BRM Reviews the 8/27/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/27/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 27th, '19, 22:45

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS ROMAN REIGNS- f*cking pointless
We started off with a video package of the whole “who tried to murder Roman several times?” saga, then cut to a shot of Roman walking around backstage before he just happened to walk by Kayla, who pulled him over for an interview. Can we really not just have Roman with Kayla, ready to go for the interview once the video package is over? You know… something to make it feel like there is some sort of organized force producing this show rather than their usual “as luck would have it, Kayla happened to be near Roman and looking to interview him, and if she hadn’t been there we’d have just been staring at Roman until he got to catering or the bathroom or wherever he was going.”
Kayla asked Roman if he had anything to say to Bryan and Rowan. Roman said that he did, but he thinks what he has to say is better said in the ring. You know… just in case you didn’t think this week’s show would feature Roman’s response to the cliffhanger they ended last week’s show on.

Corey Graves told Byron Saxton to “go swim with an alligator.” WHAT THE F*CK?! Also, this is not even the first time that Graves has essentially told Saxton to “go die.” Corey Graves is a f*cking asshole, and I eagerly anticipate the day where Saxton has finally had enough and calmly tells Graves “I hope you fall off of a building tomorrow.”

KOFI/ORTON SEGMENT- awesome… and yet somehow still frustrating
We started out with an AWESOME babyface promo by Kofi. Orton showed up on the TitanTron and cut a great promo as well. I was liking this until it veered into the whole “oh no! Randy is going to go to the hotel and beat up Kofi’s family” bit, for several reasons.
1. I’m not too good at guessing people’s ages, but I’m pretty sure that Kofi’s kid isn’t eighteen yet, and for that reason alone, no one buys that we will actually see Randy Orton go to the hotel and beat up Kofi’s son, so this is all false drama.
2. Can we please do something with Randy Orton (and Samoa Joe, for that matter) other than “goes after someone’s family?”
3. As the above point implies, this feud has now become generic. Randy could be doing this with anyone. Hell… anyone could be doing this with anyone. In fact, the feud for this very title at this same time last year involved AJ Styles and Samoa Joe in a very similar angle… and that feud also started off with a DQ at SummerSlam.
Randy Orton and Kofi Kingston have a history together that is rather unique within the world of WWE, but instead of taking advantage of it to tell the logical story that stems from it, WWE is insisting on jamming this square peg into a round hole. The story should have been about Randy saying that Kofi wasn’t a main eventer back then and isn’t one now, and Kofi proving him wrong, one, two, three in the middle of the ring. No run-ins, no stipulations, no bullsh*t; just Kofi proving Orton wrong in the purest form possible in pro wrestling: defeating him cleanly in a standard-rules professional wrestling match.

So Kofi charges backstage to stop Orton from murdering his family or whatever. They brawl, and Orton wins the brawl. While their execution of the brawl was good, it felt completely unimportant because we’ve seen them brawl what feels like a million times in the past month and a half.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS BIG E. AFTER THE COMMERCIAL BREAK- great
Kayla told Big E. that she just heard that he has been booked against Orton later tonight. Big E. said that he could guarantee us all that Kofi would be able to compete at the PPV (just in case you thought a DDT on the floor would put him out for a few weeks when people take moves like that all the time and aren’t event incapacitated for two minutes)… but he can’t say the same for Randy Orton.

KING OF THE RING TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy- 7.75/10
Nine minutes and ten seconds of awesome. I would ask you to imagine what these two could do with twice that amount of time, but why imagine when you can see it for yourself by going back and watching their awesome feud on 205 Live last year?

WOMEN BACKSTAGE- very good
Ember Moon got to actually acknowledge that losing to Bayley at SummerSlam isn’t something that she can just get over by snapping her fingers, but was still a supportive friend to Bayley. Lacey Evans (wildcard #1) showed up and cut a promo on both of them. They both reacted in an appropriate babyface way to a delusional heel, and Bayley cut a promo hyping up her match with Lacey. Why can’t we get segments like these from the women on SD more often?

NXT COMMERCIAL- The first words we heard were “we are gathered here today to get it right.” Hunter’s not even being subtle anymore.

MIZ PROMO- Claiming that Sami Zayn “couldn’t cut it in a WWE ring” and then claiming to have been the one to bring prestige to the IC Title made this feel a lot more like a heel Miz promo from a few years ago than the babyface promo it was supposed to be. Miz challenges Nakamura to an IC Title match at the PPV, and also ups our wildcard count to 2.
Sami Zayn (wildcard #3) came out to respond to Miz’s comments. He goaded Miz into coming after him, allowing Nakamura to come out of the crowd and hit Miz in the back of the head with the IC Title. Nakamura proceeded to beat Miz up while Sami yapped on the mic. This part of this while thing was excellent.

KEVIN OWENS & THE DRIFTER IN SHANE’S OFFICE- This established that Shane isn’t in the building. The moment The Drifter let that slip I was expecting Owens to lay him out but nothing happened.

LACEY EVANS vs. BAYLEY- 7/10
Right before a commercial break Charlotte Flair came out to watch the match from ringside. If her goal is to distract Bayley then I have to commend her on her ingenious new strategy of forgetting to tan her face so that it’s much paler than the rest of her body. The oddity of this is sure to catch Bayley’s attention.
Charlotte actually didn’t cause any sort of distraction, which was shocking. Also shocking was how great this match was.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS DANIEL BRYAN & ERICK ROWAN- fine

BIG E. vs. RANDY ORTON- 8/10
Serious Big E. Is awesome! Can we have more of him, please? Also this match was awesome (although I did find the referee’s cadence on count-outs to be a bit suspect. Orton won with help from The Revival. After the match they hit Big E. with a double-flapjack into an RKO… which is basically a three-person Dudley Death Drop.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS CHAD GABLE- Gable cut a great promo, then Shelton stopped by to be a dick and make short jokes.

24/7 TITLE SILLINESS RECAP- silly. And now they want me to take their 24/7 Champion seriously for the…
DRIFTER PROMO- He wears the KOTR regalia and sits on the throne while cutting a promo about winning KOTR. Kevin Owens showed up and beat hit up, then hit his finisher. Owens did not even bother to pin the 24/7 Champion and win his title even though this would theoretically earn him more money to help him pay off Shane’s fine.
After Owens left, R-Truth snuck out of the crowd and tried to pin The Drifter but Drake Maverick pulled him out of the ring and stole the pin.

KING OF THE RING TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Chad Gable vs. Shelton Benjamin- 2.25/10
This went under four minutes. Shelton threw Gable around for most of it, then Gable won with a Code Red performed as flash pin rather than a big move. This felt like it hurt Gable more than it helped him because he spent so much time getting his ass kicked.

CLOSING SEGMENT- bad
Roman didn’t seem to get much a reaction when he came out, either positive or negative. Vic Joseph told me that Roman has been through a “life-changing” past few weeks. While that perhaps should be the case, nothing Roman has done or said has made it feel like anything close to that?
He came out to the ring while Bryan and Rowan were on the TitanTron. Roman showed footage of the box-falling incident and this time there is a man with a red beard clearly visible pushing the boxes over. Where did this footage come from and why did it take everyone so long to get it?
Bryan began to slap Rowan and shout at him to get out because “I HATE LIARS!” Bryan came out to the ring to try to explain to Roman that he had nothing to do with this but Roman speared him. The problem with this was that Bryan seemed extremely sincere. This is wrestling so I can’t help but assume that Bryan repeating “I HATE LIARS!” over and over again is just to make him a hypocrite when it is eventually revealed that he actually was in on it, but within kayfabe, Bryan did seem convincingly sincere here.

A GREAT episode of Smackdown, despite some rocky bits at the beginning and end. Hell, I’ll even go all the way and say that this show was awesome, which is the first time I’ve said that about Raw or SD in a long time.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Corey Graves said that Buddy Murphy “burst on the scene out of nowhere.”
HE WAS THE CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPION FOR SIX MONTHS!

2. Graves- “David Otunga went to Harvard, Saxton. Eighty percent of their graduation wasn’t… from prison, like yours.”
Yeah. Graves said that. He came across like someone who started his sentence without having any idea how he would end it.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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NWK2000
Posts: 1490
Joined: Feb 26th, '14, 00:52

Re: BRM Reviews the 8/27/2019 Smackdown (awesome!)

Post by NWK2000 » Aug 28th, '19, 11:03

Big Red Machine wrote: Aug 27th, '19, 22:45

KOFI/ORTON SEGMENT- awesome… and yet somehow still frustrating
We started out with an AWESOME babyface promo by Kofi. Orton showed up on the TitanTron and cut a great promo as well. I was liking this until it veered into the whole “oh no! Randy is going to go to the hotel and beat up Kofi’s family” bit, for several reasons.



KING OF THE RING TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND MATCH: Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy- 7.75/10

WOMEN BACKSTAGE- very good






BIG E. vs. RANDY ORTON- 8/10
Serious Big E. Is awesome! Can we have more of him, please? Also this match was awesome (although I did find the referee’s cadence on count-outs to be a bit suspect. Orton won with help from The Revival. After the match they hit Big E. with a double-flapjack into an RKO… which is basically a three-person Dudley Death Drop.
Big E is a main event level talent, on the mic and in the ring. I've felt this way since his mini-feud with Rusev in 2014.
NWK Reviews is closed for business for now.

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