn’t make it any more frustrating that this great match was robbed of a clean finish.

RENEE INTERVIEWS THE FLAIRS- Renee came across as WAY too judgmental in her questioning. She then delivers the news that Charlotte will be defending the title in a triple threat match at WrestleMania because Steph can’t be bothered to show up on Smackdown and make the announcement herself.

NEW DAY PROMO- snore

AJ STYLES vs. KOFI KINGSTON (w/the New Day)- 6.75/10
This match only got about ten minutes which made me quite sad.
Is it just me, or did Kofi start to signal for the Diamond Cutter right before they cut to commercial?
AJ has started to use the Goto Sleep, which will give me more opportunities to call the move the Goto Sleep in the hopes that my clever name catches on.

WYATT VS. LESNAR SIGNED FOR ROAD BLOCK- sure. Why not.

BRAY WYATT PROMO- AWESOME!

KEVIN OWENS vs. DEAN AMBROSE- 7.75/10
GREAT main event. Awesome selling by Dean. It’s just a shame that the IC Champion had to eat a pin, and especially against an injured guy. I think it would have been better to have Dean roll Owens up for the pin but have Owens assault him after the match, which would both give Ambrose the win that WWE clearly wants him to have while protecting Owens a bit, giving him some heat, and piling up even more injuries on Dean.

This was a pretty damn great episode of Smackdown.

I loved Dean's promo at the beginning. It raised some very valid points about what would happen if he won at Roadblock (it won't happen, but this kind of helped me believe that maybe, just maybe, it might). And it was legitimately entertaining.

I also enjoyed this episode.

Serujuunin wrote:I loved Dean's promo at the beginning. It raised some very valid points about what would happen if he won at Roadblock (it won't happen, but this kind of helped me believe that maybe, just maybe, it might). And it was legitimately entertaining.

I also enjoyed this episode.

The more I think about it, the more I think it would be better if the Roadblock match is non-title because it sets up a wider variety of believable outcomes. For example, you could have Roman make his big return from injury by helping Dean beat Hunter, setting Dean up for a title shot (and the inevitable heel turn) after WrestleMania. (Or, if you don't want to beat Hunter, you could have Roman cause a DQ at Roadblock so Dean has reason to be angry him and claim Roman cost him the title to set up Dean's heel turn).
I'm not advocating the heel turn, but I think that's where WWE is going, so I might as well advocate that they at least set it up competently.

Big Red Machine wrote:

Serujuunin wrote:I loved Dean's promo at the beginning. It raised some very valid points about what would happen if he won at Roadblock (it won't happen, but this kind of helped me believe that maybe, just maybe, it might). And it was legitimately entertaining.

I also enjoyed this episode.

The more I think about it, the more I think it would be better if the Roadblock match is non-title because it sets up a wider variety of believable outcomes. For example, you could have Roman make his big return from injury by helping Dean beat Hunter, setting Dean up for a title shot (and the inevitable heel turn) after WrestleMania. (Or, if you don't want to beat Hunter, you could have Roman cause a DQ at Roadblock so Dean has reason to be angry him and claim Roman cost him the title to set up Dean's heel turn).
I'm not advocating the heel turn, but I think that's where WWE is going, so I might as well advocate that they at least set it up competently.

I feel it coming too, but it would be a giant mistake. I think Roman needs to be a heel. Dean is way too over, and people are going to cheer him anyway, so turning him would be pointless really. I just like when Dean said "Hey, if I win, who do I fight? Triple H or Roman or Brock, or all of them?" I can't really say why, but I liked him acknowledging that. I do feel like Dean should beat Hunter, but then maybe Hunter should be a bad loser about it. At least that way Dean gets a little rub (in the non-title match scenario). The way it is now, I worry that because it is a title match, and because they want to set up Roman and Hunter at Wrestlemania, that Dean is going to lose, and I don't want that for him. He needs a big win to elevate him to the main event, and I think a win against Hunter would do that for him.

Your scenario is admittedly thought out way better than mine, I just go by what I feel haha.

Serujuunin wrote: I feel it coming too, but it would be a giant mistake. I think Roman needs to be a heel. Dean is way too over, and people are going to cheer him anyway, so turning him would be pointless really.

You hit the nail on the head right here. Pushing Roman is already trying to swim upstream. Trying to get people to boo Dean (especially against Roman) would be like a cockroach trying to swim into a fire hose.

If WWE just let Roman turn heel and then took even half of the effort they've put into to trying to push Roman down everyone's throats and instead put that effort into booking someone like Sheamus or Rusev or Ziggler or Swagger or Mark Henry to actually matter, this company would be a million times better than it is right now.