SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Opening Segment – MISS: When I think about watching Smackdown lately, the word that comes to mind in “tedious.” It feels like a chore to watch, which doesn’t mean that there aren’t good parts of the show, but overall it is pretty bad. This show starts with a random shot of Daniel Bryan in the back for no apparent reason which turned out to be a good thing as The Miz walked up and talked to him. That didn’t work. Then we get a rather mundane generic “your life is pathetic” heel promo from Bayley. Lacey Evans then interrupted because she was angry that Bayley mentioned her daughter, even though Bayley never mentioned her daughter. Someone messed up there. I’m not a fan of this I’m a Mother character for Evans. I’m not a fan of Dana Brooke as she hasn’t developed as a performer and her character has been a total loser lately. So, this didn’t get me excited for the tag match or anything else in the rest of the show.
Brooke & Evans vs. Bayley & Banks – HIT: As it turns out, the match was good. It went a good length at 12 minutes without overstaying its welcome. Considering Brooke got the loss last week, and they are building up Evans for a Title shot against Bayley, it was surprising to see her getting the win.
Elias – MISS: Elias doing the hype of Smackdown in song is as bad as the Street Profits doing their hype gimmick on Raw. Wasn’t Elias one of Shane McMahon’s boys for much of last year? So why is he making fun of him this year? He came back randomly a few weeks ago and is suddenly a babyface with no actual turn. It is so bad and tedious to watch.
Sheamus’s Return – MISS: I am happy to see Sheamus back and the Brogue Kick he gave to Chad Gable was awesome. But, everything surrounding his return was bad. The Revival are a great team, but they are looking poor right now. The verbal exchange with Gable was bad as Gable’s “I’ve embraced my shortness” gimmick is not good. Gable vs. Dash Wilder was fine, but too short to amount to much. The physicality afterwards with Revival beating down Gable was fine to set up someone to come to Gable’s aid. Instead we got Sheamus. I don’t mind him coming out to attack Gable, but the way that WWE made it look like Sheamus was coming to help Gable didn’t work. Sheamus was a heel before leaving, and has talked like a heel in his vignettes hyping his return. He even mentioned Gable as one of the soft people on Smackdown, so why would he want to help him? The Revival shouldn’t be used as a way to get Sheamus on when they ended up running away from him. How does that make them look? It was too cute with the fake out that didn’t work.
Miz’s Saga – HIT: This is a marginal Hit as The Miz has been dull as a babyface and his story with The Fiend and Daniel Bryan has been tedious to watch. Hopefully, this heel turn and re-teaming with the returning John Morrison will revitalize him. A tag team feud with The New Day has potential. My concern is that we will get yet another Miz vs. Bryan feud. I mean, they were sort of feuding as two babyfaces. Now that one of them has turned heel, a longer feud seems inevitable which is a shame.
Reigns – Miz – MISS: The backstage interview with Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan wasn’t good. These two could have a good verbal exchange, but this wasn’t it. It felt overly scripted. They had no chemistry together. It was awkwardly staged to have Reigns talking about winning the Royal Rumble instead of talking about their main event tag match against Baron Corbin & Dolph Ziggler. It just wasn’t good.
Strowman vs. Cesaro – HIT: WWE continues to do a nice job of building towards an eventual Intercontinental Championship match between Shinsuke Nakamura and Braun Strowman. Here, we got Strowman against Nakamura’s buddy Cesaro. This was a good match, but it was only 8 minutes and it was interrupted by a commercial break, so we didn’t really get to see much of it. The kinshasa from Nakamura after the match worked well to make fans want to see Strowman getting revenge down the line.
Main Event – MISS: There was some good wrestling action in the main event, but it was overshadowed by the Fiend. I am sick of the hocus pocus stuff where he has magic powers to make the lights flicker and appear and disappear out of nowhere. Yes, The Undertaker had those powers, but Bray Wyatt isn’t The Undertaker. And it is 2020 now. Can’t wrestling grow up and get more serious and more realistic? It seems like a lot of fans who don’t like the cartoonish “Sports Entertainment” style of WWE and want a more real sports like feel from AEW are the same ones who like the Fiend who is totally cartoonish and unrealistic. He screams sports entertainer, not professional wrestler. After his magical disappearance, we got a call back to the horrible dog food angle with Corbin and Ziggler once again handcuffing Reigns. It was nice to see the Usos return to help out their cousin. They have been missed. They can breath some new life into the roster along with Morrison and Sheamus, so at least there is some good news.
Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com.
AEW fans lost all right to criticize WWE for “cartoony” stuff (the stuff with Bray Wyatt is very entertaining), after embracing Orange Cassidy. He’s a disgrace to professional wrestling and every wrestler who sells for him is an idiot. If I were a wrestler, i’d refuse to work with him.
Maybe it’s time to find somebody else to do the “hits & misses” of the WWE shows.
This guy doesn’t get the sport entertainment so he should stick to NWA or IWGP (if he’s honest, even AEW is too “cartoonish” for him).