T-Minus 28 days until Alexa Bliss! becomes the WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion:

T-Plus 2 days since Alexa Bliss! should have become the WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion:



OPENING SEGMENT- awesome.
Dolph cut a great promo, then Miz came out cut two or three awesome ones.

HANDICAP MATCH: Dolph Ziggler vs. The Spirit Squad (Kenny & Mikey)- 6/10
This ref is terrible. Mikey clearly has a foreign object in his pocket (I think it’s his phone and headphones- you could see wires), but the ref didn’t catch it. Seriously… how do you not catch that?!
They showed us the match throughout the commercial, which added a lot, as that was the large majority of the heat segment. The match was very good for what it was supposed to be, although it would have been better if Mikey had been pinned instead of Kenny because Mike Mondo is the most annoying wrestler ever and I wanted to see him get kicked in the face.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Miz jumps Ziggler from behind and nails him with the Skull-Crushing Finale. Then Rhyno and Slater came out, too late to make the save.

SHANE MCMAHON & DANIEL BRYAN RUIN SURVIVOR SERIES- They propose a series of three matches against Smackdown: 10-Man Survivor Series Elimination Match, a 10-Woman Survivor Series Elimination Match, and a 20-Man Survivor Series Tag Team Elimination Match featuring five tag teams from each show teaming up. So basically they’re throwing a huge chunk of the card away on a bunch of matches that 1) will have no consequences whatsoever, and 2) are matches in a “feud” between Raw and Smackdown that a grand total of ZERO fans care about. So we’ve got all of these matches that no one will care about for any reason… and they’ve set things up to guarantee that probably over half of the roster will get pinned.
It’s just another manifestation of WWE’s self-delusion: “Fans think interpromotional wars are cool, therefore if we give them an interpromotional war they will like it” without understanding why fans find interpromotional wars so interesting (they feel controversial/edgy), what makes them work (they feel organic), or why they bring out such emotion (because fans have a vested emotional interest in one promotion over another). This is none of those things. If they would just concentrate on simple, basic, intelligent professional wrestling, they wouldn’t have these problems, but instead they keep going to their own cookbook of supposed “quick fixes” which don’t even work because their cookbook only has the name of the dish and the picture of the finished product, so when they try to make pecan pie they just serve us a bunch of burnt pecans in a pie shell because they have no idea that there is supposed to be eggs, sugar, corn syrup, maple syrup etc., that are the things that make the pie taste the way it is supposed to.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS NIKKI BELLA- bad.
Nikki tells us that the first season of Total Bellas will be “a very compelling season,” basically admitting here on Smackdown that Total Bellas is a work… which I guess makes sense seeing as how on Total Divas/Bellas they would have us believe that those shows are legit while flat-out telling us that WWE is a work.
Anyway, Carmella attacked Nikki from behind. So basically we’re right back to where we started, with Nikki’s “big” win at the PPV turning out to mean absolutely nothing.

CARMELLA vs. NAOMI- 0.5/10
The match was short and dull and ended when Nikki came out and was held back by referees, which distracted Carmella so Naomi could roll her up. So Alexa is the #1 contender but she lost to Naomi who need help to beat Carmella who lost to Nkiki. Hooray for no one going anywhere. After the match, Nikki chased after Carmella, who ran out of the building. I was planning on giving this a dud if it didn’t end with Alexa Bliss! running out and going all Samoa Joe on their asses, but I figured that might be a little too much.
Alexa was shown watching backstage, and then interviewed by Charly. She claimed that she only lost to Naomi at the PPV because she was prepared for a different opponent. Daniel Bryan happened to be walking by and heard Alexa’s comments, so he booked a rematch with Naomi for next week. Alexa had a fantastic “why are you wasting my time?” face.

CHAD GABLE (w/Jason Jordan) vs. JIMMY USO (w/Jey Uso)- 3/10
This was a perfectly solid match until it had a very abrupt roll-up finish with the very awkward extra touch of Jey helping Jimmy with him pinfall by apparently kicking him in the butt. I thought a much better finish would have been Gable getting DQed for not breaking that armbar in the ropes.

THE HYPE BROS. HAVE SEVERAL CONSECUTIVE AWKWARD BACKSTAGE MOMENTS- Apparently Mojo was banging three chicks last night. He wanted Ryder to have one of them, but Zack was in his room, playing with toys or something. Then the Ascension showed up to do and say nothing. Mojo accused them of looking at him while he was changing.

AJ STYLES PROMO- fine.
Dean comes out to say stuff was well. AJ brings out James Ellsworth (a jobber from a few weeks ago) as his hand-picked tomato can in a non-title match tonight. AJ wants Dean to leave but Dean wants to stay at ringside to watch. Daniel Bryan came out. First he teased ruining everything by not letting the match take place, but then let it happen. Then he really did ruin everything via swerve where he teased that Dean wouldn’t be “at ringside” for this match… because Dean is going to be the Special Guest Referee.

SINGLES MATCH WITH DEAN AMBROSE AS THE SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: AJ Styles vs. Dean Ellsworth- no rating, terrible segment.
Douchebag Dean is a terrible referee. He is biased against AJ, even intentionally tripping him. When AJ locked in the Calf Crusher and it was clear Ellsworth was about to tap, Dean turned around to “answer his phone” in an attempt to deny AJ the win… and in doing so, also subjected Ellsworth to unnecessary pain because he was locked in the Calf Crusher for much longer than necessary, despite tapping out desperately. David Otunga attempted to “defend” Dean’s antics with the defense that this was Dean’s “first time doing this,” which (if it’s even true) makes Daniel Bryan look like an idiot for assigning an incompetent referee to this match for no reason. AJ continued to beat on Ellsworth, and all of this unnecessary pain was purely Dean’s fault.
I got sick of watching this sh*t and went to fast forward through the match, but stopped when I saw Ellsworth almost break his neck taking the Styles Clash wrong. AJ went for the pin but of course Douchebag Dean stopped counting at two. AJ got up to confront Dean, but Dean then attacked AJ and hit him with Dirty Deeds, then dragged Ellsworth into the cover and counted the pin, but thankfully AJ kicked out… so Dean attacked AJ AGAIN with Dirty Deeds, then f*cking fast-counted for the pin.
So we had our supposed babyface be a giant douchebag in order to have a jobber pin the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. I don’t understand how anyone could possibly like Dean Ambrose after this, and surely no one is going to tune in to see AJ defend the belt against a jobber, so what was the point of this?

RANDY ORTON & KANE BACKSTAGE- Randy recites dialogue so bad it sounded like a repurposed Bray Wyatt promo.

AJ STYLES YELLS AT SHANE MCMAHON & DANIEL BRYAN- terrible. Shane responded to AJ’s completely justified yelling by telling AJ that “if you want to be angry at someone, be angry at yourself. You wanted the match.” COME THE F*CK ON! Are we really supposed to feel that any of this is in any way AJ’s fault? It really feels more like AJ is fighting against the evil Authority of Shane, Bryan, and their hand-picked challenger Dean Ambrose.

By the way, did anyone else notice that throughout all of this, Maruo Ranallo said absolutely nothing that made him look like he was biased towards the babyface? That’s because Mauro knows how to do this right.

LUKE HARPER PROMO- “This world has put me to sleep.”
Yeah? Well this feud has put me to sleep, so I’m not even going to listen to your f*cking promo because I know nothing you say will mean anything.

RANDY ORTON & KANE vs. THE WYATT FAMILY (Bray Wyatt & Luke Harper)- 4/10
They have a dull tag team match. The Wyatts get their heat on Randy. Just as Randy is finally about to make the hot tag, Wyatt magic happens and Kane has been teleported away and Harper is standing in his place, which allowed Bray to hit Randy with Sister Abigail for the win. Because G-d forbid we get one week without stupid magical bullsh*t.

This was a F*CKING HORRENDOUS episode of Smackdown. After Miz and Dolph finished their bit, there was literally NOTHING they did that was good. The closest thing to it was Alexa’s mediocre promo. This company is so completely not self-aware that it’s appalling, and they will continue to make these same mistakes forever and ever.

Am I the only who hopes, in his heart of hearts, that Duane Gil James Ellsworth eeks out a title win next week, and will be finding away to watch Smackdown for that very purpose? #NobodytamesJames

On another note, I LOVE this idea for Survivor Series. It brings back memories of the first two Survivor Series pay per views, where they were essentially throwaway shows save one or two angles, basically aimed at putting on fun specialty tag matches . I feel like just about other attempt to try and justify a 5-on-5 elimination match comes across as forced and contrived (The only two exceptions I can think of are Team Cena vs Team Authority and Team Bischoff vs Team Austin in 2003). This is especially true in my mind because WWE feels that they MUST put on a 5-on-5 tag match every year in November whether or not they have storylines that actually justify it.

NWK2000 wrote:Am I the only who hopes, in his heart of hearts, that Duane Gil James Ellsworth eeks out a title win next week, and will be finding away to watch Smackdown for that very purpose?

Yes. Yes your are. And you should be ashamed of yourself.

NWK2000 wrote: On another note, I LOVE this idea for Survivor Series. It brings back memories of the first two Survivor Series pay per views, where they were essentially throwaway shows save one or two angles, basically aimed at putting on fun specialty tag matches . I feel like just about other attempt to try and justify a 5-on-5 elimination match comes across as forced and contrived (The only two exceptions I can think of are Team Cena vs Team Authority and Team Bischoff vs Team Austin in 2003). This is especially true in my mind because WWE feels that they MUST put on a 5-on-5 tag match every year in November whether or not they have storylines that actually justify it.

And their mistake is not coming up with a way to justify it. I've been booking one 5-on-5 and one 4-on-4 Survivor Series match for four straight years in my fantasy booking and I always had some sort of reason behind it, and a reason for why everyone was on the teams they were on.
No PPV should be treated as a throw-away show, and especially not one you are trying to push as one of your Big Four. If Survivor Series has a long history of being treated like a throwaway show (which it does), then that is something that needs to be corrected, not used as an excuse to continue treating it like one.
(And I'll add Team WWF vs. Team Alliance, Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown from 2005, and Team Angle vs. Team Lesnar from 2003 as matches where all of the participants felt like they were on the teams for a logical reason)

No PPV should be treated as a throw-away show, and especially not one you are trying to push as one of your Big Four

Which begs the question WHY it's a Big Four PPV other than tradition, of The Big Four, it has the least reason to exist. I would honestly be all for de-emphasizing Survivor Series and building up Hell in a Cell as one of the Big Four. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a time where the justification for a Cell match at HIAC was "Let's have this be a Hell in a Cell BECAUSE it's the Hell in a Cell Pay Per View." At least stuff has been built up to that point

Yes...Daniel Bryan of all people, stacking the deck against others...Alexa Bliss as well, putting Ambrose as special referee, then allowing the match to continue that long with all of the shenanigans...so in the end... Ellsworth will be getting a title shot all because of his nonsense... great!

Unless...maybe, but I doubt it...all of this IS leading to some sort of second big gigantic double turn blah blah, Bryan and Shane are corrupt... but nah.


Also, the second Harper returns, he's winning matches again. So this son of a bitch legitimately can't win by himself.

NWK2000 wrote:

No PPV should be treated as a throw-away show, and especially not one you are trying to push as one of your Big Four

Which begs the question WHY it's a Big Four PPV other than tradition, of The Big Four, it has the least reason to exist. I would honestly be all for de-emphasizing Survivor Series and building up Hell in a Cell as one of the Big Four. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a time where the justification for a Cell match at HIAC was "Let's have this be a Hell in a Cell BECAUSE it's the Hell in a Cell Pay Per View." At least stuff has been built up to that point

I definitely agree with you about it's Big Four status, with the added reason that aside from tradition (and with that, WWE's love for being able to put something over as having gone on for a very long time), it has become a big deal PPV because of Montreal. Interestingly enough, WWE did want to dump Survivor Series in 2010 or so when they REALLY got into the gimmick PPVs, but the fans saved it via internet uproar.
While I, too, certainly wouldn't be sad to see it go, through my fantasy booking exercises I have come to see it as an extremely useful tool to set things up for down the road, In hindsight, I consider my Team Big Show vs. Team Sandow match from my Survivor Series 2013 to be one of the greatest things I ever booked because of all of the angles both big and small that all stemmed from that one match. It's everything from setting up a tag title match on Raw the next night that PTP needed to make the Thirty Days Rule to stuff that has remained relevant years in the future. I made a list once, and the amount of things that would be so different without that match is staggering. And all of that stemmed from the fact that I felt beholden to the idea of having a 5-on-5 Elimination Tag Team Match at Survivor Series, and because I felt it was necessary to create a reason for why this match was happening and why the wrestlers involved were on the teams they were on (and that last part was as simple as "the captain picked them").
Of course, the other thing that went into my decision making in that match and everything stemming from it was my desire to plan things in the semi-long term and to follow up on finishes. So, you know, basic booking competence, which WWE seems to completely lack.

You make an interesting point about HIAC replacing it, and I'm all for a feud earning HIAC as opposed to being given it, but I actually think you're actually just off the mark on something more important. Part of the reason for the decline of Survivor Series is because of the gimmick PPVs around it. Both HIAC and most of the gimmick matches we get out of TLC feel like they should be feud-enders (and they really should be), and at least in terms of HIAC, WWE does seem to realize that, so being sandwiched between these two PPVs pretty much robs Survivor Series of any major blow-offs (although it was being treated as a bunch of pointless tag matches for a few years before that started, as well). I like your idea about replacing it with HIAC, but I think that if you're going to do that, then TLC needs to be changed, too.