SMACKDOWN HITS & MISSES 11/1: Ellsworth, Miz TV with Daniel Bryan, Styles vs. Ambrose main event, Orton-Wyatt Family, Tag Match Qualifiers

SMACKDOWN HITS

Opening Segment: Smackdown got off to a pretty good start. I don’t want to see James Ellsworth next month. His act is going to run out of steam pretty quickly, but it is still working for now. He plays his part well. Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles also played their parts well. This was a solid way to follow up on the main event from last week. The physicality at the end also worked well. This was a bit of a set up for this week’s main event also .

MizTV: This was a fun segment with The Miz and Maryse hosting Daniel Bryan to talk about the Survivor Series Raw vs. Smackdown matches. I enjoyed how Bryan delayed getting to the announcement of who the men in the match would be by doing the tag teams first, just to annoy Miz. And then his trolling Miz by teasing that he would be in the match was also funny. Miz did a good job of getting angry at that point and pushing Bryan too far with this comment about Total Bellas. Bryan showed good fire at that point in pointing out the difference between Miz and the Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler. I don’t know where they are going with this considering Bryan can’t wrestle Miz. But, this was a good segment. I had no issues with the 7 second match that followed with Ziggler hitting a sudden super kick to beat Kurt Hawkins. But, I didn’t like the open challenge from Ziggler to anyone on Raw to face him for the IC Title at the PPV. It is too soon for all of this Raw vs. Smackdown crap and why would Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon go along with it, when they specifically drafted The Miz to Smackdown in the first place because they wanted the IC Title on their show?

Styles vs. Ambrose: It is hard to imagine a match between Styles and Ambrose not being good. They are both such talented workers and they work very well together. Everything they do in these matches is so smooth and well executed. It is a joy to watch. What can turn one of their matches from a Hit to a Miss would be the booking. For instance I will probably feel that way at some point when James Ellsworth turns heel and purposefully helps Styles get the win over Ambrose. This was a good main event. After so many short matches, it was good to see one go longer at nearly 14 minutes. Ellsworth’s role was fine here in disobeying Ambrose, but still helping him out. But despite the win, Ambrose still should be wanting to destroy this guy for disobeying him which did distract him at first and nearly cost him the match again.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Orton and the Wyatts: Ugh. What does a 2 minute No DQ match do for anyone? If Randy Orton really did join the Wyatt Family, then it was a terribly anticlimactic turn for Orton. And if he is actually playing the Wyatts by pretending to join them as I and many others suspect, then he is an ass for helping them beat up Kane in the meantime. And regardless of what happens or has happened already in this storyline, I just groan when I see the supernatural BS like Orton’s eyes suddenly glowing with some sort of evil power.

Lynch & Bella vs. Bliss & Carmella: This Miss isn’t for the effort put in by Becky Lynch, Nikki Bella, Alexa Bliss or Carmella. The first problem was that it was under 6 minutes and more than half of those came on commercial break. So we hardly saw any of this match which involved the two current women’s feuds on Smackdown. I didn’t like how the ending was booked, because very little happened to Bella at the end, yet she sold it to the point where she couldn’t come back into the ring to make the save. I wasn’t buying it. And as I have said before, heels “cheating” by raking the eyes does nothing for me because no wrestler has ever been disqualified for raking the eyes. I don’t believe that if the referee had seen Bliss rake Lynch’s eyes that she would have been DQd. I don’t know how good this match was given how little we saw, but the ending wasn’t well booked even if it was well executed. And the promo from Bliss and Carmella afterwards wasn’t good. The problem wasn’t the performances which were fine, but was the scripting. Instead of concentrating on their feuds, they were talking about Survivor Series and making fun of Raw’s women. Yawn. And I don’t know how WWE wants me to react to a heel in Carmella making fun of a heel in Charlotte. Should I cheer that? But, she’s a cheater and has been booked as a total heel in her feud against Nikki Bella. It is a mess and didn’t focus nearly enough on the Women’s Championship match next week on Smackdown.

Tag Match Qualifiers: We saw two qualifying matches for Smackdown’s Survivor Series tag team tag team. Both had the exact same problem. They both featured one good tag team and a jobber team. They both were under 2 minutes long. If they had been total squashes at that point, then I wouldn’t have a problem with them. But in each case, the jobbers got in way too much offense. American Alpha should have destroyed The Spirit Squad. The Usos should have destroyed The Headbangers. Yes they won quickly, but not in a convincing enough factor in such short matches. WWE has done such a crappy job with American Alpha and they probably think that getting them this win makes up for it. But, it doesn’t. They need to be the sole survivors at the PPV and do so in a dominating way.

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