Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Raw: Teddy Long showed up and tried to run the show, which is probably the only thing you can remember from last week’s episode. Also, AJ Styles and John Cena got really fussy about works and shoots. Also, Teddy Long again!
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown for June 13, 2016. Sorry, Raw.
Worst: To Start Us Off, Enzo Amore F*cked A Trombone
Consider that “Worst” an ironic “Best” if you want. But no, for real, Raw opened with The New Day getting into an argument with Enzo Amore and Big Cass about how Enzo took New Day’s trombone out onto Bourbon Street, force-fed it alcohol and, apparently, f*cked it. There’s a joke about how Xavier is the only one who “blows his girl,” meaning said trombone, but that just poses further questions.
I don’t want you to think I’m joyless or whatever, but sometimes wrestling gets caught in this (pardon my phrasing) nexus between the Attitude Era and the Please Be Fine With Our Content, Mattel Era where they’re trying to be edgy and pseudo-sexual, but they can’t go too far with it. What happens is that it’s not actually edgy enough to be edgy, and is just questionable enough to be kind of embarrassing to anyone not looking for edge. Plus, the entire bit is (and is clearly supposed to be) insincere. They aren’t mad at each other about trombone f*cking, they’re just joking and they’re gonna all sit around playing video games later. That’s pro wrestling. Insincere comedy bits are the Respect Hug of Raw.
Your Lucha Underground loving ass can't possibly be complaining about this, can you?
— ADINFINITUM – Self-Titled OUT 10/31 (@_AD1NF1N1TUM) June 14, 2016
That’s a fair point. I do love some dumb, dumb sh*t. Let’s run it through a Lucha Underground filter and see if it helps.
Drago and Aero Star start off the episode by talking for 15 minutes about … nope, lost me.
Okay, seriously this time. Drago and Aero Star start off the show with a vague promo about the upcoming Ultima Lucha, which is mostly Drago making fun of Aero Star for his uncool-looking rocket boots. After … yeah, seriously a quarter of the show, they’re interrupted by Cortez Castro and Mr. Cisco. Castro says catchphrases for several minutes and when he’s done, he tells Drago that he stole and f*cked his nunchucks in public. Drago’s upset and everyone has a good laugh, until Jack Evans and PJ Black show up and tell everyone to get serious. This is booed. They’re interrupted by, I don’t know, two guys who look exactly alike — Pentagon and Fenix? — who say they “hate to be the fun police, not they don’t-ski.” Imagine Pentagon saying “no we don’t-ski” in Spanish. All right, that might’ve done it.
But anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that the show not only started with Enzo Amore saying he got a trombone drunk and put his dick in it, the show peaked there.
The actual match that comes from it is fine, but teaches us two things right away:
1. Basketball is happening, so WWE’s phoning the show in so hard it could pull Neo and Trinity out of the f*cking Matrix, and
2. This is gonna be a lot easier to digest if you pretend it’s a 3-hour live Smackdown
This is the most Smackdown episode of Raw I’ve seen in years. It feels like a response to a Raw that never happened. There’s a WrestleMania-quality pay-per-view — subscrip-per-view? — on Sunday, so they’re just going through the motions. And when I say “motions,” I mean, “slow motion sideways baby steps.” New Day and Enzo and Cass team up against the Vaudevillains and the Club, and the Club pins Kofi and his novelty meme shoes after a Magic Killer. That sends out a “NEW DAY IS RETAINING ON SUNDAY” message via the IWC Force, and we for real just breeze past the fact that Enzo Amore stole and f*cked a trombone and it was a babyface move.
And hey, I’m not the first person to say this, but The Club needs some characters, and they need them fast. That “you were good somewhere else” NXT act doesn’t work as well on Raw. Apollo Crews, I’m looking in your direction. The Club needs something other than, “they knew AJ Styles before January” to define them. I’m not asking them to be Sex Ferguson, but … actually, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m asking. Be Sex Ferguson and the Good Brother and buttf*ck everybody’s trombones.
Worst: The Rest Of The Show
I thought about just ending the column there this week, but let’s soldier on.
– Bob Backlund and Darren Young have maybe the worst onscreen chemistry I’ve ever seen in wrestling. They make Perry Saturn and Moppy look like the Midnight Express. They’ve got the onscreen chemistry of Tommy Wiseau and Denny. They’ve got the onscreen chemistry of Tara Reid and that tornado made out of sharks. I can’t even make the joke about how their story should end with them going to Puerto Rico anymore. FYI, Darren Young got the same amount of TV and in-ring time this week as the new WWE production truck. What a great looking truck!
– You know what was the best way to debut the Shining Stars? Give them months of vignettes where they walk around Puerto Rico, debut them in a tag match, and have that match go perfectly fine. Then, for seemingly no reason, pull them from the ring so they can record months of ADDITIONAL vignettes where they stand in front of a f*cking picture of Puerto Rico. Keep doing it until Epico’s heart is completely broken and he’s just doing a Ricky Ricardo impression.
Great work, everybody.
Corporate Kane Is Back!
Best: Rusev Kills Titus
Normally I’d give a predictable, nothing-happens sort of segment like this a Worst, but on a show like this one, I’m Besting it for at least resembling forward-moving pro wrestling storytelling.
Titus O’Neil is supposed to have a match against, oh, let’s say a debuting Katsuyori Shibata. Before he can get to the ring, Rusev runs out and brain him from behind. The attack ends with Rusev breaking Titus’ back (not really) and making him humble (who knows) while referees desperately try to pull them apart. This is to build to Titus vs. Rusev for the United States Championship at Money in the Bank. Titus’ entrance theme for that match should just be a loop of everyone laughing at him.
Worst: Paige Has Pinned The Women’s Champion!
The WWE Women’s Champion loses to a challenger who hasn’t been on TV much lately in about two minutes, because The Divas Revolution. Dana Brooke’s at ringside to accidentally cost her friend the match, and both Natalya AND Becky Lynch are on commentary. It took them longer to put on their shoes than it did to wrestle. It took Natalya and Becky longer to walk to the ring and sit down than it did for the first NXT Women’s Champion to beat the second on Raw. This is all to set up a tag team match not involving Paige whatsoever on Sunday’s show. They do a backstage bit to tease dissension between Charlotte and Dana, because “this lady Charlotte’s been working with for a few weeks not be wholly dedicated in service to her” is the best story you can tell with your champion. Their relationship isn’t a month old. Meanwhile, Sasha Banks says and does nothing.
Best: Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro
But even that’s not the lay-up Best it should be. They have a pre-match interview segment that makes them both sound really fussy and annoying. WWE managed to make Sami Zayn seem like a crappy guy. What the hell is going on?
The match itself is good. That almost sounds like an insult, doesn’t it? Of COURSE Sami vs. Cesaro is good, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a placeholder “guy in the Money in the Bank ladder match faces other guy in the Money in the Bank ladder match” thing. It’s fundamentally no different from Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens, except that that ended with a finish … this one ends on a transition move, that Sami Zayn running sunset flip powerbomb counter, which ends matches about as often as the Blue Thunder Bomb. And again, especially on this show I’m not complaining, it just felt like they ended it about 10 minutes early.
I’m really struggling to enjoy this this week, and it’s one of those shows that makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me. Like, my brain goes, “if you don’t like it, don’t watch,” and that tiny spark that’s still floating around somewhere in the back goes, “no, wait, I DO like it, I just don’t like this and this and this.” And then it echoes and starts to amplify, and suddenly all I’m doing is pointing out “this and this and this” and there’s not enough evidence or stuff remaining to prove I’m not just bullsh*tting you.
Worst: Making Me Not Get Hyped For Shield Segments
Dean: Hi everyone, I’m Dean Ambrose, and I’m here to interview the two important guys from The Shield.
Seth: Hey the Shield sure was great wasn’t it
Dean: Yeah, really cool
Seth: We had lots of great matches!
Roman: I agree.
[crowd boos]
Seth: Turning on you guys was a great idea. The more time passes, the more I understand why I wouldn’t want to hang out with either of you. But The Shield sure was great!
Dean: Yeah the Shield was definitely very good
Seth: I hate you both
Roman: that’s fine
[crowd boos]
Seth: On Sunday, I’m going to be WWE Champion!
Roman: I’m WWE Champion now!
[crowd boos]
Dean: I might also be champion then!
[crowd cheers]
WWE: LOL
Shorter version:
https://twitter.com/MrBrandonStroud/status/742524780742475781
I know I’m doing a lot of “but I’m NOT just a hater” justification in this week’s column, but here’s one more: I love The Shield. I do. Anybody who read me during their run knows it, and I loved the references to the Elimination Chamber trios match with the Wyatt Family, the helicopter, the New Age Outlaws euthanizing and the rest. Almost all of my fantasy booking ideas end with “THE SHIELD GETS BACK TOGETHER.”
At Money in the Bank, I want something to happen. I want the Championship match to end in chaos. I want The Club to attack everyone, and for The Shield to realize they’re gonna have to put their differences aside if they’re gonna survive. I want them to accept Seth as their sh*tty, sh*tty, black-hearted brother and come to terms with the fact that NONE of them are angels. Seth hates the fans. The fans hate Roman. Dean loves the fans, and they’ve turned him into a joke. He was in a mop match to avenge the life of a potted plant. They need to strap on the vests and start beating people’s asses again. They need to have the WWE Champion AND the Money in the Bank briefcase holder in the same crew to prevent anybody from tearing them down. We need to bring back the best part of a pretty f*cking good era we’re skipping over in the history books to go from Ruthless Aggression to New. The era that proved NXT and WWE developmental worked. The era that proved that people still care when the matches are good, and that they want to see them. The era where the new stars rose up and took the spots they deserved, before they realized those spots don’t change when somebody new holds them.
The thing that makes me pessimistic is that the deepest they’re gonna possibly go with this story is, “do you remember The Shield?”
Worst: Zack Ryder vs. Sheamus
no
Best: Your K-Mart Shopping Ass
John Cena’s a real jerk, isn’t he? He’s somehow authorized to present AJ Styles with two contracts — one for a one-on-one match at Money in the Bank, one for John Cena vs. the entire Club — and forces him to choose between them. How does he do this? By calling Styles names non-stop until he signs the one he wants. There’s a core of something good here, especially with all the Internet jazzing indie promotion name-dropping happening, but it’s mostly Styles going “wait, what” and Cena going “BALLS BITCH BALLS BITCHY BITCH.”
I’m not even going to get preachy about it, it’s just dorky. It’s an almost 40-year old adult dressed like a toddler, calling a dude a bitch over and over. You’re in the bitch club! You left your balls in Japan! It’s Cena at his First Draft worst, which is ultimately embarrassing and a horrible waste of a great talker. Styles saying he was getting in the ring with Cena’s “K-Mart-shopping ass” was definitely the highlight. It is what it is.
Here’s a fun game: Imagine this same segment, but between Dale Gribble and Duffman. All it needs is some thrown pocket sand and it’s perfect.
Best: Kevin Owens
Take a moment and really think about how good Kevin Owens is at this job. That’s important, especially on episodes like this.
WWE throws a “Kevin Owens is trying to get Alberto Del Rio out of the Money in the Bank ladder match by making him late for work” story, which ends with Corporate Kane making them team up in a match against the Lucha Dragons. If they don’t work together and they lose the match, they’re out of the MITB ladder match. Kalisto and Sin Cara take their place. The drama is instantly manufactured and you barely even have time to process it before they’re out here wrestling.
The match is better than it should be, because of Owens, and because Alberto Del Rio legitimately hates the sh*t out of luchadors and wants to hurt them for real. You never get the feeling that the Lucha Dragons are going to replace Owens and Del Rio in a ladder match that happens in less than a week, but they keep it together and give you just enough to maybe kinda sorta possibly buy it. If you close your eyes and cover your ears.
The ending is built around the “all the Money in the Bank guys hate each other” thing that’s honestly swallowed the show hole, with Del Rio kicking Owens in the face. That causes Owens to go backstage and complain again, and the scheduled Dean Ambrose vs. Chris Jericho FIRST TIME EVER (on Raw) (LOL) match becomes an EVERYBODY’S OUT HERE TO BRAWL thing. So let’s just get to that, so we can watch this weird redneck Shark Tank that’s coming on right after.
YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE
EVER. CHRIS JERICHO VS. DEAN AMBROSE, FIRST TIME EVER. ON MONDAY. TELEVISED. IN THE LAST 30 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE. IN JUNE.
Jericho wrestles Ambrose. You’ve seen it a dozen times already. Cesaro is the guest ring announcer, and comes across like kind of a jerk. Alberto Del Rio is the guest timekeeper. Kevin Owens sits in on commentary and calls the whole night garbage, because Kevin Owens watches Raw like I watch Raw. Sami Zayn’s on commentary too, which is great, except that Owens absolutely steamrolls him in direct, improvised conversation.
When Ambrose wins, everybody starts brawling. It ends with Jericho climbing the ladder, pulling down the briefcase for some reason and sitting with it all fancy, because he’s great and has a snowball’s chance in Corporate Kane’s armpit of winning on Sunday. So ends the longest Smackdown of the year, and I’m gonna jump right into the comments and eat a crate of Xanax so I can enjoy the sh*t out of Money in the Bank.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Doctor Teeth
You fell for one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known is this…Never go in against John Cena, when Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect is on the line!
The Real Birdman
Take the 1 on 1 match AJ! The odds are way better!
*Cut to Baron Corbin jumping AJ Styles in the back after hearing Cena say he was in ROH*
PhilBallins
“How about this John, I want a match against you… and the Usos.”
“What?”
“Actually, make it you, The Usos and Roman Reigns!”
“What. No, no I… but the odds?”
“Maybe I should wrestle the whole roster!”
“The odds… the odds… I’m melting…”
Mr Grift
“People are calling it the greatest Money in the Bank of all time!”
“Really? Like who?”
“Tony Schiavone, mostly.”
Spitty
3 wrestlers in a bar:
Bray: “Man life sucks, my faction was one of the most devastating things around and now we can’t even make the Shield retrospective”
Flair: “You think thats bad, my daughter disowned me on live television”
“I’m Zack Ryder”
*Flair and Bray each buy Zack a drink*
Sliced Bread No.2
Gallows attire looks like he ran to the store to get toilet paper
Gratliff
Oh god. Is this equal time for Gary Johnson?
Harry Longabaugh
After Nattie’s cat dies, she’s going to invent a Two Paws hologram.
CESARO: The only difference between you and me, Sami, is that my fat ROH tag partner isn’t on the roster.
As a bonus, here’s a live arena report from our own Chris Trew (Dot Biz):
No doubt Sasha Banks is probably the coolest person on the roster, but her intro on Superstars was the most awkward I’ve ever seen. As she took of her glasses while making her way around the ring, they got caught in her hair and she wasn’t able to throw them in the crowd. It looked like a cameraman may have stepped on them. Legit Awkward.
New Orleans was so hype for The New Day opening segment. Then got even more hype for Enzo and Big Cass. When the Vaudevillians music hit everyone started sitting down. About 50% of the people sitting around me don’t watch wrestling anymore and of those people, 100% of them really hated the Vaudevillians. I hope they win the belts on Sunday.
For those of who have seen Raw in person, you know that during commercial breaks they run promos for WWE Network shows, DVD’s, and WWE films. Before the main event, Jericho was in the ring and attempted to cut a promo during a movie trailer. He just kept saying “quiet, quiet, quiet” over and over again and tried to get the production trucks to turn off the trailer. It didn’t work and eventually Jericho gave up.
I’ve always wondered who liked the Dirty Deeds finisher and now I know. Kids! Kids love the Dirty Deeds finisher. It is so over with that demographic. Dirty Deeds is the Drake of finishers. I’m not sure I get the appeal but I’m gonna have to learn to like it if I want to stay young at heart.
Since Brandon Stroud allows me to pen this live reports whenever Raw comes to my town, I had to share this gift with him:
https://twitter.com/christrew/status/742514467863289856Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter: @christrew
Thanks (?) everybody. See you on Sunday.
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