BRM Reviews the 4/9/2019 Smackdown
Posted: Apr 10th, '19, 10:25
KOFI KINGSOTN CHAMPIONSHIP CELEBRATION- great… until the end
I saw this at WrestleMania, and then again on Raw last night. I don’t need to see it a third time.
That being said, this came off as SOOOOOO much more real than what we got last night from these guys (or than anything we ever got from Seth Rollins), to the point where I was hoping they would just let this be its own segment without any heels interrupting, but, of course, Sheamus & Cesaro had to come out. They claimed that their interference saved Kofi from losing his title last night. They tell New Day they’re booked in a six-man tag against them and Drew McIntyre, who is allowed to be here on SD even though he’s a Raw wrestler because… um…
Drew came out and the heels came down the ramp and stopped at the bottom of the ramp and we had a tense stare-down… and then the camera just cut to the commentators because I guess they knew nothing would happen? Then I guess everyone left while the announcers were doing their plug for the tag title match, because then Aleister Black came out for his match and the other six were nowhere to be seen.
Also, I like how New Day had no idea about this match. Those McMahons sure are jerks to sign a match and then only tell one side about it.
MUSTAFA ALI, ALEISTER BLACK, & RICOCHET vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA, RUSEV, & ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega & Lana)- 6/10
Stuff happened. Ali pinned Almas.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- odd
Randy Orton showed up and gave Ali an RKO out of nowhere. Then Randy left and we cut back to the ring where Kevin Owens showed up and gave Rusev a Stunner that was a lot less out of nowhere.
USOS INTERVIEW- can someone please fix that annoying echo on Kayla’s mic?
Other than that, this was a good promo by The Usos.
R-TRUTH & CARMELLA PROMO- whatever
Okay… can we please stop having the other wrestlers all be cheerleaders for Seth, Kofi, and Becky? It just feels so fake when you have everyone bring it up. Carmella manages to do an almost-convincing job of being happy about winning the women’s battle royale. Then Samoa Joe came out and R-Truth actually got the better of him for a while until Joe choked him out and threw him out of the ring, turning this into a…
SAMOA JOE PROMO- very good
More importantly…
BRAUN STROWMAN SHOWS UP TO BRAWL WITH SAMOA JOE- The brawl was cool and all, but how do they not see that doing this is completely undermining their entire pitch for next week’s TV shows? Why does the Superstar Shake-up matter if the wrestles can just show up on the other show any random week?
Braun won the brawl because Joe ran away. Then Braun left… and as he was heading up the ramp the IIconics came out and had a weird stare-down with him. Why did this happen?
Also, it turns out that our new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions are defending their titles tonight. If you want to the titles to seem important then maybe you should actually advertise this. We didn’t even know who their challengers would be until we got back from the commercial break. But first, the weird, evil puppet is back.
IICONICS PROMO- until they revealed that they had found their own jobbers, I honestly thought we were supposed to treat them like babyfaces. The IIconics claimed their jobbers were 45-0. And I guess that’s supposed to be legit because the McMahons saw fit to sanction this as a title match, so I’m not totally sure why I’m supposed to be angry at the IIconics.
THE IICONICS vs. THE BROOKLYN BELLES (Kristen & Karissa)- squash
Paige was shown backstage watching this match. I have no idea why, seeing as how she is retired and hasn’t been the general manager of Smackdown for several months.
KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS PAIGE- Paige says she’s going to show up with her own tag team next week.
SHANE MCMAHON PROMO- BORING AS F*CK
Also, someone in WWE thought it would be a good idea to make it part of the storyline that several fans have threatened violence upon Greg Hamilton should he call Shane the “best in the world” tonight. This was pretty much the same exact sh*t Shane was doing before WrestleMania. He pulled Greg Hamilton around by his necktie, which, if I remember correctly, is a firing offense in WWE. This was extremely boring and a complete and total waste of time.
WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Usos(c) vs. The Hardy Boyz- 6.75/10
The announcers are flat-out calling this a “dream match,” which just begs the question of why the hell they didn’t do this at WrestleMania. While we’re on the subject of announcers, every time they say “the Raw after WrestleMania” or “the Smackdown after WrestleMania” it makes me cringe because they’re so clearly trying to make this sound like a big cool thing, but have no awareness of the fact that doing it the way they’re doing it makes it feel so forced that it is self-sabotaging.
In this big “dream match” championship match, the champions got their entrance cut so we could see still shots from WrestleMania, including one of someone else’s f*cking entrance (no bonus points for guessing whose entrance it was).
The match was… not what it would have been if it was given the time that a “dream match” should be given. It only went 10:31. The Usos losing seems like a sure sign that they’re moving to Raw.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Kayla tried to interview the Hardys but Lars Sullivan showed up and beat the Hardys up. And seeing as how I highly doubt Lars will be getting a tag team partner and going for the tag titles, this pretty much served no purpose other than burying our new champions right away. There were plenty of other people Lars could have beaten up.
BECKY LYNCH PROMO- Much better than last night. Also, two days after the “winner take all” match with both brands’ titles on the line, someone FINALLY explained to us how the concept of having one person hold titles from both brands will work within the format of the brand extension. There is some interesting stuff they could do with this, like having Becky have to defend both titles on the same PPV, but I doubt they’ll do it.
LACEY EVANS PUNCHES BECKY IN THE FACE AGAIN- This time they had Becky actually go down. This came off way too much like “oh crap. Realized we screwed up with the way we did this last night, so we’ll just do the angle again tonight but do it the right way.”
THE NEW DAY vs. DREW MCINTYRE, SHEAMUS, & CESARO- 6.5/10
All of the entrances for this match were cut. Sami Zayn got an entrance, though, so we can add him to the list of people who are just randomly allowed to show up on both shows. He came out, said nothing, and then left. Well… that certainly served a f*cking purpose didn’t it?
(Yes, I understand the idea that they’re trying to get across artistically, but I see no value in wasting time for a theoretically big main event and needlessly breaking the brand split rule yet again just to have Sami do this when he easily could have done the same thing the next week on Raw. Just knowing the way WWE books, I highly doubt that whatever Sami is doing is on such a strict timetable that it was imperative to have him do this on this show, and even if it was, that’s still bad on WWE’s part because why would you write such a tightly-regimented story for someone and give it more chapters than your structure allows you to give that person?
The match was short. Kofi pinned Sheamus in less than nine minutes, then celebrated with his kids and wife. I already saw this on Sunday for a much bigger win. The announcers kept pushing that this might be the last time we see New Day together because they might get split up in the draft, the previous two times they’ve bene drafted they’ve been treated as a unit, so I’m not sure why we’re supposed to think this time will be any different. They’ve actually said this about several teams, but the only team I can think of that has been split up via Superstar Shake-up is the Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable team that you probably already forgot ever existed.
While, like last night’s Raw, this was a decent show in the ring, and was better on the mic than Raw was, I enjoyed it a lot less. The major reason for that is because when you look at this show in combination with last night’s Raw, it really feels like this week was 90% about stalling. Yes, Sami Zayn did a new thing and we’ve got new SD tag champs and Lacey and Becky did an angle and Lars Sullivan finally showed up, but more than anything else it felt like the point of this week was to waste time until the Superstar Shake-up because, in their minds, if they start something before the shake-up people will know that certain people aren’t switching brands. Next week is the Shake-up and things will likely only finally start happening the week after that when the rosters are set. This is bad calendar management by WWE, and the worst part is that the answer should have been obvious to them. The whole thing about “surprises” on the post-Mania Raw was about NXT call-ups and returning stars… which is essentially what the Superstar Shake-up has become since they started including NXT names in it, so why not just have the Superstar Shake-up be the week after Mania? You can do all of your babyface celebrations and whatever other follow-up you need to do over the course of the drafts/trades/announcements or whatever the f*ck it is exactly that determines who goes where.
I saw this at WrestleMania, and then again on Raw last night. I don’t need to see it a third time.
That being said, this came off as SOOOOOO much more real than what we got last night from these guys (or than anything we ever got from Seth Rollins), to the point where I was hoping they would just let this be its own segment without any heels interrupting, but, of course, Sheamus & Cesaro had to come out. They claimed that their interference saved Kofi from losing his title last night. They tell New Day they’re booked in a six-man tag against them and Drew McIntyre, who is allowed to be here on SD even though he’s a Raw wrestler because… um…
Drew came out and the heels came down the ramp and stopped at the bottom of the ramp and we had a tense stare-down… and then the camera just cut to the commentators because I guess they knew nothing would happen? Then I guess everyone left while the announcers were doing their plug for the tag title match, because then Aleister Black came out for his match and the other six were nowhere to be seen.
Also, I like how New Day had no idea about this match. Those McMahons sure are jerks to sign a match and then only tell one side about it.
MUSTAFA ALI, ALEISTER BLACK, & RICOCHET vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA, RUSEV, & ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega & Lana)- 6/10
Stuff happened. Ali pinned Almas.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- odd
Randy Orton showed up and gave Ali an RKO out of nowhere. Then Randy left and we cut back to the ring where Kevin Owens showed up and gave Rusev a Stunner that was a lot less out of nowhere.
USOS INTERVIEW- can someone please fix that annoying echo on Kayla’s mic?
Other than that, this was a good promo by The Usos.
R-TRUTH & CARMELLA PROMO- whatever
Okay… can we please stop having the other wrestlers all be cheerleaders for Seth, Kofi, and Becky? It just feels so fake when you have everyone bring it up. Carmella manages to do an almost-convincing job of being happy about winning the women’s battle royale. Then Samoa Joe came out and R-Truth actually got the better of him for a while until Joe choked him out and threw him out of the ring, turning this into a…
SAMOA JOE PROMO- very good
More importantly…
BRAUN STROWMAN SHOWS UP TO BRAWL WITH SAMOA JOE- The brawl was cool and all, but how do they not see that doing this is completely undermining their entire pitch for next week’s TV shows? Why does the Superstar Shake-up matter if the wrestles can just show up on the other show any random week?
Braun won the brawl because Joe ran away. Then Braun left… and as he was heading up the ramp the IIconics came out and had a weird stare-down with him. Why did this happen?
Also, it turns out that our new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions are defending their titles tonight. If you want to the titles to seem important then maybe you should actually advertise this. We didn’t even know who their challengers would be until we got back from the commercial break. But first, the weird, evil puppet is back.
IICONICS PROMO- until they revealed that they had found their own jobbers, I honestly thought we were supposed to treat them like babyfaces. The IIconics claimed their jobbers were 45-0. And I guess that’s supposed to be legit because the McMahons saw fit to sanction this as a title match, so I’m not totally sure why I’m supposed to be angry at the IIconics.
THE IICONICS vs. THE BROOKLYN BELLES (Kristen & Karissa)- squash
Paige was shown backstage watching this match. I have no idea why, seeing as how she is retired and hasn’t been the general manager of Smackdown for several months.
KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS PAIGE- Paige says she’s going to show up with her own tag team next week.
SHANE MCMAHON PROMO- BORING AS F*CK
Also, someone in WWE thought it would be a good idea to make it part of the storyline that several fans have threatened violence upon Greg Hamilton should he call Shane the “best in the world” tonight. This was pretty much the same exact sh*t Shane was doing before WrestleMania. He pulled Greg Hamilton around by his necktie, which, if I remember correctly, is a firing offense in WWE. This was extremely boring and a complete and total waste of time.
WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Usos(c) vs. The Hardy Boyz- 6.75/10
The announcers are flat-out calling this a “dream match,” which just begs the question of why the hell they didn’t do this at WrestleMania. While we’re on the subject of announcers, every time they say “the Raw after WrestleMania” or “the Smackdown after WrestleMania” it makes me cringe because they’re so clearly trying to make this sound like a big cool thing, but have no awareness of the fact that doing it the way they’re doing it makes it feel so forced that it is self-sabotaging.
In this big “dream match” championship match, the champions got their entrance cut so we could see still shots from WrestleMania, including one of someone else’s f*cking entrance (no bonus points for guessing whose entrance it was).
The match was… not what it would have been if it was given the time that a “dream match” should be given. It only went 10:31. The Usos losing seems like a sure sign that they’re moving to Raw.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Kayla tried to interview the Hardys but Lars Sullivan showed up and beat the Hardys up. And seeing as how I highly doubt Lars will be getting a tag team partner and going for the tag titles, this pretty much served no purpose other than burying our new champions right away. There were plenty of other people Lars could have beaten up.
BECKY LYNCH PROMO- Much better than last night. Also, two days after the “winner take all” match with both brands’ titles on the line, someone FINALLY explained to us how the concept of having one person hold titles from both brands will work within the format of the brand extension. There is some interesting stuff they could do with this, like having Becky have to defend both titles on the same PPV, but I doubt they’ll do it.
LACEY EVANS PUNCHES BECKY IN THE FACE AGAIN- This time they had Becky actually go down. This came off way too much like “oh crap. Realized we screwed up with the way we did this last night, so we’ll just do the angle again tonight but do it the right way.”
THE NEW DAY vs. DREW MCINTYRE, SHEAMUS, & CESARO- 6.5/10
All of the entrances for this match were cut. Sami Zayn got an entrance, though, so we can add him to the list of people who are just randomly allowed to show up on both shows. He came out, said nothing, and then left. Well… that certainly served a f*cking purpose didn’t it?
(Yes, I understand the idea that they’re trying to get across artistically, but I see no value in wasting time for a theoretically big main event and needlessly breaking the brand split rule yet again just to have Sami do this when he easily could have done the same thing the next week on Raw. Just knowing the way WWE books, I highly doubt that whatever Sami is doing is on such a strict timetable that it was imperative to have him do this on this show, and even if it was, that’s still bad on WWE’s part because why would you write such a tightly-regimented story for someone and give it more chapters than your structure allows you to give that person?
The match was short. Kofi pinned Sheamus in less than nine minutes, then celebrated with his kids and wife. I already saw this on Sunday for a much bigger win. The announcers kept pushing that this might be the last time we see New Day together because they might get split up in the draft, the previous two times they’ve bene drafted they’ve been treated as a unit, so I’m not sure why we’re supposed to think this time will be any different. They’ve actually said this about several teams, but the only team I can think of that has been split up via Superstar Shake-up is the Shelton Benjamin & Chad Gable team that you probably already forgot ever existed.
While, like last night’s Raw, this was a decent show in the ring, and was better on the mic than Raw was, I enjoyed it a lot less. The major reason for that is because when you look at this show in combination with last night’s Raw, it really feels like this week was 90% about stalling. Yes, Sami Zayn did a new thing and we’ve got new SD tag champs and Lacey and Becky did an angle and Lars Sullivan finally showed up, but more than anything else it felt like the point of this week was to waste time until the Superstar Shake-up because, in their minds, if they start something before the shake-up people will know that certain people aren’t switching brands. Next week is the Shake-up and things will likely only finally start happening the week after that when the rosters are set. This is bad calendar management by WWE, and the worst part is that the answer should have been obvious to them. The whole thing about “surprises” on the post-Mania Raw was about NXT call-ups and returning stars… which is essentially what the Superstar Shake-up has become since they started including NXT names in it, so why not just have the Superstar Shake-up be the week after Mania? You can do all of your babyface celebrations and whatever other follow-up you need to do over the course of the drafts/trades/announcements or whatever the f*ck it is exactly that determines who goes where.