BRM Reviews the 5/7/2019 Smackdown (frustrating)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- bad
AJ Styles comes out as Tom Phillips tells us about the new Wildcard Rule. Tom tells us that he is quoting directly from WWE.com, and says “a limited number of Superstars™ from Raw or Smackdown could be invited to cross brand lines and go to either Smackdown or Raw on any given night.” Does this kill the brand split? Not exactly, as the requirement of an invitation means that we still have a reason why wrestlers can’t just show up on the other show whenever they want, but for all intents and purposes, WWE now has a kayfabe mechanism to whoever they want on whatever show they want.
I am obliged to point out that we still have not been told who does the inviting. The obvious and logical answer seems like it would be the McMahons, but if that’s the case then why don’t they just come out and say that?
But after having had a day to reflect on this, I have an even better question: Why? For what kayfabe purpose would WWE have for issuing an invitation to a certain wrestler to show up on the other show for a certain week? The answer that I’m sure came to most people’s mind first is “because that person has developed an issue with someone on the other show.” I will grant you that this is a reasonable and logical answer… but WWE could just as easily avoid such problems by punishing cross-brand incursions harshly, and in the event that an issue develops on a PPV- all of which are dual-branded- the next PPV is never more than six weeks away, and the issue can be solved in the ring at that time.
The other answer that might have been the first one to leap to people’s minds is that WWE has a particular match they want to book involving wrestlers from both brands. To that I say that WWE could just book that match for a PPV, or argue that if they have a match they want to do, they should have made sure both of those wrestlers were on the same brand during the Superstar Shake-up. The brands are not opposing teams anymore, but rather the McMahons sitting down together and deciding who to put where.
The other answer that some people might have thought of- and the actual, non-kayfabe reason they have created the Wildcard Rule- is to boost ratings by having bigger stars appear on both shows. But if that is their kayfabe reasoning, then shouldn’t they just be inviting each show’s top wrestlers to the other show every week so that they have the biggest names possible on both shows ever week? If this doesn’t happen, that either shoots that answer in the foot, or just makes the company kayfabe incompetent.
Tom excitedly told us that AJ “very well could be the first wild card to come from Raw here to Smackdown tonight.” Could be? HE’S ALREADY HERE, TOM! And if he was here without permission, he would probably be being chased by security right now instead of strutting down to the ring with his entrance music playing.
AJ starts off by saying, “Oh, G-d, how I’ve missed you, Smackdown Live!” Dude… you haven’t even been gone for a month!
AJ then explained the Wildcard Rule to the live crowd (who could not hear Tom Phillips explaining it to us at home), in case any of them missed last night’s Raw. While this was a good idea in theory, in practice to probably would have been a lot better to just have Tom make the announcement to the live crowd before the show went on the air, so the TV audience- the vast majority of those watching- wouldn’t have to sit through having the same thing explained to us twice in a matter of minutes.
The other reason it would have been better in practice for Tom Phillips to make the announcement to the crowd before the show is that Tom and AJ apparently had very different ideas about how the Wildcard Rule works.
AJ said that the Wildcard Rule means “if you’re brave enough and if you’re fast enough, you can cross over to a rival brand. You can be one of the four Superstars™ to crash a rival brand.” WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! Tom gave no specific number of wrestlers who could show up on the other show while AJ specified four. While it’s possible that AJ’s information is newer than Tom’s you’d think that WWE would have ensured that the guy whose job it is to explain this new rule to the worldwide TV audience had the most up to date information, wouldn’t you?
More egregious than that, however, is that according to AJ (as best I can extrapolate from his statements here) the way this works is that there is some sort of sign-up sheet or something where the first four wrestlers to sign up each week get to show up on the other show (I’m not sure how else to interpret his “if you’re fast enough” comment), rather than the invitations that the invitations that Tom told us were required. Not only can they not keep their story straight about a rule they made up YESTERDAY, but this is also the second time in a matter of weeks where an announcer has welcomed us to the show and told us something, then a wrestler has come out to talk and seemed completely ignorant of the big announcement the announcer made, even though said announcement affects him. This is basically criminally negligent.

AJ said he wanted to be the first one to take advantage of the Wildcard Rule to appear on Smackdown. Okay. I think that’s kind of weird that he cares so much about what is basically the real-life version of making the first comment on a YouTube video just to say “first,” but whatever. Sami Zayn then interrupted AJ. Apparently he didn’t get squished to death in a garbage truck last night. That’s nice to know. Sami says he didn’t want to be here but he had to come in order to call AJ out for his “toxic ego.” AJ got the fans to chant “TAKE A SHOWER!” at Sami. Then New Day came out and buried AJ for his seeming obsession with dropping his relatively silly “the house that AJ Styles built” catchphrase into all of his promos. They’re not wrong either. Combine everything from this segment with Seth pointing out that the “the house that AJ Styles built” catchphrase is actually arrogant and ridiculous, and AJ is quickly becoming less and less likable.
Kofi wants to know why AJ has come to Smackdown tonight. AJ responds by pointing out that Kofi showed up Raw last night for no reason, and tells Kofi that he is here to “return the favor.” So the storyline is that AJ found Kofi, Roman, Bryan, and Lars showing up on Raw to somehow be an insult that demands retribution in kind? That seems like a major overreaction.
AJ and Kofi exchange tough words but Sami Zayn jumps in and tells Kofi not to give AJ a title shot because AJ doesn’t deserve one and he does. New Day made fun of Sami for being smelly due to the garbage, prompting more “TAKE A SHOWER!” chants. Please, G-d, do not make this something that people chant at Sami every week. Kofi says that he is a fighting champion so he wants to defend his title tonight, and he’s happy to do so against either AJ or Sami. Then New Day’s music played and the segment ended without any sort of resolution as to who would be getting the title shot or how that would be decided. I guess Kofi losing the title to a Raw wrestler isn’t an issue anymore as the Raw wrestler could just be invited back every week (then again, as best I can tell, it seems that if you win a title, the title drags you to the brand that title belongs so whoever won the title would actually be a member of the SD roster. This isn’t something WWE has ever said outright, but it is the only scenario that fits the evidence that has been observed over the past few years… but, of course, looking for logic in WWE is madness anyway, so there is no reason to assume that whatever they might do this time would fit in with what they have done in the past.

KEVIN OWENS PROMO FROM HIS CAR- He explains to us that he isn’t opening the show as he was advertised to do because he has decided to take the day off for his birthday, which is apparently something you’re allowed to do in WWE. He says that he’ll win the WWE World Heavyweight Title from Kofi at MITB.

After the first commercial break, they announced that Kofi would be defending the title against both AJ and Sami in a three-way. Fun fact: even if we include dark matches and house shows, Sami Zayn has not won a match since March 6, 2018. That’s FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO. Yes, he was injured for ten of those months, but even so, over that span he has had (this time not including house shows and dark matches) an MITB qualifier, an IC Title match, and this will be his second WWE World Heavyweight Title shot. In the mere month since Sami has returned from his injury he has won zero matches, but will now be getting his second title shot. To find Sami’s second most recent win, you’d need to go back to January 27, 2018 house show in Richmond, VA where he beat Sin Cara. His second most recent televised win was a few days earlier on Smackdown. In that span he had another world title match and a #1 contendership match.

MUSTAFA ALI PROMO- GREAT!

ZELINA VEGA & ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS PROMO- decent

MUSTAFA ALI vs. ANDRADE “CIEN” ALMAS (w/Zelina Vega)- 5.5/10
These two were on their way to a good match when Randy Orton ran in and attacked them both. He wound up laying Ali out and Andrade both out with RKOs at the end, because the two new, fresh stars having their match go to a double disqualification so that Randy Orton can hit some RKOs to tread water in something that barely even qualifies as a storyline definitely isn’t a microcosm of this company’s problems right now, is it?
Like with last week’s tag matches, this was a pointless match between people in MITB whose purpose is solely to kill TV time because WWE is either not smart enough or just too lazy to actually try to tell stories with the wrestlers leading in to the Money in the Bank Ladder Matches or to use the time leading up to MITB to set the seeds for the stories the MITB competitors will be involved in after the PPV. You can copy and paste this same rant to my review of the women’s tag match later tonight.
ROMAN REIGNS VIDEO PACKAGE- proof that they’ll never learn
This video package included Roman making his entrance in the 2015 Royal Rumbel, to edited cheers. They then showed him eliminating some people with no crowd noise at all. They found one pro-Roman sign to zoom in on (which might well have been from some other show), then showed us clips of him celebrating while Lawler ecstatically told us that Roman Reigns has won the Royal Rumble. Then clips of him beating Hunter that were similarly missing the crowd noise. Ditto of him beating Cena. When it came time to show us him beating Taker, they actually had the gall to edit in cheers and splice in reaction shows of people celebrating. Then they showed us him beating Brock. Strangely, unlike the other clips, this one not only had crowd noise, but they showed us the entire pinfall and didn’t cut away to a still so that we could actually see people cheering in the crowd. After that it was cancer announcement time, return time, publicity tour for his return time, and then various other highlights.
WWE has been absolutely terrible for about two years now, and every time they tell us they’re going to do things to improve and that things will be different and that they’re going to listen to us now, yada yada yada, and even though I know deep down that the odds of things actually improving are slim and that they’re just blowing smoke up our asses, it’s still disheartening to see them continue to f*ck everything up. But this…
This was absolutely soul-crushing. At this point we’ve all accepted that Vince is always going to push Roman as a top guy and he’s not going to turn him heel. While the revolt against Roman mostly started as a pro-Daniel Bryan thing (and that later got transferred to every indy darling who wasn’t getting a chance because Roman HAD to be the top babyface), a large part of the reason it snowballed the way it did was because of how f*cking obnoxious they were about it. It wasn’t just that Roman had to be the top guy, but that they had to be as pathetically manipulative as possible about it, replacing the live boos with canned cheers for every recap or video package and splicing fans cheering about other things into those videos.
After the cancer it seemed like they had learned to stop and just let Roman be Roman and have him try to win us over on his own. It wasn’t working particularly well, but he wasn’t getting booed anymore due to the cancer, and cheers from his supporters and then polite applause or respectful silence from the rest of us was better than him getting loudly booed by 75% of the crowd, so I had hoped they’d just stay the course… but no. We’re now right back to where we were when this all started. Ratings are tanking, and Vince thinks that it’s a good idea to go back to doing one of the things that was the major impetus for the current adversarial relationship between the company and the fans.

SHANE MCMAHON PROMO- He cut a promo on Miz that was nothing we haven’t heard him say before, but it got fine heat in the arena.

SHANE MCMAHON CROWNS THE NEW WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS- It’s going to be Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan, who Shane is just going to five the belts to. The Usos came out to protest this. They came off like they were trying really hard to rip off the Street Profits’ mannerisms but failed miserably. They came off like sugared-up fifth grade versions of themselves, trying way too hard to act cool. They convinced Shane to book themselves vs. Bryan & Rowan to crown new champions rather than just giving Bryan & Rowan the belts, so we got a…

FINN BALOR SELFIE PROMO- He’s not here because he’s visiting family in Ireland. He says he’ll win MITB and then be both WWE World Heavyweight Champion and Intercontinental Champion at the same time.


MATCH FOR THE VACANT WWE SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLES: The Usos vs. Daniel Bryan & Erick Rowan- 7/10
Corey Graves wondered what would happen if Raw Superstars™ the Usos won the SD tag titles. If you’re going to ask this question here, you have asked it about the WWE World Heavyweight Title in the opening segment, too. Byron responded to Graves’ question by trying to push that uncertainty- or the “unpredictable outcome,” as he put it, because in Vince’s mind, “unpredictable” automatically equals exciting and good, no matter what the context or what the execution is- as part of the excitement of the Wildcard Rule. F*ck off.
Speaking of such thoughts, Creative has earned themselves an even bigger f*ck off for Corey Graves’ little rah-rah speech about how this Wildcard Rule is so awesome. He said five different things that all amount to “it’s exciting because we don’t know who will show up.” If that concept were a draw to people then the WWE show that would have the most viewers by far would be Main Event. After all, that show can feature wrestlers from Raw, Smackdown, and 205 Live, and has even sometimes randomly featured wrestlers from NXT, and you assholes never announce the matches in advance. But no one watches Main Event, do they? So how about dropping this “not knowing who might show up automatically makes the show exciting” bullsh*t and going back to the drawing board?
The match was great. The heels won cleanly, so at least our new champions feel legitimate.
On commentary, Tom Phillips repeated his claims from earlier that “several” Superstars™ can show up on the other show each week, but only if they’re invited.

FIREFLY FUNHOUSE- The buzzard ate the rabbit “because he was trying to force me into his Bohemian world-view and ideologies.” Also, it called the witch a “hag” and said the word dammit. Bray approved of all of this. He said “it’s perfectly okay to express yourself any way you want to, whether it’s painting a painting, flying a kite, or ripping rambling rabbit to shreds. The point is you can be forgiven no matter what, just like I was.” Also, we finally saw the kids. They’re sitting on the floor. My guess is that they were either supposed to look miserable or drugged, but they just looked bored out of their minds to me.
This definitely sheds light for us as to Bray’s mindset, but it also has me worried that this is going to turn out to be things that happened in Bray’s head and how we are seeing them will never be explained.

SHANE/MIZ ANGLE- decent
Shane is in the ring, wasting our time telling us sh*t we already know about the Money in the Bank Ladder Match. Miz came out of the crowd and jumped him from behind. They brawled up to the stage where B-Team ran out to help Shane, and Miz got beaten up with a chair.

BRYAN & ROWAN BUMP INTO HEAVY MACHINERY BACKSTAGE- weird
Heavy Machinery now have bright blue denim vests. Otis told Bryan “congratulations” then looked at this title belt. Otis and Tucker then proceeded to whisper at each other. This was very weird, but not even the usual main roster Heavy Machinery weird. They appear to have new weird characters now, with no explanation.

EMBER MOON & CARMELLA vs. FIRE & DESIRE (Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville)- 0.5/10
Mandy pins Ember Moon after Sonya sacrifices herself for Mandy. The match was very short.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- weird
Paige came out with Asuka and Kairi. She buried Mandy & Sonya, completely unprovoked. Paige said her team would beat Mandy & Sonya up next month. Is Paige supposed to be a heel?

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS MATT HARDY- Matt gives us an injury update on Jeff, which is that Jeff successfully had his surgery. Then Vince decided he needed to tack some stuff onto the segment that Hunter wrote to make it more sports entertainment-y, so R-Truth showed up, said some dumb stuff, l then warned Matt about Lars being big and tough. Then the camera zoomed back and Lars Sullivan was standing right behind them, like what happens with the monster/ghost at least once in every episode of Scooby Doo. Matt Hardy prepared for combat by striking a martial arts pose. Sullivan grabbed Truth and headbutted him. Only after Lars did this did Matt attempt to attack him, like a dumb AI. Matt got thrown through a door and Truth got powerbombed through a table. This was horrendously hokey.

ALEISTER BLACK PROMO- I loved this, but I don’t have confidence in WWE to not book him like any other heel in the ring (I’m pretty sure he’s a heel. He sure sounds like one).

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Kofi Kingston(c) (w/Xavier Woods) vs. AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn- 7.75/10
Owens showed up and attacked Xavier Woods. Kofi overcame Owens’ distractions and pinned Sami Zayn to win.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS KOFI KINGSTON- good
Kofi insists that Owens is not in his head and that there will be hell for Owens to pay at MITB.


An extremely frustrating show from WWE for all of the predictable reasons. The good workers deliver when they are given time, but the from a Creative point of view, the show was a bunch of waster-treading and sh*t that doesn’t make sense. And that f*cking Roman Reigns videos package.

[cero2k]

so they pulled them from 205 to have a 205Live feud on Smackdown

[Big Red Machine]

The IIconics apparently had a similar segment during a commercial on Raw last night.

[Serujuunin]

I’m on my phone so quoting is hard, but regarding Aleister, I have an entirely different perspective in that he feels like a face to me, especially after this promo. It was a little personal and relatable to me and that’s what made it feel like he’s a face. But realistically, he just does whatever he wants, doesn’t he?

[Big Red Machine]

I’m on my phone so quoting is hard, but regarding Aleister, I have an entirely different perspective in that he feels like a face to me, especially after this promo. It was a little personal and relatable to me and that’s what made it feel like he’s a face. But realistically, he just does whatever he wants, doesn’t he?

I think he is one of those rare people where his feuds are however he frames them. If he is supposed to be the babyface then he'll sound like a babyface and if he's supposed to be a heel he'll sound like a heel, without ever needing to actually change anything up (a real, true, tweener). The fact that you and I heard the same promo and came to two different conclusions about him while still (I assume) having the same impression of the character himself (by which I mean what kind of person he is, not which side of the babyface/heel fence he is sitting on) speaks to that. We'll only know the answer for sure when he finally gets put into a program with someone.

[Serujuunin]

I’m on my phone so quoting is hard, but regarding Aleister, I have an entirely different perspective in that he feels like a face to me, especially after this promo. It was a little personal and relatable to me and that’s what made it feel like he’s a face. But realistically, he just does whatever he wants, doesn’t he?

I think he is one of those rare people where his feuds are however he frames them. If he is supposed to be the babyface then he'll sound like a babyface and if he's supposed to be a heel he'll sound like a heel, without ever needing to actually change anything up (a real, true, tweener). The fact that you and I heard the same promo and came to two different conclusions about him while still (I assume) having the same impression of the character himself (by which I mean what kind of person he is, not which side of the babyface/heel fence he is sitting on) speaks to that. We'll only know the answer for sure when he finally gets put into a program with someone.

Well I know from conversations we’ve had before that we have mostly the same understanding of what his character is supposed to be, so there is that.

I just hope he makes it onto the MITB card.

[KILLdozer]

If we're gonna talk about his TRUE CHARACTER, from the beginning...he probably never should have teamed with Richochet for so long.

[Serujuunin]

If we're gonna talk about his TRUE CHARACTER, from the beginning...he probably never should have teamed with Richochet for so long.

He shouldn’t! I wasn’t into it right from the start, even if they did kind of win me over by the end. He’s the type that shouldn’t be teaming with anyone long term unless it’s against a common enemy for a story. And even then, only begrudgingly.

[KILLdozer]

If we're gonna talk about his TRUE CHARACTER, from the beginning...he probably never should have teamed with Richochet for so long.

He shouldn’t! I wasn’t into it right from the start, even if they did kind of win me over by the end. He’s the type that shouldn’t be teaming with anyone long term unless it’s against a common enemy for a story. And even then, only begrudgingly.

Nawh that's all just "too cliche loner character shtick"...

When to me, the explanation is more simple, that, if you've seen him from THE VERY BEGINNING...his first vignettes...they just don't mix.

[Serujuunin]

If we're gonna talk about his TRUE CHARACTER, from the beginning...he probably never should have teamed with Richochet for so long.

He shouldn’t! I wasn’t into it right from the start, even if they did kind of win me over by the end. He’s the type that shouldn’t be teaming with anyone long term unless it’s against a common enemy for a story. And even then, only begrudgingly.

Nawh that's all just "too cliche loner character shtick"...

When to me, the explanation is more simple, that, if you've seen him from THE VERY BEGINNING...his first vignettes...they just don't mix.

I don't even think you'd have to play it off as him being a loner like "oh, I just don't like being around people, I'm so edgy and complicated" as much as "I don't trust anyone to get the job done like I would", or that tag team partners foster attachments that impede forward progress to a top singles championship. And he'd be capable of doing all of this in his promos too.

And if your complaint is that his character doesn't mesh with Ricochet's... good luck finding someone he does mesh with. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head that he would, on the basis of his character. And that's okay! It makes it feel less gimmicky and more special if there's not anyone else around doing something quite like him. Even if it is kind of starting to feel more gimmicky because the main roster is being so hamfisted and much less subtle than they were in NXT.

Ricochet is the kind of guy that I don't think would mesh in a team really either, because realistically, he's going to overshadow anyone he's in a team with as far as his in-ring stuff (when he was teaming with Aleister, my mom and sister looked at him and said "Oh, it's Ricochet's partner"...), so I think he'd do better on his own.

Sorry, that ended up being way longer than I intended!

[KILLdozer]

So what was that? 5 RAW dudes?

Oh THAT WILD CARD!!!

[cero2k]

So what was that? 5 RAW dudes?

Oh THAT WILD CARD!!!

Usos count as one i think


BUUUUUTTTTTT

as pointed out, the rule was that they had to be invited, and I highly doubt that the Usos were invited since Shane seemed ready to just give the titles to bryan and rowan and the usos interrupted. Likewise, i don't think Miz would be invited. Will anyone get fined or fired? of course not

[Big Red Machine]

If it is supposed to be only four and Miz winds up getting suspended (like Vince said on Raw) then this is fine. But I doubt that will happen.

[KILLdozer]

If it is supposed to be only four and Miz winds up getting suspended (like Vince said on Raw) then this is fine. But I doubt that will happen.

I have reason to just naturally believe Usos are a team so it's cool lol...

Unrelated note though...

After finally seeing this show...

It's possible Black is going after Sullivan.

[Bob-O]

It's possible Black is going after Sullivan.

I don't blame him after all those Black remarks Sullivan made in that bodybuilding forum.

[KILLdozer]

It's possible Black is going after Sullivan.

I don't blame him after all those Black remarks Sullivan made in that bodybuilding forum.

That's obviously what he meant.

Who NEEDS a reason to kick that fat idiot's ass though? All seriousness and kayfabe stuff...I don't blame him at all

[Bob-O]

Who NEEDS a reason to kick that fat idiot's ass though?

Anybody he talks to...

"Hey man!? Did you just spit on me!? I'm gonna beat your ass!"
"No... it's just how I talk..."
"Daffy Duck motherfucker, nobody spits on me!!!"

For real though, in 10 years, somebody is going to look back on this forum and we're all going to lose out on dream jobs. Except for maybe Seru.

[cero2k]

Who NEEDS a reason to kick that fat idiot's ass though?

Anybody he talks to...

"Hey man!? Did you just spit on me!? I'm gonna beat your ass!"
"No... it's just how I talk..."
"Daffy Duck motherfucker, nobody spits on me!!!"

For real though, in 10 years, somebody is going to look back on this forum and we're all going to lose out on dream jobs. Except for maybe Seru.

I promise that the day we decide to all move on, everything here will self-destruct

[Serujuunin]

Except for maybe Seru.

Because I am legitimately a lovely human being.

Also, I would be totally okay with Aleister kicking Sullivan's head off all over again on the main roster.