BRM Reviews the 10/18/2019 Smackdown (terrible)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 10/18/2019 Smackdown (terrible)

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 23rd, '19, 19:57

Hearing Michael Cole’s horrible “emphasis for inflection” like he’s reading mad-libs and wants us to hear the filled in word immediately makes me want to turn off the show. “For the past week the whole world has been talking about *Bayley* and her *new attitude*.” F*ck off. And now he’s starting with that “a very*prestigious* championship” crap. This is going to be a long show, isn’t it?

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Shinsuke Nakamura(c) (w/Sami Zayn) vs. Roman Reigns- 6/10
This was shaping up to be a pretty good match with some creative little spots, but the record will officially show that the first match of the first normal episode of Smackdown on Fox ended when Baron Corbin ran in for the DQ because WWE booked a match that they didn’t want to do a finish for.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
The heels beat Roman up until Daniel Bryan comes out to make the save. Bryan eventually succumbs to the numbers game as well.


NEW DAY & HEAVY MACHINERY ARE GOOFBALLS BACKSTAGE- The only part of this of any consequence was Kofi explaining to use that he’s not sad about losing the WWE World Heavyweight Title because he has the power of positivity. Well then why were you so upset about never having won it before you won it at Mania?

CHAD GABLE vs. MICHAEL MCGILLICUTTY (w/Bo Dallas)- 0.5/10
Yeah. I’m just not going to acknowledge that they have officially changed his name to “Shorty” because it’s f*cking stupid. Him accepting it is not “owning it” and being proud of it. That might be the storyline, but the end result is that they have now given him a name that makes people not take him seriously. He then went basically 50-50 with a goofball who is proud to call himself a member of the “B-Team.”

CHAD GABLE INTERVIEW- F*CKING TERRIBLE
Gable did the best job any one possibly could executing this utterly awful speech he was given. Basically, he gave an inspirational speech telling everyone to not later the haters get to them and to embrace their shortcomings. The problem with this is that the way WWE is portraying it is not embracing it but rather turning it the entirety of who he is. The guy made the f*cking Olympic team, but they’re not calling him “Olympic Gable,” are they? Yes, I know that that is not a shortcoming, but the point is that he is MORE than just this one shortcoming that people have been making fun of him about, but by changing his name to “Shorty” and having the announcers and his opponents constantly talk about him being short, WWE is doing to Gable the exact opposite of what Gable is preaching here. They are defining him by this negative factor and solely by this negative factor, thus limiting him. They are holding him back because of his height.
Oh. And just so no one takes any of this seriously, he is now shortening his name again to “Shorty G.” And you know that is only happening because someone said it once around Vince and Vince now thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world.
Chad… just quit. AEW will take you, ROH will take you, New Japan will take you, TNA will take you, MLW will take you, CMLL will take you, AAA will take you… JUST QUIT. You’ll be fine. Hell, you’ll be much better off.

HULK HOGAN PROMO- who could possibly care about any of this?
Hogan adds Chad Gable and Mustafa Ali to his team, and promises an announcement of his “team captain” at the end of the show. Isn’t Hogan the captain? He’s the one making all of the decisions?

THE REVIVAL, DOLPH ZIGGLER, BOBBY ROODE vs. HEAVY MACHINERY & THE NEW DAY (Xavier Woods & Big E.) (w/Kofi Kingston)- 5.75/10
This is being done to hype up the “Largest Tag Team Turmoil Match Ever to Determine the World Cup for the Best Tag Team in the World” (happening on the Saudi show). WHAT? That… that doesn’t even make sense! Qatar gets the nod from FIFA and I guess the Saudis want the words “World Cup” in everything now.
The babyfaces won an inoffensive match cleanly.

They announced that our main event would be Dragon & Roman vs. Corbin & Nakamura, so they went on the air without a scheduled main event.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DANIEL BRYAN- great babyface promo by Bryan

MUSTAFA ALI VIDEO PACKAGE- awesome… but they’ve done this sort of thing for him before and never went anywhere with it, so my optimism is tempered with much caution.

MIZTV WITH SPECIAL GUESTS SASHA BANKS & BAYLEY- fine, I guess
Bayley said the expected things about the fans abandoning her. She told fans that “life sucks, and then you die.” Nikki Cross came out to spoil the result of the upcoming #1 contendership match. Dana Brooke then came out, too, to be a red herring, but the problem with that is that she’s Dana Brooke and she never wins anything.

SIX PACK CHALLENGE #1 CONTENDERSHIP MATCH: Dana Brooke vs. Nikki Cross vs. Lacey Evans vs. Carmella vs. Mandy Rose vs. Sonya Deville- 2/10
This was a mostly-boring nine minutes interrupted by one good sequence in the middle and a good finishing sequence. They did a fine job of telling their story, which was Fire & Desire working together.
What did any of these women due to earn a #1 contendership match? Why are they in the match but Alexa Bliss!, Charlotte Flair, Mickie James, Lana, and Tamina aren’t?
For anyone wondering why Nikki Cross is here even though she was drafted to Raw, she and Alexa were both traded to Smackdown in a “blockbuster trade.” Such a big deal was this trade that Cole didn’t even mention who they were traded for. I tried to track the info down myself, and when I went to the article posted on WWE.com announcing the trade. It said the following:
“website of a company run by an incompetent madman” wrote: During a special preview edition of WWE Backstage following Game 3 of the ALCS on FS1 Tuesday night, WWE COO Triple H joined host Renee Young, WWE Hall of Famer studio analyst Booker T, Christian and Paige from the WWE Performance Center to make the huge announcement that former WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross have officially been traded to the SmackDown roster.
Catch more of WWE Backstage when it makes its official premiere during its regular timeslot on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 11 p.m. ET on FS1.
.
Really. In a kayfabe news article on their own f*cking website- i.e. a place that only people who are already fans would ever go- they felt the need to tell us that they got to break in to the ALCS pre-game show and give us the names of the FIVE PEOPLE they had in the studio for this announcement. But nowhere in this announcement did they ever state who they were traded for. THE WHOLE F*CKING POINT OF A TRADE IS THAT BOTH SIDES GIVE SOMETHING AND GET SOMETHING, AND THEY CAN’T EVEN DO THAT RIGHT! I don’t know why any of us ever had any little bit of hope that the “Fox wants a more sports-oriented product” rumors would ever make WWE change the way they do things.

Graves eventually told us that they were traded to SD for “draft picks to be named later.” The problem with this is that this trade took place on Tuesday, which was AFTER THE DRAFT WAS OVER!

BRAUN STROWMAN vs. DREW GULAK- squash
F*ck you, too, Vince.
Just to make this even more frustrating, Cole described Gulak as a “free agent from Friday Night Smackdown.” Well if he’s a free agent then he’s not from either show, is he?

DANIEL BRYAN & ROMAN REIGNS vs. BARON CORBIN & SHINSUKE NAKAMURA (w/Sami Zayn)- 6.75/10
These guys tried really hard in the short amount of time- LESS THAN TEN MINUTES they got. Why not just book the main event you want from the beginning instead of wasting all of that time setting it up in the opener with a frustrating DQ?
Bryan made Nakamura tap. That match should be awesome when it happens… but then again, that assumes they don’t f*ck it up with a DQ or by screwing them over on time like happened tonight.
Also, Roman is the new captain for Team Hogan, because why not?


So this was the first normal episode of Smackdown on Fox. Well… IT SUCKED. If not for the main event this would have felt like one of the completely unwatchable Raws from last fall, where it felt like a bunch of sh*t getting thrown at the wall and nothing really moving forward.

One thing I did like was them putting up a graphic of the match when they returned to the six-way match from a commercial break. I would have liked it a lot more if they had put up a simple graphic at the bottom of the screen instead of starting off by showing us their big fancy floating virtual reality graphics with the ring way in the background and not centered on the screen. Another way to improve it would have been to put the rules on there, too, so that I don’t have to hear Michael Cole’s condescending “remember the rules: One fall to a finish” ever again.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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