The Era of Wyatt Begins

Smackdown begun in strong fashion by having Bray Wyatt come out and deliver a promo that seemed as though it had been on his lips for ages. Wyatt completely owned this moment in every possible way: he was decked out in a new maroon jacket and his classic fedora in a way that ushered in a new reign yet called to the past, he made the diamonds on his belt shimmer in the light of his trademark lantern,  and delivered his promo with such passion and joy that the line between kayfabe and real life was blurred.

He was quickly interrupted by a very heel acting Cena and the supremely over AJ Styles, with the “heels” here getting the most love from the crowd in Styles and Wyatt. The three squabbled before Daniel Bryan and unfortunately brought attention to the fact that the title scene on Smackdown is totally random in terms of who is number one contender by announcing a triple threat match for the title between the men in place of the announced one on one match between Cena and Wyatt. This is problematic as, in summary, AJ Styles never got his one on one rematch for the title, Cena got his snuffed out here, and Orton is the number one contender at WrestleMania thanks to his Royal Rumble win. In other words, Wyatt has three contenders for his belt already and has only had it for two days.

Problems with this overbooking aside, all three men here were strong on the mic and at least an exciting triple threat was set up.

Overall Score: 4/5

Oh Where Oh Where Has the Lone Wolf Gone?

The brief segment which followed showed Dean Ambrose searching for Baron Corbin backstage in a manic manner after Corbin eliminated him in the Elimination Chamber on Sunday.

Next…

Overall Score: 3/5

I’d Say This Was Amateur Wrestling But Y’know…

American Alpha took on the recently re-buried Ascension in a match that made no one look good despite Alpha’s clean finish. I’m not huge on either of these teams and this match did very little to make me care any more. Alpha was not selling the fact that the Uso’s decimated their legs on Sunday in Kayfabe, the crowd was dead silent the entire time, and there was an extremely messy botched spot where all four men somehow seemingly forgot what they were supposed to be doing as Alpha came off the top rope to attack Ascension

Alpha won (which is saying very little given how the Ascension are so low on the tag team totem pole) and the most interesting team in the division in The Usos appeared on the titantron to call them out. As good as The Usos’ promo was, the fact that these teams have already feuded two or three times since the brand split really makes the idea of ANOTHER feud between these groups seem really unappealing

Overall Score: 1/5

Settle The Already Settled Score?

We get another segment of Dean Ambrose looking for Corbin but this time he runs into James Ellsworth and Carmella being comedy acts and subsequently asks if they know where Corbin is. This eventually leads to Ambrose making a comment at Carmella’s expense, to which she asks Ellsworth to defend her honor. Daniel Bryan is nearby and sets up a match between Ambrose and Ellsworth in order to settle this and the WWE Universe collectibly sighs at the idea of these two facing off considering how often they faced off late last year. Bryan even mentions this match can be used to settle the score between them, despite the fact that this storyline was essentially dead after the Royal Rumble.

Bryan is just on a roll when it comes to making little sense tonight.

Overall Score: 2/5

“Thank You Corbin!”

After the commercial break, Ellsworth and Carmella are in the ring and it becomes clear that the unanticipated Ambrose/Ellsworth match is happening ASAP. Thankfully, when Ambrose’s music hits (thankfully interrupting Ellsworth’s awful mic skills) Baron Corbin drags the Lunatic Fringe out on stage instead and massacres him. The segment ended with Corbin throwing Ambrose through a table which was admittedly a cool visual as it usually is, even if the timed electrical explosion which was supposed to happen simultaneously was slightly off.

I think Corbin stopping this match from happening was pretty much a face turn /s.

Overall Score: 3/5

What Have We Done to Deserve This?

Despite having a really surprisingly good match on Sunday, I would not care at all if the Nikki Bella and Natalya storyline was just dropped despite the fact there was no concrete winner at the PPV given that we still have to suffer through more backstage drivel because of it. Once again, these two women insulted each other heavily over stupid, juvenile garbage and it led to a fight. As a result, Daniel Bryan (who is seemingly omnipresent tonight) sets up a Falls Count Anywhere match for next week between the two in what is HOPEFULLY the blowoff match, and with Nikki Bella leaving the company soon allegedly and Natalya really having no heat anymore, no one will really win anyways. Cool.

Overall Score: 2/5

Dolph Ziggler  & Baron Corbin May Need Speech Therapy

The next two segments were both interview segments which both had the same problem to humorous effect so I’m gonna group them together here. Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler  were both interviewed backstage (in that order if you must know) and with both being heels, they attempted to talk in a manner that makes you hate them. Corbin does this with a tone that indicates that he is sick of being there and couldn’t care less about the interview. Ziggler on the other hand talks really slow in a way that doesn’t make you hang onto every word but pissed cause you want him to get to the point as none of his words seem deliberate or powerful. While both of these are good ideas in theory, Corbin’s method comes across as silly due to the inflection he uses which makes him sound like he belongs in the film Clueless as Cher’s friend and Ziggler’s method is the same used by Chris Jericho as a heel in 2009 and thus it isn’t fresh at all. As a result of this, both segments really fall flat and are nothing more than heels saying generic heel things.

At least we finally discover Ziggler’s motivation for his recent turn: he is tired of other people stealing the spotlight because his nickname is “The Show Stealer”…

Riveting.

Overall Score: 1/5 and 1/5 Respectively

Let’s Nullify A Two Day Old Match

Becky Lynch and Mickie James took each other on next in a rematch of their match from Sunday. Considering a title wasn’t involved here and the finish wasn’t necessarily indecisive, I don’t understand why a rematch was needed but regardless the women are two good workers and thus I guess I don’t mind in theory. In fact, the match was a really good match overall with Lynch looking dominant (and snazzy I might add in a new maroon outfit) and both women selling well. The problem arises from the fact that Mickie won this match after losing on Sunday and getting dominated in the match itself. I know the reasoning behind this is that she feigned an injury to lower Lynch’s guard but this just serves to make Lynch look dumb and Mickie’s loss an a larger stage (a PPV) seem meaningless as both women are now on equal ground in kayfabe.

Overall Score: 3/5

Naomi Already Out of Steam?

After surprisingly winning the women’s title from Alexa Bliss on Sunday, Naomi comes out to discuss her title victory with Renee Young and announce she was injured (out of kayfabe) in the aforementioned match. I was afraid that this would have to lead to her relinquishing the title after an emotional win but thankfully the injury doesn’t seem that severe. Bliss predictably comes out and confronts Naomi and essentially asserts that she lucked out against her. Naomi verbally fights back and the segment abruptly ends. Overall the segment had the two women doing consistent character work but in the end was rather boring.

Overall Score: 3/5

Finishers Don’t Finish

The main event comes next in what was a really brief feeling Smackdown, something which I think is because of a lack of a consistent narrative thread here as the show seemed more broken up than usual. Regardless, I was hyped for this match and it began with a bang as Luke Harper attacked his former master in Bray Wyatt before the match even started. Unfortunately the match quickly devolved into a finisher fest as all three men resorted to their final moves rather quickly in a rather anticlimactic manner due to such little buildup. I assume this was to cover the fact that all three men were probably still recovering from Elimination Chamber and thus couldn’t work a crazy match. Despite all this, their were some cool aspects of this match that I will list below:

• Wyatt was strongly booked as a face by getting attacked by Harper early on but reentering the match (fighting adversity, etc.)
• John Cena resorting to two AAs right away to put away AJ Styles was great continuity
• Bray Wyatt kicked out of an AA and put Cena away with a second Sister Abigail this week(!)

As stated above, Wyatt wins and Randy Orton comes out afterwards to set up the most interesting part of the night: will Orton face his master at WrestleMania as intended? The answer is revealed as “No” when Orton says he can’t go against his mentor with Wyatt clearly taking enjoyment in this fact. While this does throw the supposed announced main event of WrestleMania in the air, the plot still has plenty of time to develop and at the moment this is a great moment for fans to consider what could happen next.

Overall Score: 3/5

Average Total Score: 2/5

This Smackdown was a total mess in my opinion. With very little in the way of a consistent narrative thread and a lot of segments that were just average at best, it’s easy to see why this episode has the score it has.

Winner this week: Monday Night Raw

Raw pulls out a second consecutive victory, but this time in a landslide. With the way Smackdown usually uses it’s limited talent better, I thought that this week would see the writers step up their game significantly to tackle Raw but it seems more like they just gave up. As boring as Raw has been in the past few months, it seems that with a lot of their long terms storytelling finally reaching a payoff, Smackdown may once again become the B show of the two in terms of both quality and scope.

Till next time,

Lucas