WWE Smackdown Review 07/09/15

Smackdown this week starts with Mr. Seth Rollins coming down to the ring all alone because his security force was demolished by Brock Lesnar on Monday. You’d think The Authority could afford to hire a couple of new henchmen or something. Evil geniuses have an unlimited supply of henchmen. Everyone knows that.

Rollins cut a promo calling Lesnar a coward for not fighting him on Raw. I loved this promo for the sole fact that Rollins isn’t trying to be a cool heel. He’s playing the role of a coward, unlike someone like Triple H who wants to be “cool” so people still like him. Rollins doesn’t care. He had Lesnar outnumbered 3 to 1 and all of them had weapons, yet he called Lesnar a coward for backing down from a fight. The crowd hated it. Thus, Rollins did his job to perfection.

Paul Heyman interrupted, bringing along the Cadillac that Lesnar smashed. The car was completely smashed a hundred times more than it was on Raw, but they wanted to pretend that Lesnar did all of that. How? Did he suplex a tug boat onto the top of it? Heyman and Rollins got into an altercation that I can sum up with this:

Heyman: “This car is a metaphor for what you’re going to look like after Battleground, Seth.”

Rollins: “No. That’s what Lesnar is gonna look like!”

Heyman: “The person who is leaving the show with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship is Brock Lesnar.”

Rollins: “No. The one leaving with the championship is Seth Rollins.”

Heyman: “Well, alright then. See ya later, fella.”

That’s not as much paraphrasing as you might think.

Dean Ambrose vs. Bo Dallas

*Bo Dallas cut a promo before the match about how Ambrose couldn’t win the championship and Bo Dallas is going to inspire him, just like he inspired The Rock last week in Boston and now he’s on a hit HBO TV show. It’s so funny how they try to veil their Rock dick-riding. Vince knows how much money The Rock is worth, so he makes sure to stay on his good side.

*Bo Dallas screaming at Ambrose because he was being hurt is hilarious. I would say the readers of this review are split about 70/15/15. 70% love Bo Dallas because he’s just so funny, 15% can’t tolerate how annoying he is, and 15% are drunk and just trying to find something funny to laugh at on the internet.

*Dallas got a lot more offense than I figured he would get.

*Jimmy Uso on commentary again this week, so I guess he’s just not allowed to wrestle at all unless it’s as part of the Usos for some reason. I both agree and disagree with this because it makes him seem more like a dedicated tag team wrestler. Back years ago, tag teams never broke up. They were devoted to their team and that was what defined them, and if they did break up then it was a huge shocker. Now? Well, when two guys team up we are already wondering when they’ll break up after a week.

*It was a little more back-and-forth than what I expected, and that’s totally fine by me. It wasn’t a super long match, but it was fast-paced and not awful. No John Cena vs. Cesaro, but still good for what it was.

*Dean Ambrose hit Dirty Deeds for the win.

Winner: Dean Ambrose

I’m also going to mention that Tom Phillips is on announcing duties for this show. I don’t know where Byron Saxton is, nor do I really care. It’s very early in the show, but Phillips actually seems pretty decent. His voice doesn’t make me want to peel my skin off and he’s not making Lawler’s dad jokes left and right, nor is he saying any of Michael Cole’s stupid “go to” phrases (VINTAGE COLE). So, I reckon I’ll see how many weeks it takes for him to start getting under my skin.

Rusev vs. Fandango

*Summer Rae coming out with Rusev was weird because it was exactly the same as when Lana came out in every way. If the show wasn’t in high definition on a small screen then you legitimately wouldn’t know.

*Fandango apparently came out to the ring to Rusev’s theme? I’m not kidding. Rusev’s music was playing through the whole commercial break and continued playing when they returned, but Fandango was in the ring doing the finish of his entrance.

*Rusev is going to win, so while he dismantles Fandango I’ll just say this: This is a time to push Rusev as an unstoppable monster for a few months again. His feud with Cena has dragged him to midcard Hell and there’s no reason for such nonsense. Build him back up, have him reignite his feud with Cena and win a match against him clean. Get him back on the right track. He’s incredibly talented and he’s a legitimate monster.

*Summer Rae smiling sort of reminds me of a Dark Elf from Skyrim.

*Rusev won with The Accolade.

Winner: Rusev

At least they didn’t have Rusev and Summer awkwardly kiss. I mean, Rusev and Lana are dating in real life and on Monday had to kiss different people in front of each other for their jobs. Considering how hard Dolph Ziggler bumps and how strong Rusev is, I really think it’s not the best career move to put the two in a match when Rusev might work a little more stiff than normal.

Roman Reigns vs. Big Show

*God dammit. This match again. The last time I saw it was when Reigns buried Show under the announce table and it, shockingly, wasn’t bad. But that was a no holds barred match and they got to be a little creative. Every other match they’ve had has been boring. Which is what we can expect here.

*Don’t you dare comment that it was a Last Man Standing Match. Those are still no holds barred.

*They’re still going with the “Roman Reigns’ head isn’t entirely in the match” thing whenever Reigns is on defense. As if he was never ever on defense ever before this angle with Bray Wyatt.

*Reigns punched Big Show like a thousand times and knocked him down, Jimmy Uso said, “You know what time it is,” and I thought, “Yeah. Time for Bray Wyatt to interfere.” Then Bray Wyatt interfered. But of course Reigns punched him too, and then led to a disqualification when Wyatt got his hands on him.

Winner: Big Show by DQ

Wyatt hit Sister Abagail after the match because he needs to look strong. Let’s just face it, if you aren’t Brock Lesnar then we all know the outcome of a feud with Roman Reigns in 2015. I don’t need to even explain what I mean. The fact that you just sighed and said, “God, he’s right,” says it all.

Titus O’Neil vs. Big E

*I’m going to say it again, but The New Day is so great. This week I’ll ignore everything else about them and just point out something subtle. Watch Big E’s eyes during their entrance. He’s just so amped up. They’re all having so much fun with this gimmick and it shows.

*O’Neil and Big E are some immensely strong dudes, but the personality of Big E and his crazy explosive power give him a little edge as far as I’m concerned.

*The New Day was kicked out for getting too involved in the match. This happens so often that you’d think they’d learn or something, but heels are dumb.

*That led to a quick win from O’Neil. A short match that really should have been better.

Winner: Titus O’ Neil

Dear WWE,

I don’t f***ing care that the Cadillac Lesnar smashed up cost $56,000.

But hey, at least they explained that the car was crushed by a car crusher and that Lesnar did indeed not do all the damage to it as was earlier implied.

Also, shut up Jerry Lawler.

That’s just a generalized statement.

Randy Orton came out and talked about how no one has ever gotten under his skin like Sheamus.

*record skipping noise*

Now, hold on. Didn’t Triple H once betray you for winning the WWE Championship when he wanted it and beat you down and then take it from you later? Didn’t you feud with The Undertaker for nearly a solid year once? Didn’t Triple H also break into your home once? Didn’t CM Punk once blow a kiss to your wife after beating you down? Didn’t Kane cost you the WWE title like a couple months ago by attacking you during your match? All of this is less annoying than Sheamus winning one match (which you’ve lost to other people in) and beating you up a little?

Okay. I believe you.

It was a short promo where Orton said he was going to make Sheamus entertaining by ripping Sheamus’ Mohawk off. It’s completely fine that it was so short, since Orton has never been one for long promos. Play to his strengths.

The Ascension came out, and I’m going to bet it’s mostly so that Orton could humiliate them by beating them both up because WWE doesn’t have a clue what to do with them.

Randy Orton humiliated them by beating them both up because WWE doesn’t have a clue what to do with them.

Brie Bella and Alicia Fox vs. Naomi and Tamina

*In my mind, Tamina should just come in and end this match in a half a second after eating both Fox and Brie.

*There was a “BRIE MODE” moment. Is that like when Wolverine goes into Berzerk mode?

*Alicia Fox got the win on Tamina with a scissor kick. For whatever reason. They are booked weird.

Winner: Brie Bella and Alicia Fox

Ryback vs. Seth Rollins

*It’s the main title vs. the midcard title. Years ago they might have made a big deal of this. Now? Not so much. Ahhh, the golden years.

*WWE paid a lot of money (around $56,000 I hear) for that Cadillac, so you’d better believe they’re milking it for all it’s worth by keeping it on the screen a lot. I guess wrecked cars are ratings draws?

*Ryback held Rollins up for a suplex for literally almost a minute at one point, so that was neat.

*Ryback has come a very, very long way in the past couple of years. Putting him in the ring with a guy as good as Rollins is a good move.

*Rollins mocked Lesnar’s entrance by jumping up on the ring. It was almost funny because he’s so small next to Lesnar. It looked like a kid who was jumping on his trampoline and fantasy booking himself as Lesnar.

*The pace of the match really got moving when Ryback started firing up. It led to some reversals from Rollins and some big power moves from Ryback to retaliate.

*Rollins tried to leave the match (remember my spiel about him being a coward earlier?), so Ryback dragged him back in.

*The finish came when Rollins finally escaped and Ryback got the countout win.

Winner: Ryback by Count-out

Big Show came out to set up a double team beatdown on Ryback just as I began cracking my knuckles to complain about how awful of a finish that was. I mean, it’s still an awful finish that made Rollins look like he is actually not good enough in the ring to hang with Ryback. But, at least it put over the idea that he’s smart.

Roman Reigns came out to even the odds and, well, that made pretty much no sense since he’s feuding with Bray Wyatt and Wyatt should have came out and made it a 3-on-2 scenario. Just my thoughts. Ryback hit Shellshock on Rollins and then he and Ryback stood tall to end the show. Rollins needs to look stronger. I get that he’s a coward, and that’s fine, but the fact is that he can go in the ring and the idea is to book him as a guy who, while scared, can still hold his own in a match. They failed to do that as they’ve done so many other times.

What We Learned on this Week’s Smackdown

*Brock Lesnar was thought to have suplexed a tug boat, but it turns out that they are just giving him credit for a recycling machine’s hard work.

*The current announce team on Smackdown is…tolerable. Jerry Lawler still makes endless dad jokes, but I’ll forgive him because of that Andy Kaufman thing. At this point, that’s the only redeeming thing from Lawler that I can come up with.

*Cesaro not being on was either good or it was bad. I mean, Cena wasn’t on either, so it’s not like he’s being buried. No, I think the story of Cesaro’s future will be told further on Monday, though I can’t deny wishing he had been on here as well.

*Fandango is apparently using Rusev’s theme song. I dunno. I’m as confused as you. Go watch this match. You’ll be like, “Wow. That’s super weird.”

*Roman Reigns punches a lot when he’s not in a high-profile match. The guy has improved a lot, but you can tell when he’s phoning it in.

*Randy Orton’s years of insane feuds with people attacking his family and hitting him with barb wire bats and all sorts of other crazy shit is nothing compared to how angry Sheamus made him for winning that one match that one time.

*The “E” in “Big E” should stand for “Entertaining.” Heh? *elbow nudge* Ya like that?

*I wonder how much that Cadillac that Brock Lesnar smashed cost?

*I’m going to write a whole article soon about what “Brie Mode” actually is. Scientifically. Because I’m a scientist.

*Seth Rollins is scared of everyone with big muscles.

*Bray Wyatt gets paid a lot of money to show up for mere moments of random shows.

I guess that’s it for this week. I was having so much fun, though. How about you check me out on Twitter @JakobDraper or on Facebook (Just search “Jake Draper” and you’ll find me) and I’ll try to keep entertaining you with pictures of the cat my sister adopted or general observations about the world. It’s late. I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s sign off and say, “Aloha,” to each other because that means goodbye AND hello.

Aloha, friends.