Hey, Blue Team.
Good Smackdown this week. Just a lot of solid wrestling, good storytelling, fresh stuff. About six weeks until the brand split, so they’ve got time to kill until anything eventful happens and they’re doing a pretty good job at it.
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And now without further ado, here is The Best and Worst of Smackdown for June 2, 2016.
Best: Trios Fantasy Booking
This week’s Smackdown starts with a three minute video package recapping the return of John Cena and the turn of AJ Styles. After the intro video, The New Day’s music hits and as they make their way to the ring we’re treated to another replay of RAW, this time re-showing us what went down between The Club, The Vaudevillains, and The New Day this past Monday. I guess Smackdown is getting all the RAW recaps out of its system now before its brand gets extended in July. The New Day are here to talk about all that stuff and gyrate, until they’re interrupted by The Club, specifically Gallows & Anderson. They’re here to say stuff that’s not nearly as entertaining as The New Day’s stuff. Gallows & Anderson have never been microphone wizards, but they come off looking even worse when verbally sparring with Kofi, Xavier, and Big E. New Day is so fresh, they make Gallows & Anderson look like generic professional wrestlers in an ’80s movie.
Soon AJ Styles joins the gang, and now I couldn’t care less what any of them have to say. Because now I’m reminded that at some point soon, we’re going to see these six men all in the ring together. And even though they may not mix well on the mics, I bet they do between the ropes. The New Day vs. The Club — that’s new, that’s exciting, and we get our first taste of it later tonight when AJ Styles faces Kofi Kingston one-on-one. I’m not a huge fan of the AJ heel turn, nor the weird roundabout way AJ and The Club ended up together. But this segment was a good follow-up to Monday’s segment, cementing his heel dynamics. It’s also nice to know that The Club/New Day feud is going to involve AJ, and not just Anderson & Gallows. It’s a lot more fun this way. With these groups plus The Wyatts, The Social Outcasts, and a few more teams all on one brand, you could have that brand have a Trios belt and the other brand have the tag team titles. That’s not going to happen. Too fun for WWE.
Best: Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
The first match tonight is Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte and I was pleasantly surprised to see the two in the ring together again. I know we’ve seen a lot of Charlotte vs. Becky this year (maybe a little too much earlier in the year), but now enough time has gone by that I was excited to see they were facing each other again. I really enjoyed this match. Becky and Charlotte work so well together. I also couldn’t be happier to see Charlotte in the ring with anyone other than Nattie at this point.
The match starts off with some nice back and forth action, then a great middle rope neckbreaker from Charlotte. Once Becky is back on her feet, they battle to the reverse corner of the ring and Dana Brooke already tries to get involved with a right hand that allows Charlotte to boot Becky in the face, sending her off the ring apron to the floor where we go to break. After the commercials, Becky nails Charlotte with a series of lariats, then works her over in the corner before hitting an Exploder Suplex. Charlotte comes back with a neckbreaker and from there they trade leads for a while. It looks like anybody’s ball game until Charlotte attempts a figure eight, which Becky Lynch turns into a Dis-Arm-Her. This leads to the end of the match which was absolutely fantastic. We’ve all seen heels try to help their partners to get to the ropes by reaching in and pulling their foot toward them, but Dana Brooke takes it to the next level. She slides her whole body into the ring and tries to pull Charlotte to the ropes from more than halfway across the ring. To her credit, it took the referee a full two seconds to notice before he disqualifies Charlotte.
Post match, Natalya comes down and the four women brawl. It may not be Becky Lynch & Sasha Banks vs. Dana Brooke & Emma, but it’s close enough that I’ll take it.
Best: Smoke And Mirrors
At this point in Smackdown, the circus comes to town in the best way possible. Golden Truth vs. The Dudley Boyz had very little to do with what was going on in the ring, and everything to do with everything that can go on around it. First off, Tyler Breeze’s VIP Section is back. In case you don’t remember this from last year, this is a special section at ringside for Tyler Breeze plus one. It’s two lawn chairs with fabric thrown over them, a cocktail table, and a velvet rope. But it’s far from the most ludicrous thing that happens onscreen in this segment. For the past few weeks, R-Truth has been performing a remixed version of “What’s Up” about Golden Truth. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and is fantastic. This week, just in case you want to sing along at home, the lyrics come up on the screen along with Goldust’s head which follows along the karaoke-style lyrics like a bouncing ball. There’s a point of absurdity where everything starts making sense, and the Golden Truth have hit it.
The match was perfectly fine. You know it’s not going to be bad; these guys are all great. Golden Truth puts up a valiant effort and actually controls most of the match, but before they can put the Dudleys away, Tyler Breeze is up on the ring apron, taking a selfie, and R-Truth just can’t let him take the pic. D-Von pushes Goldust into R-Truth and that distracts Goldie enough for D-Von to roll him up for the three count. Breeze and Fandango cut a fun promo afterwards. They haven’t quite figured out what they are yet, but they’re working on it. Maybe the most outrageous thing about this segment is the reminder of how many legit tag team feuds are happening right now. There’s like, five. That may be a WWE record.
Best: Lone Wolf In The Moonlight
Ok. This segment I truly honestly non-ironically loved. Renee Young is outside the arena. She’s looking for Baron Corbin, who has requested time for an interview but won’t come in the building. When she finds him, Corbin says that the WWE Universe inside the building doesn’t deserve his presence after they cheered Dolph Ziggler for the low blow he gave Corbin on Monday. He says the next time he enters an arena, it’ll be to end Dolph Ziggler. He then turns around and walks away into the street.
First off, I love the way this thing was shot. It’s not your typical “outside the arena” shot. They found a nice location next to a street outside. It feels less like they’re at the arena, and more like Corbin’s out on the street. It was shot at dusk and has a real nice look to it. The sky is a dark blue with highlights of dark clouds, and Baron Corbin’s height means that when the camera gets close to him, you get a little more of that sky than you would in a normal shot. And the way they have him lit makes him look fantastic. I always really appreciate Baron’s cadence. We have so many heels who are loud mouthed jokesters or flamboyantly arrogant, it’s nice to see one who’s calm and collected and just speaks the truth as he sees it. All of these aspects work well together to build a good segment. More of this, please.
Best: Over An Hour In And I’m Still Enjoying Smackdown
As you know, the WWE Rulebook states that all Money in the Bank Ladder Match participants must wrestle each other in every possible combination of singles and tag team matches in the month before Money in the Bank. So tonight it’s Sami Zayn & Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens & Alberto Del Rio. It’s basically just a lot of guys who work well together working well together. It’s one of those really well-wrestled but forgettable matches that have become a modern WWE staple. The kind of match that we should see less of after the brand split once the same people stop working each other so often. But even if I won’t remember it a month from now, it’s still a very good match that I really enjoyed watching. This didn’t need the outside bells and whistles of the Golden Truth/Dudley Boyz match. They accomplished everything in the ring. I like every combination of wrestler in this match, but I especially like the work between Del Rio and Zayn. The two of them have styles that complement each other very well. There could be a classic singles match between these two guys some time in the future.
After a long, hard worked match with everyone adding in their nice touches, the end sees Ambrose try to hit Del Rio with Dirty Deeds, but Del Rio grabs him and rams him into the corner. The same corner of his tag team partner, Kevin Owens. Owens holds Ambrose so Del Rio can hit him with an enzuigiri kick, but Dean gets out of the way and Del Rio nails Owens upside the head instead. Ambrose tags in Zayn, but Del Rio doesn’t notice until Sami creams him with the Helluva Kick. Sami pins Del Rio for the win and the crowd goes wild. The audience loves seeing Sami Zayn win, and they love seeing Alberto Del Rio lose. So Sami on top of Del Rio is a good look.
There’s some nice post match work too. Owens goes over to the announce table, pulls the headset off of Byron, and cuts a great serious promo about how he’s sick of being paired up with tag teams partners who cost him his matches. He says he’s going to show everyone what he’s going to do at Money in the Bank right now. It looks like he’s going to go toe-to-toe with Sami Zayn, but instead he grabs a ladder from under the ring and throws it in the ring, about to make his way up to the briefcase. Before he can, Cesaro’s sirens hit. Before you know it he’s in the ring, suit and all, and performing a perfect Suited Springboard European Uppercut. Cesaro climbs up the ladder retrieving the briefcase, and I gotta tell ya, something about that gold really looks good with the suit.
Worst: 50% Crush
We’re back from a commercial break and Lana’s in the ring. Lana must be really acclimating well to the United States because her English is getting much better. She brings out your United States Champion, the Bulgarian Brute Rusev, so he can defeat Trump supporter, Jack Swagger. That’s not a fact, that’s just something I’m assuming. Rusev attacks Swagger before he can even get into the ring and throws him into the steel steps. Once in the ring, Swagger looks like he’s in bad shape. The match still hasn’t started, so the ref asks Swagger if he’s okay to compete and if he wants to have the match. And because Swagger’s an American, he says yes.
The bell rings and Swagger fights back, taking control and keeping it for a lot of the match. In the end, Swagger almost even fights his way out of the Accolade, but eventually Rusev is just too much for him and he taps out. Rusev refuses to break the hold and Titus O’Neil makes the save. Eight year old me would have loved this match if it was the main event of a 1989 episode of Wrestling Challenge. But I still kinda like it today. Like my racist uncle, there’s something slightly comforting and quaint about a Russian wrestling a real American and not breaking a camel clutch-esque move when the referee is ringing the bell. It’s kind of comforting because it’s so familiar. We just don’t need to see it too often. Nonetheless I must give this a worst, because I’m still left waiting for Rusev to truly crush. Rusev should be destroying anyone who’s a regular on Superstars or Main Event. I want Rusev to be dominant. He shouldn’t be wrestling Jack Swagger the same way Sami Zayn would. No matter how American Swagger may be, I still want to see Rusev crush.
Best: The Possibilities Are Endless
Kofi Kingston vs. AJ Styles was pretty solid, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have or probably should have. I’m still a little put-off by AJ’s heel turn, not to play the broken record of the internet once more but it just doesn’t make sense to me. There are so few people on the roster that the fans are truly getting behind, why take someone they were getting behind and turn the fans against them? I’m also not a fan of heel AJ because of his move set. He’s one of those fun to watch guys. He’s a risk taker, a hard hitter, a high flyer. He has moves you want to cheer for. I think his matches with Roman Reigns would have been way less interesting if he had been a heel, and his eventual match with John Cena may suffer from it as well. It was a very good match tonight, but as much as I love Kofi Kingston, I’m not yet ready to root against AJ. And I don’t know if he’s going to be able to get me to want to do that any time soon. But The Club being together does soften the blow and opens me up to the heel AJ idea.
It was when the rest of the teams got involved that I really started getting into the match. There’s so much potential in The Club vs. The New Day. And it’s still kind of crazy to think that this is something that’s actually happening. I’m going to give heel AJ a chance and wait to see where this all goes. At this point, it kind of feels like anything could happen. The Bullet Club vs. The New Day… on Smackdown. Crazy.
Until next week, I’m Justin Donaldson and if Goldberg returns to the non-video game WWE, I’m out.
