RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS “THE ARTIST KNOWN AS SHINSUKE NAKAMURA”- WWE is already trying to put their special touch on Nakamura, which will, of course, ruin him because he’s Nakamura and the thing they can do is just leave him alone and let him be himself.
Dolph Ziggler interrupts them before Renee can even finish her first question. Dolph tried to be funny. It utterly failed. The main thrust of his joke was that Nakamura was supposedly really Michael Jackson. Then he called Nakamura a “petty, pathetic, overrated, freak.”
Then Shinsuke got to talk. He was fine at first but then he got going and became Nakamura and was great. Dolph attacked him but Nakamura avoided the superkick and gave him the big flipping back suplex but Dolph ducked out of the ring before Nakamura could deliver the Kinshasa. The idea of the segment was fine (Dolph’s terrible promo aside), but I have to wonder how long they can keep with up without having Nakamura wrestle.

AJ STYLES vs. BARON CORBIN- 6.75/10
And Kevin Owens is on commentary. Isn’t this the exact same as the last Smackdown match we saw?
The match was very good. Owens tried to distract AJ but AJ kicked him in the face and won anyway. AJ got attacked by both heels after the match but Sami Zayn came out to make the save. Owens wound up laying out both babyfaces.

DASHA INTERVIEWS CHARLOTTE- great promo by Charlotte.

BEAT THE CLOCK CHALLENGE TO DETERMINE THE #1 CONTENDER TO THE WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLES: The Colons vs American Alpha- 4/10
Doesn’t American Alpha winning clean here kind of kill whatever angle they’ve had going with these two teams since The Colons came to Smackdown? And speaking of The Colons… look: I’m as happy as the next guy that they’ve dropped the stupid timeshare gimmick, but can we at least get a backstage segment where they realize it’s not working and decide to rededicate themselves to wrestling? Or at maybe fleece Titus O’Neil into buying it? Just SOMETHING to give us a clear kayfabe reason for why they’re not doing it anymore?

UP NEXT: “RUSEV RESPONDS”- “responds?” To WHAT?
Rusev cuts a promo from his phone in the gym. He doesn’t like Shane or Bryan, so the only way he’ll wrestle on Smackdown is if they give him a title shot at Money in the Bank. If they don’t, he’ll just go back home to Bulgaria.

DASHA INTERVIEWS BECKY LYNCH- Becky gives an answer that puts Charlotte over and expresses some approval while still acknowledging their adversarial history (but not showing irrational knee-jerk opposition like the others have done, so she still comes off as a babyface). Excellent. Then the anti-Charlotte brigade shows up and overacts demanding an answer to the same exact question that Dasha just asked and Becky just answered. Are they all deaf?

NO DISQUALIFICATIONS MATCH: Erick Rowan vs. Randy Orton- 6.75/10
Tom Phillips says that this action “could be a preview of what’s to come” in the House of Horrors match on Sunday. Of course, as they’ve told us so many times, we have no idea what a House of Horrors match is, so, while Tom’s statement is valid, it applies just as much to me sitting here, gulping down Jack Daniels as it does these two having their weapons match.

RANDY ORTON PROMO- very good

POST-MATCH SEGMENT-
Jinder Mahal shows up to tell Randy off for overlooking him. Um… Randy’s not overlooking Jinder. His match with Bray is first. Also, this seems like the sort of thing Jinder really should have gotten angry at Randy for doing last week.
Jinder then said that Randy and everyone else are intolerant racists, then says he will win the title for “[his] people.” So yeah, we’ve now turned this into a race angle. He cuts a promo in Punjabi, then tries to jump Randy but gets beaten up. Randy is about to hit him with the draping DDT but the Bollywood Boyz show up and help Jinder beat Randy up. Jinder then lays Randy out with what I guess is his finisher? I’m sure this is making the people of India feel very patriotic, watching their countryman being made to look like he can’t ever succeed without help. Jinder walked off with the WWE World Heavyweight Title belt.

EMMALANA VIDEO- she’ll be here “soon.”

JINDER RIDES OFF WITH THE TITLE- he’s sticking out the roof of a clearly rented limousine. This made Jinder look SOOOOO fourth-rate. Even the limousine my friends and I rented for high school prom didn’t have the company logo in such an obvious place.

BEAT THE CLOCK CHALLENGE TO DETERMINE THE #1 CONTENDER TO THE WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLES: Breezango vs. The Ascension- 2.5/10
Breezango win in three minutes to become the #1 contenders. This April Jobber History Month or something that they’re giving these jobbers these big wins?

SOMETHING WITH BRAY WYATT- this looked like the same thing we got on Raw. I saw “looked like” because it’s 3:00 am and I have a job interview in twelve hours and I have no patience for Bray Wyatt so I fast forwarded through it.

RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS NAOMI- good promo by Naomi.

WWE SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Naomi(c) vs. Charlotte Flair- 5.75/10
Naomi enters first even though she’s the champion, just to make sure that everyone knows that Charlotte is the bigger star. The match was going along just fine until we got the obnoxiously disappointing and yet entirely predictable DQ after Carmella, Tamina, and Nattie attacked Charlotte. If this was the finish you were going to do, did you really have to do it in the main event?

An otherwise passable episode of Smackdown brought down by doing a DQ finish in a main event.

Big Red Machine wrote:
An otherwise passable episode of Smackdown brought down by doing a DQ finish in a main event.

i don't disagree with you, but that little female stable was the most newsworthy thing i thought, maaaaybe the Jinder stuff

cero2k wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote:
An otherwise passable episode of Smackdown brought down by doing a DQ finish in a main event.

i don't disagree with you, but that little female stable was the most newsworthy thing i thought, maaaaybe the Jinder stuff

I think "stable" is stretching it. They all just don't like Charlotte. I assume they'll take some time to built to a six-woman tag with against Becky, Naomi, and Charlotte (maybe do a regular tag next week that has a DQ finish leading to Becky coming out to set up a six-woman the week after that. Meanwhile you announce the Charlotte vs. Naomi rematch for the PPV and so that you can do a finish in the six-woman tag where dissension leads to one of the heels pinning Charlotte so that Naomi vs. Charlotte feels like less of a babyface vs. babyface match at the PPV with Charlotte winning clean, then cementing her babyface turn by offering shots to all three of the heels to hold you until finally going back to Charlotte vs. Becky at Summer Slam [which you could then have Charlotte win clean but rebuild Becky as the #1 contender for the next PPV then turn her heel by having her cheat to beat Charlotte because she's desperate to finally beat Charlotte for a title after having failed so many times in the past]).

This "Face of America, new face of America" thing, is already getting extremely ridiculous. They've been said it more than ten times already and the match has pretty much just started.

On that note, I'm tired of JBL'S heel schtick and just his general commentary as well as Cole's. Replace them both.

Just everything about their whole style and delivery.

KILLdozer wrote:This "Face of America, new face of America" thing, is already getting extremely ridiculous. They've been said it more than ten times already and the match has pretty much just started.

On that note, I'm tired of JBL'S heel schtick and just his general commentary as well as Cole's. Replace them both.

Just everything about their whole style and delivery.

It's Vince that's the problem (although JBL is just generally terrible). If you take Vince out of Cole's ear (like at the show in Tokyo where Balor won the NXT Title) then he gets much more tolerable.

Don't believe it. Everything with Cole is "Oh! " "Oh man!"

Is this still The Kevin Owens show though?

So, I know I missed some portions of Smackdown episodes here and there... But who the hell are the Bollywood Boys?

Serujuunin wrote:So, I know I missed some portions of Smackdown episodes here and there... But who the hell are the Bollywood Boys?

NXT Tag Team, you can be forgiven for forgetting they exist sometimes.

Actually a pretty good tag team.

XIV wrote:

Serujuunin wrote:So, I know I missed some portions of Smackdown episodes here and there... But who the hell are the Bollywood Boys?

NXT Tag Team, you can be forgiven for forgetting they exist sometimes.

Actually a pretty good tag team.

Ah, I don't always get to watch as much NXT as I want to. And when I do I usually skip (skipped) to Asuka or Nakamura parts

Serujuunin wrote:

XIV wrote:

Serujuunin wrote:So, I know I missed some portions of Smackdown episodes here and there... But who the hell are the Bollywood Boys?

NXT Tag Team, you can be forgiven for forgetting they exist sometimes.

Actually a pretty good tag team.

Ah, I don't always get to watch as much NXT as I want to. And when I do I usually skip (skipped) to Asuka or Nakamura parts

They're not really even an NXT team. They've barely been seen there, either. They were brought in for the Cruiserweigt Classic.

Big Red Machine wrote:

Serujuunin wrote:

XIV wrote:
NXT Tag Team, you can be forgiven for forgetting they exist sometimes.

Actually a pretty good tag team.

Ah, I don't always get to watch as much NXT as I want to. And when I do I usually skip (skipped) to Asuka or Nakamura parts

They're not really even an NXT team. They've barely been seen there, either. They were brought in for the Cruiserweigt Classic.

They're NXT jobbers.

So I guess Rusev is "going home" then?

I can't really see them agreeing with his demand, but I also feel like they say sure whatever​.

It king of just hit me that the mere fact that we have to debate whether the Bollywood Boyz are an NXT team or whether they're a Raw team due t their 205 Live appearances (few that they have had) is a consequence of a HUGE problem with the way that WWE does things where they completely inconsistent with the way things work just so that they can do whatever they want at their own convenience. Slater went undrafted and was treated as though he was unemployed, while Harper went undrafted and no big deal was made of it when he showed up on Smackdown, while Tamina went undrafted and when she showed up on Smackdown it was portrayed as being part of the Superstar Shakeup even though that really doesn't make sense because all of the other official Superstar Shakeup moves involved people going from one show to the other. Dean switches shows and his title stays with him even though Corbin has been set up to be the #1 contender in all but name. Bray switches shows as the #1 contender to a SD Title and he still gets to have his interpromotional match with Orton but without the title on the line. Owens switches shows with the title and we get a match where, if Owens loses the title to a Raw guy, the Raw guy then comes to Smackdown. There is no consistency. There should have been a clear ruling from the moment they started 205 Live that if you are a member of the Cruiserweight Division then you are a Raw guy (and someone like Kalisto who was already on SD would therefore not be a member of the division until he became part of the Raw roster). These sorts of things should never have occurred, but they happen all of the time because WWE are such lazy storytellers.

What the hell is with the name change?

They are NOT the Singh brothers.

KILLdozer wrote:What the hell is with the name change?

They are NOT the Singh brothers.

it's on the profile page, so it's law now

cero2k wrote:

KILLdozer wrote:What the hell is with the name change?

They are NOT the Singh brothers.

it's on the profile page, so it's law now

I think Dozer's question is "WHY?" And he's right to ask it. What was the purpose of changing their names? They have been on WWE TV as Harv & Gurv Sihra, the Bollywood Boyz, so why have they now changed their names all of a sudden? And it's not like their even pretending that they're different people like they did when Barry Darsow went from being being Smash of Demolition to being Repo Man or when Jamal returned as Umaga. They're still called The Bollywood Boyz and are acknowledged as having been in the CWC, so why make any sort of name change? All it will do is confuse and/or annoy people.

Exactly. This just furthers exactly what you were talking about with how they simply do things how they want with total disregard for anything else involving or surrounding it. I said before it's almost as if they just book things just here and there, like it's not really with a longer running plan. More so, weekly, or Bi-weekly or something. I've said it over and over again (I wonder why) but WWE DOES NOT CARE.

I can see what they were going for....but the name "Shera' is plenty well enough sounding for the foreign concept they're going for, wait, WWE has to call every Middle Easterner "Singh" .

Perfect explanation.

maybe they want to make their own Sihra Shake, but it sounds too similar to the Shera Shake