The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown Live 5/30/17: Dressed To Kill


Hey Blue Team! As you might’ve noticed, I’m not Justin Donaldson. Justin’s stepping away to work on a major project that’s taking up all of his time, so I’m stepping in. If you don’t know me, I’m the stone-faced golem that reviews Raw every week.

Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: Shane McMahon, a child baseball prodigy living in the body of an old man, announced the participants in this year’s Money in the Bank ladder match. Rusev isn’t one of them so I mean honestly they can go screw.

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for May 30, 2017.

Best: Kevin Owens Is Me Watching A Nakamura Segment

Best/Worst: A Promo Parade, But At Least It Makes Sense

Over the past few years, Raw has mostly started in one of two ways:

  • 20 minutes or so of an authority figure or their chosen representative condescendingly explaining why everything feels terrible, or
  • the “promo parade,” where Raw’s got a multi-person match in mind and instead of just announcing and doing it, they have everyone involved show up one at a time to cut promos until everyone fights and someone has to make the match

Even the most recent Raw did this, with the Miz hosting Miz TV with Sheamus and Cesaro until Dean Ambrose interrupted, an uneven fight broke out and the Hardy Boyz had to make the save. That set up Miz, Sheamus and Cesaro vs. Dean Ambrose and the Hardys. Smackdown started with Kevin Owens hosting the Highlight Reel with Shinsuke Nakamura until Baron Corbin interrupted, an uneven fight broke out and Sami Zayn had to make the save. That set up Owens and Corbin vs. Nakamura and Zayn.

The two things that usually make Smackdown better than Raw, even when they go for these predictable-ass tropes, are the level of competence of the performers involved in making this heavily scripted ballyhoo feel natural, and consistent character motivations that you can at least rationalize would cause the chain of events.

Kevin Owens is hosting the Highlight Reel not because he “wants a talk show,” but because he wants to continue running down Chris Jericho, even after he’s gone. Being a heel is all about being a sore winner, not accepting your own victories and continuing to set yourself up for failure after you’ve already won. He connects Jericho’s “rock star” persona to Shinsuke Nakamura’s “artist” persona, and uses that (coupled with taking a loss to Nakamura last week) to give the new beef associated relevance. Corbin interrupts because he hates “indie darling” guys and I mean, come on, Shinsuke Nakamura and Kevin Owens. He shows footage of him beating up Sami Zayn last week, and at first you think maybe Owens is going to love it because Sami’s getting trucked, but he doesn’t, because (1) Owens doesn’t enjoy anything, and (2) he takes ownership in the destruction of Sami Zayn. He’s been beating up Sami for 15 years, so he’s not impressed. Nakamura decides to shade them both, so they beat him up. Sami runs out to make the save for Nak, because of their long history together, his general do-right attitude and the fact that the guys doing the beatdown just argued over who likes to hurt Sami Zayn the most. That sets up the tag.

See the difference? On Smackdown, it feels like characters getting into an argument and logically needing a match to work through it so they don’t fight each other in real life. On Raw, it feels like disconnected, unrelated characters going through the motions because Raw wants a match to happen and they’ve got to boringly explain why.

The match itself plays on those same stories, with Owens and Corbin arguing with each other until Corbin lays out Owens, and Nakamura capitalizing on it by nailing KO with a Kinshasa and taking another tag team match pinfall victory over him. I’d normally do the “so and so has pinned the champion” bit, but I think this works because they aren’t building to Nakamura vs. Owens for the United States Championship at Money in the Bank … they’re playing off Owens’ natural inferiority complex, him feeling left out of the match announcement last week and resenting Nakamura’s inclusion over him despite the fact that he’s already a champion. So it’s giving Owens a reason to turn into more and more of an internalized ball of frustration, and helping Nakamura look like he’s a top level superstar without having to win a bunch of non-title matches. It’s not the most creative thing they could be doing, but it makes sense.

One major complaint, though: Can we stop asking Nakamura to carry promos? Listen to the crowd response during the Highlight Reel, then listen to the crowd during the match. When he’s trying to cut a promo, the crowd is murmuring to themselves and chanting “what.” At Shinsuke goddamn Nakamura. But once everyone shuts up and Nak starts kicking ass and doing cool shit, they’re chanting “NAK-A-MU-RA ???-?-?.” Hey WWE, wouldn’t it be a great idea to not force a square peg into a round hole, and focus on how cool Nakamura is without making him work through his weaknesses in front of everyone? Just saying.

Best: NOPE [Maniacal Laugh]

If you haven’t been paying attention, the Usos fucking rule right now. They might be the best thing happening in the entire company. Smackdown took two competent but extremely boring wrestlers, realized that oh right maybe these Samoan guys that kind of look like twin versions of the Rock might have some hidden charisma, let them stop acting like cartoonish idiots for five seconds and voilà, Jimmy and Jay are God-tier.

To punish me for taking over the Smackdown report, the Usos are interrupted by The New Day, making their return to WWE after getting shit-kicked off of Raw by a couple of Top Guys. It’s going to take a while for me to warm back up to the New Day after a year of bits like the Old Day, Sonny Boy and The New Day-letion, especially when their first Smackdown promo is prison rape jokes, but I’m willing to give it a try. At least it was a Fleece Johnson reference, and we’re back to the semi-obscure, hyperspecific nerd references that brought New Day to the dance. Who better to call themselves “Booty Warriors” than the New Day, honestly?

Anyway, I know New Day’s going to yank the belts away and keep them forever, but I’m going to be rooting so hard for Uce and Uce to absolutely body them.

Best: I Forgot What A Women’s Division Looks Like

The major complaint of the Smackdown women’s division since the brand split has been that they’ve had a maximum of six women, and while they’ve taken time to develop stories involving each of them, every time a title match comes around it’s “everybody into the pool.” It’s always, “this person is champion, so we’re gonna let the five others have a match to see who faces the champion.” The major COMPLIMENT of the Smackdown women’s division is that it is not the Raw women’s division.

Over on Raw, Sasha Banks and Alicia Fox are feuding over tracks and weave and who gets to date the worst cruiserweight, and Alexa Bliss is soldiering through BAYLEY THIS IS YOUR LIFE, one of the very worst Raw segments of the year. Bayley’s supposed to be the star of the division, and in 2017 she’s morphed into the most inept and unlikable character on the show. I’d rather hug Jinder Mahal than Bayley at this point, and hugging Jinder would be like hugging a bag of snakes. Raw women’s stories revolve around ex-boyfriends, who is jealous of who and how embarrassing it is that you still play with dolls.

On Smackdown, Charlotte is hitting a top rope moonsault to the floor and powerbombing Natalya through a table in a violent five-woman chaos brawl that culminates in Shane McMahon announcing the first-ever women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.

Which of those two would you rather watch?

Speaking Of Things You Don’t Want To Watch, Here’s Randy Orton

After having one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history, having one of the worst matches in pay-per-view history, trying to make sure nobody anywhere enjoys good wrestling and then losing the WWE Championship to Jinder Mahal, Randy Orton is asking us to cheer for him because AMERICA. Brother, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on in the United States lately, but we’re basically the Randy Orton of countries right now.

He’s interrupted by another pre-taped Jinder Mahal promo, which ends with the Singh brothers clapping. I’m really happy to see that the Singhs can move their arms after Orton sent them to the Upside Down.

I liked the video package of the Indian media coverage of Jinder’s title win, but I can’t get into the run so far. I think I’ll be able to get into it more if the 4th of July comes and goes and John Cena hasn’t opened the show by throwing Jinder at the ground using his AMERICAN GRIT, becoming a 17-time world champion and then immediately losing to whoever won Money in the Bank.

Best: Fandango Noir

I’m not sure how a heel ballroom dancer and a heel male model started dressing up as fashion-themed police officers and ended up as babyface cosplayers doing Police Squad segments, but here we are. If you watched this and didn’t at least smile at the “freeze, dirtbag”/”BREEZE, dirtbag” exchange, I don’t know what to tell you. I love these guys, and I love that they’re starting to develop telepathy, and that this bit semi-confirms my theory that Summer Rae isn’t gone, she was just absorbed into Tyler Breeze.

Later in the episode, Breezango gets a much-needed win against the Colons, who are about a thousand times better as a competent heel jobber tag team than as shyster pamphleteers. Breeze and Fandango do what worked so well in the Usos matches to win the match, a combination of friendship and costume changes.

I’m not sure the use of water guns is legal, though. I figured the Great Muta’s mist was legal because it came from poison glands in his neck and was just a natural function of his body. Same with Lord Tensai’s Mountain Dew spit hand. Also, shouldn’t the Colons be resistant to pool horseplay, as resort owners?

Speaking Of People Who Really Needed Wins

This week’s main event is Dolph Ziggler, uh, cleanly pinning AJ Styles in 12 minutes, about an hour from AJ’s hometown.

On the positive side, nobody in wrestling needs a win more than Dolph Ziggler right now. He’s been typecast as the guy who constantly says he’s the best wrestler in the world, he just NEEDS AN OPPORTUNITY, then gets nearly non-stop opportunities and loses them all. If Bray Wyatt worked out all the time and was into himself instead of dead ghost ladies, he’d be Dolph Ziggler. Letting Ziggler pin AJ STYLES of all people is shocking in a good way, and gently reheats him so we aren’t as quick to think he’s an afterthought at Money in the Bank.

On the negative side, like a lot of Dolph Ziggler’s “opportunities” matches, Dolph doesn’t really deliver. The final few minutes of the match are really disjointed, with Ziggler and Styles never really seeming like they’re on the same page. Plus, how are y’all gonna use Ziggler’s Money in the Bank title win over Alberto Del Rio to build him up when that shit happened five years ago? That’s just a depressing statement on how long you’ve had Ziggler slotted in as the “almost star” instead of actually putting a bullet in the gun with the trigger you keep pulling.

Still, it’s more positive than negative. The loss doesn’t hurt Styles, who has now lost three singles matches in a row, but is AJ Styles. Ziggler needs all the help he can get, and having him beat Styles with a lucky shot after opportunistically capitalizing on a mistake protects Styles a little without overprotecting him.

Man, it’s so weird writing about a wrestling show where they’re trying to do good things on purpose. Now bring back Rusev, you jerks.


Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

Dave M J

“She’s not in there with the love of her life”

Well, duh, she’s teaming with Rich Swann, not Bayley.

pdragon619

Updating the WWE Trope Power Rankings to reflect that the home town disadvantage is officially a bigger debuff than being Dolph Ziggler.

Sure the day is new, but is it also H?

Aerial Jesus

“Kill me”
-Sasha

The Real Birdman

One of these days a foreign heel is gonna feud with a foreign babyface and they’ll try to get heat shitting on America but just end up agreeing and probably tag teaming

The Usos have a message for the entire tag team division:

“Where y’all at! Seriously, has anyone seen half these guys? We’re genuinely concerned American Alpha is dead in a ditch somewhere”

Mark Silletti

Jinder’s sons seem very happy for him but their perfectly synchronized clapping is freaking me out

AJ Dusman

Fandango…newest member of Bullet Club.

Ryse

The left side of Nak’s head is doing an impression of the front of Baron’s.

Mr. Wrestlemania! DoctorCAW

Becky: “I represent the fighting Irish.”

Notre Dame: “We get it. We don’t win either, Becky.”


That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, and for letting me sit in on these Smackdown reports for a while. It’s nice to be able to write about wrestlers I like again, instead of having to sit through three hours of Michael Cole to get to like, 90 seconds of The Revival.

Be sure to drop down into our comments section to let us know what you thought of the show, and click the social share buttons if you dig my take on the show and want to support me in my quest to write them more often. Join us here next week for Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kevin Owens one-on-one, Money in the Bank Pay-Per-View® on June 18, and the assassination of Jinder Mahal by the coward John Cena on July 4.

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