BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 14th, '18, 00:54

The show opened with a recap of Raw’s big closing angle… and it turns out Nia Jax gave Becky a “broken face and a severe concussion” and they’re already announcing that she’s off of Survivor Series and not even trying to play it by ear like they did with Alexa Bliss! in the week leading up to Evolution. Well… there goes any interest I had in that show that wasn’t related to 205 Live.


OPENING SEGMENT- GREAT!
AJ Styles comes out and starts to cut a good promo to build up his match with Brock. AJ trailed off because he got distracted by Paul Heyman jumping the barricade and trying to wrestle the microphone away from the ring announcer. The night after Smackdown’s big invasion of Raw and they should logically be expecting retaliation… and security is so lax that even Paul Heyman managed to force his way to ringside. Heyman then cut a promo in which he spent a suspicious amount of time talking about how great a Brock Lesnar vs. Daniel Bryan match would be. AJ then cut great promo to build up his match with Brock.
Daniel Bryan was annoyed by stuff AJ and Heyman were saying and he and AJ had a very good but very heated exchange that led to Bryan- after prior warning- punching AJ in the face. This started a brawl that was broken up by Shane, the referees, and the road agents. Personally, I think Dragon was being oversensitive and kind of unreasonable, but at the same time, AJ really should have realized that it would have been a lot better to just leave Bryan alone instead of prodding.

COMMOTION BACKSTAGE- GREAT!
First Bryan and Shane were having a shouting match with Bryan upset that AJ “disrespected” him while Shane was yelling at Bryan for starting a fight with AJ before his big match with Brock, thus hurting Smackdown’s chances. Then AJ showed up and he and Bryan tried to get at each other and were being separated again. Then Shane shouts that we’re getting AJ vs. Bryan for the WWE World Heavyweight Title tonight so they can both get this out of their systems!

The announcers are in no way worried about the idea of retaliating for last night’s attack, casually saying that yeah we might see another gang assault invasion like this was a totally regular thing and ont worth being concerned about in the slightest.

JEFF HARDY vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega)- 5.75/10
Good for the time it got. Almas is a complete and total midcard nobody at this point, so you can add him to the long list of failed NXT call-ups.

MIZ & PAIGE BACKSTAGE-
Apparently Bryan has been kicked off of Team Smackdown. When did this happen? Paige then tells Miz that he must select a replacement for Bryan, so Miz picks Jeff Hardy. So now you’re telling me that either Bryan or AJ aren’t going to get to wrestle at Survivor Series? Why wouldn’t Smackdown at least wait to see if Bryan wins tonight and then make AJ their fifth guy?
We then zoom out to reveal that Rey and Joe have been standing there the whole time. Miz decides that he wants to kick Rey off the team, too, so Paige tells him that she’ll allow this if Miz beats Rey in a match that will take place right after this commercial break. We’ve already seen this match at least three times in the few weeks since Rey has come back, and now they’re giving it to us with a stip to possibly undo a storyline event from last week for no reason

DASHA FUENTES INTERVIEWS SHINSUKE NAKAMURA- He cut a promo that was good for what it was, but it is going to undoubtedly spawn many awful slash-fics.

IF REY LOSES, HE IS OFF OF TEAM SMACKDOWN: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs The Miz- 5.75/10
Rey pins Miz via roll-up. Orton tried to attack Rey after the match but Rey avoided it. He kicked Orton, who stumbled backwards into Miz, and then Orton hit Miz with an RKO. What is the purpose of Randy even being on the show if this is all he’s going to do every week?

They showed us Shane & Paige’s “extra security.” It’s four dudes, and even then they split off into two groups of two.

OH DEAR G-D! They showed us a nice big close-up of Becky’s face and… well… you know what a black eye looks like? Well Becky has a black CHEEK. The area around her eye is DARK RED.

WOMEN’S SEGMENT- FAN-F*CKING-TASTIC!
Paige brings out the entire division aside from Becky and they each got a full entrance with music. Paige then brought Becky out to hand-pick her replacement at Survivor Series. Becky’s new stupid nickname compelled Corey Graves to say the following “Smackdown Women’s Champion: ‘The Man’ Becky Lynch.”
Becky proceeded to cut a great promo, telling Ronda “you’re not the baddest bitch on the planet; you’re the luckiest” and hinting that their business was not finished. Becky then down the line of women, as if evaluating each of them as they either pled their case to her or stood in stoic silence… aside from Mandy Rose, who Becky could not have looked had for more than split second, if she even ever actually did stop to look at Mandy on her way from Asuka to Carmella. Even LANA got a longer look. That made me crack up.
After going down the line, Becky went back over to Charlotte and told Charlotte to “make Ronda tap out just like I would have made her tap out” and stuck her hand out for a handshake and Charlotte shook her hand… and then they hugged and Becky left, while the other babyfaces all congratulated Charlotte.
This was pretty much perfect. Not only is Charlotte the best choice in terms of star power, but doing this (plus Becky’s comment that she wasn’t done with Ronda “yet”) hopefully indicates that they have switched plans for Mania and are now going to be doing Ronda vs. Becky instead of Ronda vs. Charlotte. Meanwhile, doing this the way they did it allows Becky to show Charlotte the pure respect that allows for their broken friendship to be rekindled, and Becky to once again turn fully babyface, having now righted the wrong that turned her heel and exorcised the person demon that seemed to be driving her reprehensible behavior towards Charlotte.
The only thing about this I didn’t like was the fact that while we now know who will replace Becky against Ronda, we now need to find someone to replace Charlotte in the elimination tag team match, and this conundrum doesn’t seem to have occurred either Paige or the announcers.

DASHA FUENTES INTERVIEWS CHARLOTTE FLAIR- excellent promo by Charlotte!

THE NEW DAY vs. BIG SHOW, SHEAMUS, & CESARO- 6/10
It was confirmed to us by the announcers that the tag team division’s Survivor Series match will be 10-on-10 and they did, in fact, change their graphic from “5-on-5” to “10-on-10,” but they have still left all three members of New Day and all three members of Lucha House Party in the graphic, so their graphic for their 10-on-10 match has eleven guys on each team. Meanwhile, I realized I’m not even sure what other teams are on Smackdown and healthy. Rowan is injured so no Bludgeon Brothers, I guess there are Anderson & Gallows, assuming they’re off TV for no reason rather than because one or both of them are injured, and ditto for SAnitY, and also there are The Colons, if they’re healthy. But unless I’m forgetting someone, that’s only a maximum of three healthy teams, so why aren’t the spots on the graphic filled in? It’s not like The Usos have a choice of who to pick anymore because there are only three other healthy teams left.
They had a match. The heels won clean.

They showed us two of the four security guys from before, standing in front of the same door. If you want to make it look like you have a bunch more security then how about sticking some of your camera people in security shirts earlier in the day and taping them in front of a different entrance to show here? Just a suggestion.

OTHER SMACKDOWN TAG TEAMS BACKSTAGE- The Usos, SAnitY, and The Colons are backstage and the Usos give them all shirts and a pep-talk and cut a little promo.

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: AJ Styles(c) vs. Daniel Bryan- 8/10
AJ is apparently scheduled to wrestle on Mixed-Match Challenge later so… yeah, this going to end in some kind of f*ck job due to mass Raw run-in.
Or we good get a Daniel Bryan heel turn and world title win. During a brief ref bump he kneed AJ in the nuts, then hit him with the Busaiku Knee and pinned him. I wasn’t totally convinced that Bryan had kneed AJ in the nuts on purpose, so to set me straight, Bryan then kicked AJ in the head after the match and began stomping the crap out of his head. Bryan looked completely evil while doing this and AJ is probably the only guy he could do this to and get booed (maybe Jeff Hardy) so I’m not saying it won’t work… but this is absolutely not what they should have done with Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan should have won the Royal Rumble, then went on to win the title at WrestleMania as a babyface to complete his comeback.
This almost feels like a thumb in the eye from Vince. He wouldn’t Roman heel for YEARS and we wanted to see Bryan as our babyface champion, so when he finally puts the belt back on Bryan, he has Bryan turn heel in the process.

This was a really, really great episode of Smackdown until those last few moments. Even know I feel like I don’t know how to react to this. I’m just so baffled at the decision-making. Brock vs. Bryan is heel vs. heel, too, so either Braun interferes and helps a heel win, or a heel wins anyway and it’s Vince finally getting to do what he planned on doing at SummerSlam 2014 and putting the belt on Bryan just so Brock could squish him like a bug (yes, that beating that Cena took was meant for Bryan).
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by NWK2000 » Nov 14th, '18, 07:46

I feel like they didn't turn Bryan heel as much as they turned him tweener. I can't see anyone booing Bryan for any reason ever, unless he did something shitty out of kayfabe out of the ring.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 14th, '18, 07:53

NWK2000 wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 07:46 I feel like they didn't turn Bryan heel as much as they turned him tweener. I can't see anyone booing Bryan for any reason ever, unless he did something shitty out of kayfabe out of the ring.
That doesn't make him not a heel. Also, they were booing him tonight when he attacked AJ after the match.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by NWK2000 » Nov 14th, '18, 08:08

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 07:53
NWK2000 wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 07:46 I feel like they didn't turn Bryan heel as much as they turned him tweener. I can't see anyone booing Bryan for any reason ever, unless he did something shitty out of kayfabe out of the ring.
That doesn't make him not a heel. Also, they were booing him tonight when he attacked AJ after the match.
Then as it stands, it's a successful heel turn. Win/win
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 14th, '18, 08:10

NWK2000 wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 08:08
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 07:53
NWK2000 wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 07:46 I feel like they didn't turn Bryan heel as much as they turned him tweener. I can't see anyone booing Bryan for any reason ever, unless he did something shitty out of kayfabe out of the ring.
That doesn't make him not a heel. Also, they were booing him tonight when he attacked AJ after the match.
Then as it stands, it's a successful heel turn. Win/win
I'm not saying Bryan can't get booed and be a great heel; I'm saying it was the wrong thing to do with him.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by cero2k » Nov 14th, '18, 10:06

Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 08:10
NWK2000 wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 08:08
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 07:53

That doesn't make him not a heel. Also, they were booing him tonight when he attacked AJ after the match.
Then as it stands, it's a successful heel turn. Win/win
I'm not saying Bryan can't get booed and be a great heel; I'm saying it was the wrong thing to do with him.
It's not necessarily wrong, Smackdown doesn't have a top heel, Joe and Randy are the closest and they don't do much, but it was the wrong week to do it. Build it up, make a big thing about it, not just a quick title change on a random smackdown. Not to mention we're gonna have tiny heel Bryan vs huge heel Lesnar on sunday, how the fuck do you even plan out that match?

Last night's show kinda made me feel like WWE is in that part of a video game were all the minions gang up on you and you start button smashing trying to fix things as much as possible and hoping that anything sticks. Last night most of the card was changed out of nowhere, we're now having the rumored WM MAIN EVENT! With NO BUILD whatsoever.

Dragon not only got a title shot out of nowhere, turned heel, won the title, changed the SS match, took Styles, longest reigning champ of the modern era, out of the PPV completely, and granted it's the same thing that happened to JInder last year, but we at least had hopes that Styles would get his win back and debated about how it would come around, but now we're just wondering how heel vs heel will even work.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 14th, '18, 10:25

Strowman kills 'em both. Problem solved.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by cero2k » Nov 14th, '18, 10:27

KILLdozer wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 10:25 Strowman kills 'em both. Problem solved.
Strowman can barely walk
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 14th, '18, 10:47

Doesn't change that you'll probably see him take out at least Lesnar lol.
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 14th, '18, 11:04

cero2k wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 10:06
Big Red Machine wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 08:10
NWK2000 wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 08:08

Then as it stands, it's a successful heel turn. Win/win
I'm not saying Bryan can't get booed and be a great heel; I'm saying it was the wrong thing to do with him.
It's not necessarily wrong, Smackdown doesn't have a top heel, Joe and Randy are the closest and they don't do much, but it was the wrong week to do it. Build it up, make a big thing about it, not just a quick title change on a random smackdown. Not to mention we're gonna have tiny heel Bryan vs huge heel Lesnar on sunday, how the fuck do you even plan out that match?
Randy is totally fresh as a match-up for both AJ and Bryan (and is a safe bet to not get cheered against either guy), Bryan vs. Nakamura and Bryan vs. Joe are fresh as well, and Bryan vs. Miz never got a blow-off.
Do a f*ck finish here. Team SD wins at Survivor Series, and Miz, as sole captain, takes full credit. You can even have him pin Ziggler to give him a claim that he "would have" won the WWE World Cup, too, and demand a title shot. Meanwhile, Bryan says he deserves a title shot because his title shot here ended in a f*ck finish, but Miz argues that 1) Bryan wasn't a team player here and thus shouldn't be rewarded, and 2) Bryan didn't earn tonight's shot in the first place so who cares if there was a f*ck finish?
Bryan and Miz get booked in a #1 contendership match at TLC while AJ defends against... Rey Mysterio, because 1) who doesn't want to see that while Rey's knees still work, 2) it keeps Rey out of scary bump gimmick matches, and 3) it will be a very different match than the car-crash gimmick matches that will be all over the card. AJ retains clean, Miz screws Bryan.
Royal Rumble is Miz vs. AJ and Bryan is in the Rumble. Bryan wins the rumble, while you put AJ vs. Miz on later in the night so people think Miz is definitely going to win so you can blow off Miz vs. Bryan for the belt at Mania, but AJ wins instead, Bryan beats Miz at the February PPV, then Bryan wins the belt from AJ in a babyface match at Mania.
Or, if you want to, you could go the Miz vs. Bryan Mania route. Or you could have Bryan win the Rumble and beat Miz in February in their blow-off while having AJ drop the belt to Joe in February in the Elimination Chamber (so it's not just feud between those two) then do Joe vs. Bryan at Mania with Joe vowing to end Bryan's career for good this time, and Bryan winning the belt at Mania as a babyface.
There are so many ways you could do this a so many opponents for AJ (Orton, Almas, Rey, Jeff- and you don't have to turn those last two heel. Just do a babyface match). Bryan's story feels like it needs to be him getting his big moments and winning the Rumble, then going on to win the belt at Mania as a babyface.

cero2k wrote: Nov 14th, '18, 10:06 Last night's show kinda made me feel like WWE is in that part of a video game were all the minions gang up on you and you start button smashing trying to fix things as much as possible and hoping that anything sticks. Last night most of the card was changed out of nowhere, we're now having the rumored WM MAIN EVENT! With NO BUILD whatsoever.

Dragon not only got a title shot out of nowhere, turned heel, won the title, changed the SS match, took Styles, longest reigning champ of the modern era, out of the PPV completely, and granted it's the same thing that happened to JInder last year, but we at least had hopes that Styles would get his win back and debated about how it would come around, but now we're just wondering how heel vs heel will even work.
The heel vs. heel thing makes it even worse, as does Brock's seeming carelessness with his suplexes (at least AJ doens't have a history of concussion problems).
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Re: BRM Reviews the 11/13/2018 Smackdown (great until...)

Post by KILLdozer » Nov 14th, '18, 11:18

Speaking of^...pretty sure we haven't discussed those suplexes from Raw on the one Singh who seemed to be landing on his head and neck over and over again?

I haven't seen anything about it so there's no word...but people were sure that he all but killed him lol.
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