BRM Reviews the 1/8/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 1/8/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 9th, '19, 13:34

DANIEL BRYAN RANTS- bad
He did this in front of a concession stand. The fans cheered him because there was a wrestler cutting a promo right in front of them. Eventually they began to all boo, seemingly almost on cue. According to Bryan, we cheer for AJ Styles because we like unhealthy food. He then snatched a hotdog out of the hands of a bystander. This shocked me because you’d think that Bryan, being an environmentalist, would have a moral problem taking food away from a plant (*rimshot*). He threw the hotdog at the “fan,” the moved on to another fan, stole his soda, ranted about the plastic straw, then threw soda on the fan.
He then went to the merchandise stand, reminded us that there are no Yes Movement shirts anymore because he killed the Yes Movement, then decrying the evils of t-shirts because consumerism. Also, AJ styles equals consumerism. Somehow.
He then went through the crowd shouting that all of us fans had to change ourselves because we are “submissive” and “impotent.” He eventually managed to get booed, but most of the fans were just happy to be on TV, ignoring everything Bryan was saying.
Everything about this was terrible. Bryan was an over the top goof, the realism of the situation was totally destroyed by the fact that the only “fans” that Bryan interacted with (and abused) were two of the only four “fans” who were in Bryan’s designated “stage” area while everyone else was kept lined up farther back (with security making sure they didn’t get to close), and his message was completely incoherent.

Bryan eventually got to ringside, where he was attacked by R-Truth, who had come out of the crowd from a different angle. That was a little odd. Truth coming down the ramp like a normal person to head Bryan off would have made a lot more sense. Truth took it to Bryan, who he is scheduled to wrestle tonight. A referee came out to pull him off, and when we got back from the commercial break we were in the middle of…

R-TRUTH vs. DANIEL BRYAN- 3.75/10
I’m not saying Truth doesn’t have understandable cause to attack Bryan, but having the match start right after the attack makes it seem like Truth is the heel, launching a sneak-attack right before a match.
These two had an excellent match for the mere four minutes they got, but the fact that this match only got four minutes while Bryan’s rant got (at least what felt like) a lot more time than that was quite frustrating.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
AJ Styles attacks Daniel Bryan from behind, like a total heel. Unlike Truth, AJ doesn’t really even a legitimate grudge with Bryan anymore because Bryan beat him clean at TLC. Security came out to pull AJ off so he threatened them with a chair. The announcers credited Mr. McMahon for bringing out “the real AJ Styles.” So BOTH shows are doing an angle where a McMahon provoked a top babyface into being more aggressive/doing better, and in both cases there had been no previous indication in storyline that these guys weren’t at the top of their game until it was decided that a McMahon was needed to bring the best out of them.

REY MYSTERIO JR. & MUSTAFA ALI vs. SAMOA JOE & ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega)- 7/10
A great match, and Almas getting the pin on Rey feels important… for the moment at least. Unfortunately, the fact that all of these guys are already in the Royal Rumble means that this match will likely have no real consequences of any sort.

CARMELLA PROMO- great!

USOS PROMO- Fine.
They kept it short and sweet. It hyped up their match against Sheamus & Cesaro tonight.

SHANE MCMAHON & THE MIZ BACKSTAGE- Miz wants Shane to abuse his power to give them a title shot. Shane lectures him that that’s not how things are done around here. This managed to be a lot less annoying than I was expecting.

RUSEV & NAKAMURA SEGMENT- mostly good
Rusev started off cutting a promo in the ring. If you’re trying to cut a serious promo you can’t describe yourself as having “the body of a thousand Hemsworth Brothers.” Other than that, this was pretty great… except that Lana’s injury wasn’t Nakamura’s fault. If Lana hadn’t tried to save Rusev, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. You can’t blame Nakamura for defending himself, and you can’t fault Lana for running in to defend her husband, and you can’t blame Rusev for kicking Nakamura in the face not realizing that he would land in the way he did, injuring Lana. Rusev is right to be upset that Lana got hurt, but at the same time, implying that Nakamura’s involvement in the injury was some sort of heinous act is completely out of line.
Nakamura appeared on the TitanTron from inside the production truck (so at least that makes more sense than usual). Nakamura was in the truck to show footage to prove that Lana’s injury was Rusev’s fault, not his. It showed exactly what we saw last week: Rusev kicking Nakamura caused Lana to slip off of Nakamura’s back and she fell and bumped her head. Nakamura insisted that it was Rusev who injured Lana, and Rusev responded by saying he would go beat Nakamura up, and then he ran off to go do that. Unforutnately for Rusev, Nakamura ambushed him with one of those giant equipment crates and beat him up. Road agents came out to put a stop to it but Nakamura came back for another Kinshasa anyway.

BECKY LYNCH PROMO- great
I will, however, pick a nit with her claims that “no one beat me for” the Smackdown Women’s Title. She did lose the match according to the rules. I would argue that she was not beaten fairly, but the idea that she wasn’t “beaten” because she didn’t get pinned or tap out feels like it devalues gimmick matches that don’t end in such finishes like a Tables Match or Last Man Standing or various Ladder Match variations because you are essentially saying that they don’t count because their method of victory doesn’t prove anything.

THE USOS vs. SHEAMUS & CESARO- 8.25/10
OMFG that Jey Uso clothesline on Sheamus was vicious enough to make Jey seem like the power guy and Sheamus seems like the smaller high-flyer. That rocked. That was just a sample of the pure awesomeness these two teams gave us… until Mandy Rose had to come out in a towel and distract Jimmy Uso by asking him if she left her clothes in his hotel room. This allowed Sheamus to knock Jimmy off the apron so Jey couldn’t make a tag, then Sheamus hit the Neutralizer for the pin.
I’m sorry, but I have to ask: what is Mandy Rose’s goal here? Does she actually want to seduce Jimmy Uso, or is she just doing this to irritate Naomi because she has decided to be mean to Naomi for no explained reason? Because if it’s the former then this probably isn’t going to help, and if it’s the latter then go break into his locker room and wait there naked while Sonya hides in the closet and films it, then doctor the film and show it to Naomi. Don’t ruin an excellent tag team match!
If you really feel the need to get Mandy Rose involved in this then the right finish is to have her cost Sheamus & Cesaro the match to try to ingratiate herself to Jimmy. This win would get them a title shot at the Royal Rumble where you could have Mandy try to interfere again but Naomi would run out to attack her, which would lead to Naomi somehow accidentally costing The Usos the match. Then you could do a deal where Naomi goes to Vince to try to get six-person tag booked but Sheamus & Cesaro refuse to team with Mandy because they think she’ll just turn on them the first chance she gets, and Mandy then takes the opportunity to propose to Vince that they “shake things up a bit” by booking her & The Usos vs. Sheamus, Cesaro, & Naomi. There is so much interesting stuff you could do with this, but it requires an answer to the question of what Mandy’s motivation is, but I’m not sure WWE even has a clear idea of what that is yet… which is very bad because we’re about a month into the storyline at this point.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Miz comes out and tries to convince Sheamus & Cesaro to defend the titles against him and Shane. Cesaro grabs the mic and points out that Miz & Shane are an “untested” and “dysfunctional” team... so of course they accept. And with Sheamus giving Miz a Brogue Kick to boot (see what I did there?)

NAOMI CONFRONT MANDY ROSE & SONYA DEVILLE BACKSTAGE- good
I was worried that Naomi was going to cut a promo on them, but thankfully she did what she should have done at this point, which was to walk over to Mandy and punch her right in the face. Naomi also managed to knock Sonya down and started pounding on Mandy but was overcome by the numbers game once Sonya got involved again. Jimmy Uso eventually showed up to protect Naomi.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR PROMO- She is coming off way too much like a heel.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DANIEL BRYAN- a great promo swearing vengeance on AJ, warning everyone that we haven’t seen what “The New Daniel Bryan is capable of” yet. Bryan’s promos need to be more like this and less like the abomination we got at the beginning of the show.

NXT CALL-UPS VIDEO PACKAGE- same video as usual

SHANE & MIZ BACKSTAGE- Good.
Miz twists Shane’s words from earlier and basically manipulates Shane into authorizing tag title match for Royal Rumble.

WINNER CHALLENGES ASUKA FOR THE WWE SMACKDOWN WOMEN’S TITLE AT ROYAL RUMBLE: Becky Lynch vs. Carmella vs. Charlotte Flair- 8.25/10
This was a little rough in spots, but for the most part it was quite awesome. They did an excellent job of making it feel like a three-way and had some excellent sequences and convincing false finishes. Make sure you go watch this one for yourself.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Asuka came out to confront the winner

This was an AWESOME episode of Smackdown in the ring, and most of its out of the ring failings pale in comparison to the in-ring successes. The opening Bryan promo was really the only blight. If we can get more episodes of WWE TV like this, I will be very happy.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 1/8/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

Post by KILLdozer » Jan 9th, '19, 16:29

Charlotte IS THE HEEL!

I've explained it to you over and over again every time you make confused points about that...but you don't answer every time!

SHE FULLY TURNED AT SURVIVOR SERIES!

Hey, that reminded me...what is "Paige's new role..."? And has she even been seen since then actually?
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 1/8/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 9th, '19, 16:32

KILLdozer wrote: Jan 9th, '19, 16:29
Hey, that reminded me...what is "Paige's new role..."? And has she even been seen since then actually?
Nope. It hasn't even been mentioned.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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KILLdozer
Posts: 5930
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 22:54

Re: BRM Reviews the 1/8/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

Post by KILLdozer » Jan 9th, '19, 16:35

Big Red Machine wrote: Jan 9th, '19, 16:32
KILLdozer wrote: Jan 9th, '19, 16:29
Hey, that reminded me...what is "Paige's new role..."? And has she even been seen since then actually?
Nope. It hasn't even been mentioned.
Love it. Never follow up or bring up something important again! Hahahahaha!
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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