WWE Smackdown Review 08/27/15 by Jake Draper

Hello, and welcome to the most professional review of WWE Smackdown on the internet. I say this, of course, with a little tongue-in-cheek humor because this review is like a train that’s forgotten where the rails are. For a more “normal” review, feel free to look at, oh, any other wrestling blog on the planet. But don’t. Stay here. We have cookies. Web cookies.

Our post-SummerSlam episode starts off with the announcement of the Dudley Boyz returning tonight after a decade. I was such a mark for them back in the 90’s and I’m fine with them coming back to inject some old school table/testicle crushings into the tag team division.

The Wyatt Family came out, complete with their newest member, Braun Strowman. The announcers talked over their whole entrance, which is unbelievably annoying to me. Way to kill the mood, guys. It’s like if you’re watching a horror movie with someone telling you everything that’s happened in the previous films. Jason Vorhees is stalking his victims and some ass next to you is like, “In the last movie Jason was stabbed multiple times, as you can see by the holes in his shirt. Of course, he’s immortal and all, so it’s not terribly important. Jason, of course, is the from Crystal Lake, where he once killed a woman in a boat when he was, get this, only nine years old. Just awful, awful stuff. Now he’s stalking his next victim, and you can be certain that that young, pretty teenage girl who’s smoking pot in the nude is about to have an awful night, right Jimmy Uso?” Then Jimmy Uso smiles and nods because that’s all he ever does.

They showed the clip of Braun taking out Reigns and Ambrose earlier in the week. I mean, look, it’s cool that someone new came up, but doesn’t it sorta defeat the purpose of NXT to let this guy bypass that whole thing? Sure, he’s been working for WWE for a while, but he’s not had a whole lot of in-ring experience. They sorta tossed him into the deep end because he’s huge. I’m hoping he is great, but I am just under the impression that he got to skip NXT based entirely on his size and looks and that irks me. Much like many other things. Like when grapes are mushy. I’m very hard to please.

Despite everything I just said, the three Wyatts look awesome. They just look like a band of swamp monsters and I hope Strowman can hang with the big dogs. The promo was basically the exact same promo from Raw, except longer. It was cut off by Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose who were looking for a fight. Despite Strowman having decimated both guys all by himself on Monday, they left the ring. “Mind games,” the announcers said. I say, “They’ll just do it at the end of the show because that’s how wrestling works.”

Speaking of the announcers, Rich Brennan is on commentary. He’s one of the NXT announcers, which is cool. Jimmy Uso has someone new to listen to while he nods his head and smiles. Alas, Jerry Lawler is still there to make endless dad jokes and fake laugh at unfunny stuff. Oh, Jerry.

The Ascension vs. The Dudley Boyz

*Remember when The Ascension was a thing? Me either.

*Awesome to see The Dudleys again and in an actual match. They don’t look like they’ve aged a whole lot, and Bubba Ray is actually looking a lot better than he did in their first run. His days in TNA were good to him. The sentence previous to this one has never ever been said before.

*Mostly this match was a nice little reminder of the Dudleys’ move set and style, which is still great fun. Flying testicle crushers and all.

*Someone in the front row had a giant cutout of Vince McMahon’s head. And it’s amazing. BEHOLD!

*The Ascension got a little offense in, but this was pretty much a given that they were here to take a bunch of classic moves. The crowd was pretty much on fire for Bubba and Devon the whole time.

*Konnor took the 3D for the win for the Dudleys.

Winner: The Dudley Boyz

The New Day came out to picket the Dudleys using tables, but they clearly don’t know that that’s not how the Dudleys roll. So, tables were used. Konor got to take that honor as well, and it was beautiful. No one slams other humans through eating structures better than the Dudley Boys.

Neville vs. Kevin Owens

*When I realized who was in this match I realized that this match wasn’t announced previously and that’s nonsense. Smackdown does two things that annoy me more than anything. 1) They use half their time to show us what happened on Raw instead of showing us what’s happening on Smackdown. 2) They have matches between two or more really, really awesome athletes and don’t bother announcing it in advance.

*Kevin Owens hit a crazy move, which I’ll call a torture rack neckbreaker, I guess? It was insanely high-impact and I hope that he uses it more. His moveset is so diverse.

*Neville mounted a comeback with a bunch of awesome moves, including a super slick springboard missle dropkick and then a snappy German Suplex. Neville is deceptively strong considering he gets so much crap over his small stature.

*That comeback ended with a brutal superkick from Owens and a popup powerbomb.

Winner: Kevin Owens

Just a quick little match analysis: Neville is so flashy and fun that he doesn’t need as long of matches as some other guys to put on a good show. Obviously, having a guy like Owens to work with doesn’t hurt, but I’ve noticed Neville can do in five minutes what takes most people ten minutes to accomplish. This wasn’t a super long encounter, but it’s still very good.

A backstage segment where the Bellas were talking to Charlotte and Becky. They said a lot of stuff, but whenever they talk I pretty much just hear train whistles and see red. Then I wake up in a room with pentagrams drawn all over the walls and I’m covered in some sort of blood, but none of it is my own. I may be concerned, but I’m a professional and the review must go on.

Also, wouldn’t it be great if their were two other Bellas but they were twin boys? I would call them The Bella Fellas. Making it in WWE ’16 when it’s out.

Team PCP vs. The Bellas

*Oh look! Another variation of Divas tag team matches because the “Divas Revolution” has had nothing at stake at all. It’s just a bunch of throwaway matches. Break these teams up, put the Divas title on Sasha Banks, and give us more one-on-one matches so the division can matter.

*Pretty basic match where Charlotte got the pin after her Charlotte’s web move, which is cool to see. Meanwhile, Sasha Banks was on commentary. Because why not? Why would they not put their most talented Diva in an actual match?

Winner: Team PCP

Seth Rollins came out for a promo about how Monday was totally the suckiest for him. Him carrying both the title belts is so cool looking. He ran down his list of accomplishments, which is growing quite substantially, and well beyond what Roman Reigns has done. Which makes me laugh. That led to the whole Sting replay from Raw. I’m just going to toss this little tidbit out there, but can you imagine if that curtain had risen and it had been Daniel Bryan under there instead? That would be like, the biggest moment ever. Sting is better than my prediction of it being Kane, but oh my God, just imagine it. ANYWHO, then Rollins talked a bunch of smack about Sting, even making a little reference to TNA being the minor leagues. Old Seth Lollins over here with the jokes, amirite? Solid work from the DUEL CHAMPION.

Sheamus tallked about cashing in. When’s he going to do it!? I don’t care! Unless he takes that title off of someone like the f***ing Big Show, I’m going to hate when he cashes in. I do not know why, but Sheamus just bores me so much. I know a lot of people like him for whatever reason, I just don’t see it.

Ryback and Dolph Ziggler vs. The Big Show and Rusev

*SummerSlam might have passed, but every night is “SummerSlam” for Rusev, yah’m sayin’?

*The Big Show is sorta kinda leaning toward being a babyface because people feel bad for him for getting pushed around. Please no. Please never. Please no never. Please never no.

*Rusev refused to tag in Big Show and just kept beating up both other guys by himself. Because he’s what we in this profession refer to as a “BAMF.”

*Despite Big Show’s more limited abilities in the ring these days, him and Ziggler are still really, really entertaining to watch. I am completely fine with them having a feud because no one sells like Dolph Ziggler, so Show’s big moves are absolutely barbaric.

*Rusev tagged himself in and locked the Accolade in on Ziggler, so Big Show hit him with a KO punch for Ziggler to get the win. Just throwing this out there, but maybe Big Show should have waited to knock him out for like ten more seconds? It’s not like wins mean a damn thing, but he could at least pretend that they do and get the W before he turns on Rusev. But hey, we got to see Lana celebrate so everything was fine in the end.

Winners: Ryback and Dolph Ziggler

More recaps. SKIP. I watched SummerSlam and Raw and if you didn’t then surely you read about them on TJR somewhere so, MOVING ON.

Sheamus vs. Dean Ambrose

*Sometimes guys get into their ring gear and go to shows just to run interference for what amounts to like, ten seconds of screen time. Like, let’s say Randy Orton interfered here, which I don’t expect since he’s not on Smackdown very often. He would have his wrestling gear on, deliver and RKO, then the show would be over. However, that’s why Dean Ambrose is so lucky. He just always wears his regular clothes. He knows what he’s doing.

*Ha. You expected a match analysis there. You got a clothing analysis instead. Gonna start a new weekly post called Jake’s Wrestling Fashion Corner.

*It got pretty brawl-y before the first commercial break, then they came back and Sheamus said, “Respect the hawk!” and, I won’t lie, I dig that. And I dig when he uses Russel Crowe quotes. I still just think he’s boring though. I just think he’s capable of having faster-paced and more technical matches and rarely does. The ability and potential is there, I’ve seen it with my own two eyes, but he seems to just not really care a lot of the time. Which means I don’t either.

*This is the main event and there’s no Cesaro. This hurts me. This is like Magneto watching Schindler’s List painful. This is like pouring the last glass of milk and spilling it painful. This is like realizing you’re out of toilet paper and having to use a hand towel painful. This is like hitting your shin on the ball hitch of a truck painful.

*Ambrose, on the other hand, is awesome as a kooky madman on the edge. He’s like Riggs from the first Lethal Weapon. He goes for The Joker, I think, but I see a whole lot of old Mel Gibson when I think of his character. Except with 100% less anti-Semitism.

*Ambrose started getting his awesome offense in when the predictable interference from the Wyatts came, which distracted him and gave Sheamus the win. I love Ambrose, but if they’re going to have the Money in the Bank briefcase on Sheamus then he’s in need of some wins because following up the fun ass title reign of Seth Rollins is going to just be impossible for a guy like Sheamus.

Winner: Sheamus

Roman Reigns came down to save Ambrose, giving ye olde’ Superman punch to Luke Harper and then meeting Braun Strowman in the ring. That ended badly for him as Strowman pretty much just smashed him. That was absolutely 100% the best thing WWE could do with him. Reigns is finally facing a guy who looks like he can beat the Hell out of him. If Strowman can go in the ring then this is going to be the storyline that finally pushes Reigns to the next level he needs to get to. He doesn’t look like an unstoppable superhero. He looks like a mortal man that we can actually relate to. I like it a lot, even though Reigns will probably just beat him up soon and then move on to the WWE Title picture. Still, as it stands, so far so good.

Things We Learned on This Week’s Smackdown:

*The announcers talking over the Wyatt Family’s entrance is basically the most annoying thing on television next to Spongebob’s laugh.

*Whoever the guy in the front row with the giant McMahon head was…he’s okay in my book. I don’t even want to know the price tag on getting that bad boy printed off, but it was worth every dime.

*Neville is fun. So is Kevin Owens. But not Battletoads. Battletoads is really hard and it makes me have grey hair. Battletoads is only for the strong-willed.

*Because of the Bellas I sacrificed someone or something to the Dark Lord, I guess. Something like that.

*I have nothing to say about the Divas match because it was just whatever. It’s time to let these ladies do their own thing outside of teams.

*Seth Lollins has jokes.

*Dolph Ziggler is the one person who can make me enjoy watching The Big Show’s matches. And now they’ll be teaming up in a few weeks because good guys never dislike each other. It’s like everyone is team red or team blue. Ain’t no purples back there.

*Dean Ambrose is Riggs from Lethal Weapon. I’m telling you, go watch it. You’ll see. Now I want an angle where Big Show is talking about his IRON CLAD CONTRACT and Ambrose just hits him with a Dirty Deeds and says, “Has just been revoked.” Yes, that was Murdock who said that, but I don’t have a Murdock. I do what I can with what I’ve got and you’ll do well to shut your mouth.

*Braun Strowman is still early in his career, but I think letting him bypass NXT based on his look is a silly idea and there’s a chance this will backfire. Call me a pessimist if you want, but I just can’t fully buy into him until I see him have an actual match.

That’s it. You did it. I did it. We did it. We started a journey and now it’s all over. I have many journies all the time that you can read about on my Facebook at www.facebook.com/JakeDraperRulesTheGalaxy, where I have a weekly podcast about really cheesy movies. Soon we will do one with a certain great wrestler/actor. There’s a short list who do both well, so I’ve already said too much. Also, you can check me out over on Twitter, where I usually post really random thoughts about stuff and Tweet about wrestling @JakobDraper. Until next week, make sure you don’t punch Brock Lesnar in the testicles because he really, really doesn’t like that.