By: Keila Cash
Hello everyone and welcome to another installment of
The SmackDown Files. Tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live! emanated from
Rabobank Arena in Bakersfield, California. With several members of the SD Live!
roster traveling to New Zealand and Australia for the Down Under Tour, would
this show have enough meat and potatoes to it to last the whole two hours? With
SummerSlam a little under two weeks away, this is not the best time to have a
skeleton crew three weeks into the brand extension. Did the blue brand survive
and thrive or did it fall off the proverbial cliff? The answer to that question
can be found throughout this blog. Without further ado, let’s dissect tonight’s
episode of SD Live! in no particular order.
·
SmackDown
Live! started just like it ended last week with Bray Wyatt and Erick Rowan
laying out Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler. Wyatt cut a good promo about how
Ziggler could never defeat a God and actually tried to claim that he was a
victim because Ziggler used the exposed turnbuckle to gain an unfair advantage.
Ambrose was having none of it and challenged Wyatt to a fight. Ziggler decided
to take the fight straight to Wyatt and got his ass kicked in the process.
Ambrose tried to make the save only for him to get nailed with an inadvertent Superkick
from Ziggler when The Showoff tried to save him from getting dropped with
Sister Abigail. Ziggler would be hit with Wyatt’s finisher moments later to
close out the opening segment.
·
Ambrose
and Ziggler were bickering backstage, but Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon broke
things up before it got physical. Bryan suggested that both men take out their
frustrations on the Wyatt family in a tag match later tonight.
·
My
prediction from last week about Ziggler and Ambrose teaming up to face The
Wyatt Family was spot on. Predictability can be good sometimes.
·
The
opening segment served its purpose to set up the main event. No frills. The
crowd was slightly annoying when they did the dreaded “What?” chant to Wyatt,
but he shut it down as his promo got more serious. Otherwise, this was a nice
way to start the show.
·
It
appears that there is a tag team congregation going on at ringside with The
Ascension, The Vaudevillians, and The Hype Bros coming out to scout American
Alpha during their tag team match against a couple of jobbers.
·
American
Alpha made quick work of the enhancement talent. The crowd was absolutely dead
for Jason Jordan and Chad Gable’s signature moves which was a little
disheartening. In fact, the crowd has been dead since the start of the show.
Sad times.
·
Speaking
of sad, seeing the assortment of teams American Alpha will have to face in
their quest to become the new Tag Team Champions on SD Live! is depressing.
Outside of The Usos, these teams lack that extra oomph to make people care
about them. The Revival need to be sent up from NXT. Stat!!
·
The
Miz and Maryse making out on the interview desk backstage was quite the site to
behold. The camerawork and direction was outstanding. Brazzers would have been
proud.
·
Eva
Marie has suffered a wardrobe malfunction and was unable to make her official
in-ring debut against Becky Lynch. Again. I will admit that the running gag of
her never wrestling is growing on me. Slightly.
·
Becky
Lynch was not hitting the shower two weeks in a row and issued a challenge to
any woman in the back to face her one-on-one. Alexa Bliss accepted Lynch’s
invitation and the match got underway after the commercial break.
·
Bliss
picked up the upset win when Eva Marie made her “spectacular” entrance and was
declared ready to compete by her personal ring announcer. Bliss looked
impressive in her debut match on SD Live! and her personality just jumps off
the screen. She’s a tiny spitfire who can back it up inside the squared circle.
Bliss is someone who can continue to grow as a performer and become a solid
cornerstone in the Women’s Division for years to come.
·
To
Becky Lynch: Her babyface pluckiness woke up the sleepy crowd. For that, I say
thank you. Small miracles do happen.
·
Randy
Orton and Alberto Del Rio were having a good match until Del Rio got himself
disqualified when he struck Orton’s surgically repaired arm with a steel chair.
He would continue his assault by ramming Orton’s arm into the ring post and
tried to continue his assault in the ring only for him to get dropped with an
RKO.
·
The
action before the disqualification was solid and Del Rio showed good aggression
throughout the bout. Orton looked impressive as well and I am fine with the
match not having a clean finish because Del Rio shouldn’t eat the loss if he’s
in line for any semblance of a push. I know. Wishful thinking…
·
That
Slater-Rhyno segment was pretty damn funny. Slater is finally showing his
comedic chops in a non-annoying way. Rhyno claiming that he had constituents to
impress in his home state of Michigan had me rolling. Slater lying about having
four kids instead of two to appease Rhyno’s softer side had me laughing out
loud. Great comedic timing from both men.
·
Slater
is still jobless and his above ground swimming pool remains unpaid for. Maybe
he can get a job in NXT. William Regal is a sympathetic man. I think.
·
The
kids count is now up to seven. Slater is a baby making machine.
·
And
he was offered a contract only for his big mouth to cost him the money to pay
for his pool. He’s an idiot. A loveable idiot.
·
The
NXT Alumni is having a good night as Carmella made Natalya tap out to the Code
of Silence. The match was solid while it lasted. Carmella’s character needs a
complete revamp because she is very annoying. It’s time to put the Staten
Island shtick to bed and come up with something that will make her more likable
among the masses. Otherwise, I am going to be rooting for the heels to kick her
ass every week.
·
That
was a random backstage beatdown. I guess Baron Corbin is still a little salty
about not winning the triple threat match last week to determine the number one
contender for Miz’s Intercontinental Championship. I smell a SummerSlam kickoff
match between Kalisto and Corbin. Call it intuition.
·
The
tag team match featuring Ambrose and Ziggler vs. The Wyatt Family was a nice
way to cap off the show. The in-ring action was good and I was impressed with
Erick Rowan holding his own in the ring. His no-selling of Ziggler’s series of
clotheslines was a nice touch until Ziggler dropped with a neckbreaker.
·
The
end of the match fell apart a bit when Ambrose jumped over a prone Ziggler and
tried to clear the ropes with a suicide dive onto Wyatt. It was a sloppy
landing, but Ziggler erased that image when he nailed Rowan with a Superkick to
win the match.
·
The
celebration was short-lived as Ambrose laid out Ziggler with Dirty Deeds to end
the show. The Bakersfield crowd was so angry at Ambrose that they did the
“Yes!” chant to voice their frustration at the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Insert sarcasm here.
·
It’s
pretty damning when Ziggler gets cheered for getting his ass handed to him. If
this is not enough motivation for WWE to turn him heel, I don’t know what is. The
fans reveled in his misery and he’s still supposed to go out there and put on a
show for them as if nothing happened? I don’t think so. Ziggler needs to kick
Ambrose’s head off next week to send a message that he’s not a pushover. I
don’t think it’s going to help him win over the crowd in Brooklyn if they
jumped off the bandwagon as well. This is a confusing feud after it was off to
such a smashing start last week. This is Exhibit A of when start-stop pushes go
horribly wrong. The Showoff is now The Turnoff. See what I did there? Clever,
huh?
·
Overall,
I thought tonight’s episode of SD Live! was solid. Outside of Mauro Ranallo
getting cut off midway through his pitch hyping SummerSlam as the show faded to
black, this was the best broadcast in terms of pacing thus far. The show didn’t
feel rushed and there was more wrestling on the show which is refreshing to
see. There are still some wrinkles in the fabric that need to be addressed, but
I thought the show breezed by without John Cena and AJ Styles on the show.
·
It
would have been nice to see Apollo Crews get his revenge on The Miz, but WWE is
relying on video packages to get him over. He needs more than edited clips to
do that. Crews needs to flesh out his character and not smile his way through
life. He has all the abilities in the world to do amazing things as a wrestler,
but he needs to that extra ingredient in the personality department that makes
him stand out from the pack.
·
The
blue brand is still suffering from talent depth issues which needs to be
addressed sooner rather than later. Don’t be shocked if we see some trades
between Raw and SD Live! in the very near future. To keep the premonition theme
going, let’s call it a hunch.
·
SD
Live! will put their final stamp on hyping SummerSlam next week. Let’s hope
it’s a good hard sell with all the key players back in the fold. Fingers
crossed!
On
that note, this wraps up another edition of The SmackDown Files. I hope you
enjoyed it and I will be back next week with a brand new installment of The Raw
Exposé. See you later, boys and girls!
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