8/14 WWE TALKING SMACK REPORT: Owens talks Baron Corbin, Bianca Belair tells Banks “it’s personal,” more

WWE NETWORK REVIEW: TALKING SMACK
AUGUST 14, 2021
REVIEW BY NICK MORGAN, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

Hosts: Kevin Patrick and Matt Camp with Kayla Braxton as the backstage interviewer

This week’s guests (more interviewees than guests): Shinsuke Nakamura (w/Boogs), Kevin Owens and Bianca Belair

– As is the new normal for this show, Talking Smack opened with a video recap of the Reigns-Cena “talk-off” before moving to the in studio talking heads, who with way too much glee recapped the entire show and touted the upcoming Summer Slam PPV. One interesting note, Matt Camp did bring up the possibility of Cena winning a record setting 17th world championship. This now seems to be the storyline.

– After even more pseudo-analysis, mostly from Camp, and more verbal and video recap of the Smackdown that presumably we all watched, we finally got a throw to Kayla Braxton for a backstage interview with Shinsuke Nakamura (along with Boogs). Kayla asked the standard “how does it feel to be champion”. Nakamura gave a very brief answer before Kayla quickly moved to Boogs so that Nakamura did not have to carry the interview in English. I still don’t understand why they don’t let Nakamura speak in Japanese and use subtitles. It would be so easy.

– After teasing “interviews” with Bianca Belair, and Kevin Owens, we got a Summerslam promo, that also interestingly mentioned Cena’s quest for a 17th championship.

– Back from break we got more verbal and video recaps of Smackdown angles, enabling more touting of the upcoming matches at Summer Slam. After a bunch more “blah,blah,blah” it was time to throw back to Kayla for a quick spot with Kevin Owens. Kayla did a piece of business as she tried to get up on the rolling prop box that Owens was sitting on. (Kayla is really short, so Owens made a little joke about a ladder, and they moved on quickly). Owens spoke with Kayla and said that while he thinks that Corbin is a big pile of S###, he does feel for him and respects his abilities. After this, Owens went on a rather long monologue about how he first came to WWE about 7 years ago and pretty much just kept talking and talking. It was entertaining. He then hopped off the box and pushed the box with Kayla still on it. Kayla seemed to have quite the smile on her face and seemed to be enjoying herself.

– Back in studio, they teased an upcoming interview with Belair before going to another promo for Summerslam (featuring the Banks/Belair match).

– After the break we got a full recap of the end of show angle between Banks and Belair at the contract signing allowing Camp and Patrick to once again plugs the match at Summerslam before throwing back to Kayla for the Belair segment. As we went to the segment, we see Belair all pissed off throwing things around like the show had just ended. Even if the show is supposedly taking place right after Smackdown, it had already been 20 minutes or so after the “end” of Smackdown. Yes, the segment could have been taped and Talking Smack is letting us know that segments are taped at different times and just like on the news and such, reporter’s throwback to the studio, but it has been taped way before. The angle we are supposed to take away from this “interview” was that Belair was pissed off at being attacked by Banks and that while she was willing to just have a good match with Banks, now it is personal. Belair declared that she is not going to take this anymore and stormed off. Not a bad spot, but Belair still needs some work on her acting and promo skills.

– We get thrown back to studio so Patrick and Camp can basically recap exactly what we had just seen and signed off for the night.

FINAL THOUGHTS: At around 25 minutes tonight, all I can say is that if you missed Smackdown and needed a recap, then this show can provide you with the information you want. Aside from that, except for Kevin Owens who just went for humor and was enjoyable, this show is not worth your time.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S TALKING SMACK REPORT: 8/7 WWE TALKING SMACK: The Street Profits reverse roles with Kayla, Tegan Nox & Shotzi ask Kayle to howl with them, Sasha Banks says she’s the new EST