BRM Reviews the 7/30/2019 Smackdown (the worst-booked awesome show in history!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 7/30/2019 Smackdown (the worst-booked awesome show in history!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 2nd, '19, 00:13

SHANE MCMAHON SELFIE PROMO- very good
This doubled as a promo to hype up their match at SummerSlam while also allowing Shane to explain to us that he won’t he be here tonight, giving his own heelish reasons while making it clear to us that it’s really because he’s afraid of Kevin Owens.

After this they advertised Kofi (w/New Day) vs. AJ (w/Gallows & Anderson), Jerry Lawler hosting a talk show segment with Trish Stratus as his guest, and Roman Reigns getting to call someone out for SummerSlam. If that the only f*cking gimmick they have on this show? Both Kofi and Bayley got to pick their opponents, and now Roman gets to pick his, too?

KEVIN OWENS PEROMO- AWESOME build to his match with Shane at SummerSlam.
Owens was interrupted by Drew McIntyre, who informed him that Shane had booked then against each other tonight. He then sucker-punched Owens, beat him up a bit, and told him that their match was scheduled as the opener. Shane not telling Owens about this match makes perfect sense, the beat-down was effective and Drew spoke well, but I really don’t like Drew still being portrayed as basically Shane’s lackey.

DREW MCINTYRE vs. KEVIN OWENS-7.5/10
A GREAT match, but I do have two concerns. The first is that I really don’t think beating Drew helped Owens much, but for Drew it’s yet another loss. The other one is that Owens using the stunner makes him feel like too much an Austin knock-off feuding with a McMahon. Now that everyone gets the character, I think it’d be best for him to transition away from the move and only pull it out for big occasions.
Drew’s presence puts our Wildcard Rule count up to two (the OC are the first).

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DOLPH ZIGGLER- AWESOME!
This is by far the best promo Dolph Ziggler has cut since at least 2013. There was no whining, no talk about how he goes out there and “steals the show” “every. Single. Night.” No stupid crap about not getting pushed. He just targeted a bunch of people, from old-timers he is annoyed with like HBK and apparently Goldberg, to his SummerSlam opponent, The Miz. I know Dolph and Miz are capable of having an awesome match together (I saw them do it live on Smackdown 900), but I’m not optimistic that they will. Either way, though, this promo gives me a lot more hope that WWE will finally start doing something useful with Dolph than I’ve had in years.
Wildcard count: 3

EMBER MOON & BAYLEY BACKSTAGE- meh
Ember is stretching. Bayley comes in to impress upon her that while they are teaming together tonight, she hasn’t forgotten that Ember hit her with an Eclipse for no reason last week and she’ll be looking out for it. I didn’t like Bayley’s “you wouldn’t be in this spot if not for me” line, and I thought Ember’s facial expressions got worse as time went on, going from a stoic but mean face into what seemed like annoyed boredom before finally doing a half smile, half snarl type of thing when Bayley left.

ALEISTER BLACK PROMO- great
Imagine Bray Wyatt, but if the things he said actually seemed like they had meaning behind them and there was a direction to all of this instead of just wasting time.

ALEXA BLISS! & NIKKI CROSS vs. EMBER MOON & BAYLEY- 3/10
Going into this match they had done absolutely nothing to make Ember look like a truly worthy challenger, and now they had her get pinned cleanly by Alexa Bliss!. Making matters even worse, Bayley continued her douchy, heelish behavior by hitting the already-downed Ember with a Bayley-to-Belly and then smiling about it.
Wildcard count is now at four, as Alexa and Nikki qualify as a team at this point.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS SAMI ZAYN- Sami cut a very good promo on Aleister Black. He also puts us in official violation of the Wildcard Rule. The rule is still on the books, so I damn well expect them to be keeping track of it.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DANIEL BRYAN- annoying waste of time. Bryan walks away from the mic, so that’s now two weeks in a row that they have failed to deliver on their promise of a “career-altering announcement” from Daniel Bryan.

KING’S COURT WITH SPECIAL GUEST TRISH STRATUS- very good
Trish talked about having the itch for one more match. Charlotte Flair came out to insult her about being a mother and challenge her to a match at SummerSlam.

THE OC BACKSTAGE- AJ has started to come off like a cartoon character

FIREFLY FUNHOUSE- boring
The f*cking rabbit puppet is cutting a promo telling Finn Balor that he made a big mistake by angering The Fiend. What is the purpose of these puppets at this point? They don’t seem like they’re supposed to be representative of parts of Bray’s psyche so what are they? This promo came off as something that maybe could have worked with a real human, but with a rabbit puppet with a goofy voice it fell totally flat.
We got another tease of the “what the Funhouse really is” line, but it’s f*cking Bray Wyatt so I have no faith that they’ll ever explain it. This f*cking Fiend has been around for two weeks now, and both times he has used magic to turn the lights off and magically teleport to the ring to attack somebody. In other words the same sh*t Bray Wyatt did over and over again.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. FINN BALOR- no rating, bad segment
They went less than four minutes, with Dolph winning via Sweet Chin Music after Bray Wyatt used his magic to distract Finn Balor.

MUSTAFA ALI vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA- 4.75/10
This is about as high as you’ll ever see me rate a match this short (4:42). This was all action, but didn’t feel spotty because they made every single spot matter. Ali managed to avoid the Kinshasa several times, including countering it with a roll-up for a clean pinfall victory over the WWE Intercontinental Champion.

RANDY ORTON VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- F*CKING AWESOME!
This is a MUCH better way of explaining things than they did last week. Nothing that breaks kayfabe here.

NEW DAY PROMO- Kofi was good, but dear G-d please make him stop stuffing those pancakes behind the belt.

AJ STYLES (w/Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson) vs. KOFI KINGSTON (w/The New Day)- 7/10
Kofi wins clean. There were some altercations on the outside. This was a great match, but like with the opening, the babyface didn’t get anything out of this win, and the heel in question really shouldn’t be taking losses.

ROMAN REIGNS BAIT-AND-SWITCH BULLSH*T- the worst thing on his show by MILES.
Why did Roman making a f*cking challenge get the main event spot over the WWE World Heavyweight Champion vs. the WWE United States Champion, you ask? Because we had to the dumbest possible cliffhanger, of course. What happened was that Roman was walking over to Kayla for his interview when a big stack of boxes tumbled over onto him. People dug him out and he was pretty much fine. He walked it off and was refusing help the medical people because he’s so darn tough… but then he just f*cking left. If the injury is so minor that you can walk it off then why don’t you just cut your promo?
I guess we’re supposed to assume that someone pushed these over onto Roman, but if that were the case then someone would have seen that person when the crates came tumbling down. This was SOOOO dumb.


This was a very weird episode of Smackdown. A lot of the promos were awesome and the majority of the matches were great for the time they got, but the actual angles they tried to build up matches rather than just promos all stunk other than Ali rolling up Nakamura to set up a title shot all sucked hard, and every result other than that match had booking that ranged from questionable to outright bad. This has got to be the most awesome show in wrestling history to somehow still have total sh*t booking.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/30/2019 Smackdown (the worst-booked awesome show in history!)

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 2nd, '19, 03:08

Nawh. Reigns said "it didn't get me", even though he was shown to be going down as it came on him and then he was also shown to be under it...only to NOT be under it immediately afterward...
When they come, they'll come at what you love.

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KILLdozer
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Re: BRM Reviews the 7/30/2019 Smackdown (the worst-booked awesome show in history!)

Post by KILLdozer » Aug 2nd, '19, 09:43

Evidently people are saying Daniel Bryan did this and that's his opponent for Summerslam...but I'm not sure why that would make any sense instead of...Idk, Samoa Joe?

But fuck it, so much of the card is being thrown together lately so why not.
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 7/30/2019 Smackdown (the worst-booked awesome show in history!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 2nd, '19, 12:45

KILLdozer wrote: Aug 2nd, '19, 09:43 Evidently people are saying Daniel Bryan did this and that's his opponent for Summerslam...but I'm not sure why that would make any sense instead of...Idk, Samoa Joe?
Well... the local spot for the SD at MSG in September did advertise Bryan vs. Reigns, so that might bolster the argument a bit.
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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