SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
U.S. Title Surprise…
Recap: The New Day opened the show with a patriotic promo comparing the United States to pancakes. It was as terrible and self-indulgent as the prior sentence makes it sound. Jinder Mahal then came down to the ring and defeated Xavier Woods to move to the U.S. Title Tournament finals.
Later Mojo Rawley took on Bobby Roode. Roode won with the Glorious DDT, advancing to face Jinder next week for the vacant US Title.
After the match, Roode was attacked by the Singh Brothers as Jinder looked on approvingly. Roode then suggested the match be moved up from next week to now. Jinder declined, however Daniel Bryan then appeared and implemented Roode’s suggestion of accelerating the match date.
Despite having injured ribs from the match with Mojo Rawley, Bobby Roode was able to defeat Jinder Mahal for the U.S. Title.
Evaluation: Daniel Bryan granting the request of face Bobby Roode to move up the match was met with widespread crowd approval. I’m assuming WWE thought this was a heelish move by Bryan since despite Bobby requesting the match, it being granted put Bobby at a theoretical disadvantage due to the rib injury sustained in his match with Mojo. It was naïve, however, to expect the crowd to not want to see a US Title match.
The New Day’s act has gotten really, really old. They don’t seem to care at all about wins and losses, only creating memes that run long enough to sell merchandise.
Forecast: I was very, very surprised that Jinder Mahal didn’t win the title. Considering that management still likes the guy, I would expect the feud to continue leading to a title rematch between Roode and Mahal before Dolph Ziggler returns.
No Sign of Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn…
Recap: Neither Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn appeared tonight. As a result, there was no real advancement in Smackdown’s biggest storyline.
Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were at ringside for the main event. They showed a united front in banning the Singhs from ringside, and appeared together to present Bobby Roode with the US Title.
Evaluation: It’s interesting that nothing happened with this story this week, considering it’s the biggest story on the show. This makes me wonder if some of the guys involved here maybe have some minor injuries and needed a break.
If injuries aren’t the explanation, it’s also possible that WWE still has no idea where to go with this storyline, and took a week off of advancing it to prevent themselves from being boxed into one direction.
Forecast: There was a ton of filler tonight between the cell phone selfie promo videos for the Royal Rumble and the long video package recapping the Owens-Zayn-Bryan-Shane-AJ storyline. If I had to guess, it seems most likely that WWE used this episode to give some guys a rest.
Whether it was driven by injuries and need for rest, or driven by needing more time to figure out where to take this storyline, taking a week off wasn’t necessarily bad considering they were able to fill the main event by moving up the US Title match by a week. It would’ve been nice, however, to find some other matches for the show to prevent it from being so dominated by filler.
I would expect this storyline to pick up again next week.
Multiple WWE Programs Duel with Each Other…
Recap: The Raw 25th Anniversary retrospective on USA Network and the Mixed Match Challenge on Facebook Watch aired at the same time tonight (10 p.m. EST, immediately following Smackdown). 205 Live on WWE Network was preempted and moved back to follow the MMC.
Evaluation: Was this a lack of thought in programming decisions, or is WWE hoping to learn something from running its own programs against each other on competing platforms?
If WWE were truly trying to run an A-B test here, they’d want to isolate one variable, not two, while leaving the other factors constant. Running the same or similar programming on different platforms simultaneously would be an example of this, as the variable would be the platform (with the content constant). Running different types of content simultaneously on the same or similar platforms would be another example, as the variable then becomes the content (with the platform constant).
In this case, I can’t see how they would be able to learn anything due to having very different content running on very different platforms, so I’m leaning toward either a poor programming decision, or USA Network simply requesting the 25th Anniversary retrospective to fill time while not being overly worried about ratings for that hour.
It will be interesting to see how many tune in to Mixed Match Challenge. If MMC does have decent viewership at 10:00p EST, toward the end of the program will WWE advertise the 10:30p EST start for 205 Live to try to keep eyeballs on WWE programming through 11:30pm?
Forecast: I honestly am yet to meet a single person interested in the MMC, so my prediction is for a flop. I’m not against the idea of digital content; it’s likely the future as broadcast and cable TV continue to decline in importance. But we are likely a long way off from all WWE programming moving online. When that day does come, I hope Raw and Smackdown move to WWE Network (perhaps on a free tier that includes advertising, with the PPVs and other content remaining on the paid version). This would be preferable to having content hosted by a heavy-handed “edge provider” like Facebook.
Random Thoughts…
The selfie-style cell phone video promos to promote the Royal Rumble tonight seemed to be met with utter silence from the crowd…
NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: TOP 3 DEVELOPMENTS – RAW 1/15: Braun Rampages, Jordon continues to overstep, Miz marches toward IC Title, plus Revival, Paige, more
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