Hey Blue Team, welcome to the final stop on the road to the Road to WrestleMania.
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And now, enjoy The Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown for Jan. 21, 2016.
Worst: The Recap Reel
I had hoped this wouldn’t happen. I thought Jericho’s manager would be good enough to put in Y2J’s new contract that he doesn’t have to work Smackdown. But alas, here we are. Every Jericho appearance is like visiting a dying relative in the hospital; it just gets more and more sad each time you see them. Please, I’m begging you, everyone go to iTunes right now and buy every Fozzy song so he doesn’t have to keep coming back to WWE. I wish Jericho had signed with Lucha Underground instead so he could be eaten by Dario Cueto’s Monster.
Y2J is here on Smackdown to do something I never thought anyone would; take credit for what happened on RAW. After Jericho insults the hard-working people behind the scenes at WWE by referring to them as monkeys, they run a video package featuring all the “highlights” from RAW. This includes Roman being drawn as #1 in the Rumble, League of Nations attacking Lesnar and Roman, the Wyatt Family attacked Lesnar and Roman, etc. Jericho claims all of this happened because he returned. I guess we finally now know who to blame for RAW. Jericho once again says he’s the “savior” of WWE, and at that point the real saviors of the WWE, New Day, show up to interrupt Y2J.
Not even the power of positivity can save this segment. New Day makes some Making a Murderer references, comparing the crime of Jericho’s cold-blooded murder of Francesca the Trombone to the events of the Netflix Docu-series. Jericho is so old he was apparently a vaudeville comedian because he busts out a “Confucius Say” joke. Not since the time of Confucius has anyone found a Confucius Say joke remotely funny. Y2J says a few more things that seem vaguely racist or homophobic before informing them that they have a scheduled 6 Man Tag Team match against the Usos and Dolph Ziggler, which will begin after a commercial for The Condemned 2, WWE Studios’ newest direct-to-blu-ray sequel. If you’ve ever wanted to see Randy Orton and Eric Roberts onscreen together, boy do I have the movie for you.
Best: Jericho Is Gone
New Day vs. Dolph Ziggler and the Usos was a great match. Or I was just so happy that the commercial break made Jericho disappear that I would have sat through 20 minutes of Ryback eating Subway sandwiches and given it a “best.” For me, New Day’s matches always shine a little brighter when they’re in trios matches. The pace picks up a bit with three guys rotating in and out of the ring, yet they still find time for their comedy bits. The Usos really are great foils for New Day. They’re so bland; they are the perfect blank canvas for New Day to paint on. New Day can get in all their fun stuff because the Usos have no fun stuff to get in. And that’s not a knock against the Usos.
This was a fun match; fun wrestling and fun bits like Xavier Woods following up a nasty looking hip toss over the top rope to the outside from Big E to Jimmy Uso by laying on the ground rolling around and mocking the injured Uso as he braces himself in pain. Or Big E spanking one of the Usos to the tune of New Day Rocks while he has them in a abdominal stretch. There’s also some great moments in this match that continue the 100 year feud of Dolph Ziggler and Kofi Kingston. They say if you do something for 10,000 hours you become an expert at it, so it’s fair to say Ziggler and Kofi know how to wrestle each other. Dolph works great with the rest of New Day too.
After everyone goes flying everywhere, the match ends with a Superkick Party by the faces in face paint on the chin of Xavier Woods and then the three count. Honestly, I can’t imagine the Tag Title match at the Royal Rumble is going to be better than this.
Best: Editors
After the commercial, they run the same great Royal Rumble video package that they ran Monday on RAW, and I’m sure they’ll continue to run a lot more times this weekend. With highlights from Rumbles past. As a card carrying member of the Motion Picture Editor’s Guild (what up Local 700!), I can say with a little bit of authority that these are the best edited video packages on television. This video is a beautiful piece of emotional manipulation. For just a moment, you forget how bad the last few Rumbles have been or how terrible Sunday’s could be, and it gets you excited for it. No matter how much you hate John Cena, that moment where he returns at The Garden is still awesome to see. You never know, maybe it’ll happen again this Sunday… see? See how they’ve manipulated my mind?
Best: The Way Home
Becky Lynch vs. Alicia Fox with Charlotte and her father on commentary was the best segment on the show. This is the way you do a Go-Home segment for a championship Pay-Per-View match. Sunday’s Divas Title match was sold inside the ring by Becky while it was being sold on commentary by the Flairs. Alicia Fox looked fantastic too. Including an awesome Northern Lights Suplex she gave Lynch outside the ring. I’d like to see a longer match between these two in the future. Becky Lynch gets the win with the Disarm-Her and then stares down an extremely confident looking Charlotte.
Worst: Meh
It’s time again for another Miz TV, and this week’s guests are Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens. Ambrose is out first, he thanks Miz for introducing him and then takes over the show, walking us through how his Last Man Standing match is going to go on Sunday. Eventually Kevin Owens comes out and drops a Kevin Steen reference to get the IWC hard, referring to himself as a “zoo enthusiast” after Ambrose had said their match would be like an amusement park. The segment was not bad, but the whole time I was watching it I kept thinking this could be so much better. Like there’s something missing that I just can’t put my finger on. It was perfectly fine; I’m not looking forward to their match on Sunday any more or any less. I’m giving it a “worst” because I know what these guys are capable of. What is the missing ingredient here? Are Kevin and Dean being shackled by WWE Creative? Or is this just the best PG version of Kevin Steen and Jon Moxley that these guys can muster up?
Best: Bray Wyatt Wins A Match
Ladies and Gentlemen, mark this day on your calendars: Bray Wyatt pinned an opponent in a one-on-one singles match. I’m sure in a few years we’ll see this on one of those This Day in WWE History videos on WWE’s YouTube channel. This match was top-form Bray Wyatt; he’s one of the best at wrestling as his character and he really got to show it off here with Ryback. The rest of the family got to loom large on the outside as a very intimidating presence. If I was a WWE Superstar, having Braun Strowman, Harper, and Rowan standing on the outside of the ring staring at me would be way more distracting than someone’s music playing, or anyone from the League of Nations jumping up on the ring apron.
Bray Wyatt vs. Ryback was a solid match, especially if you project onto it the mystical battle happening around it between the power of The Secret vs. Evil Swamp Spirits. After interference by the rest of the family, Bray hits Sister Abigail to put Ryback away. What tipped this segment over to a “best” for me is what happened after the match. My favorite promo from Bray Wyatt in a long time comes as the entire family is headed up the ramp post-match. Without a microphone and with their music blasting in the background, Bray launches into promo about what they did to Brock Lesnar and how they’ll bring the apocalypse to the Royal Rumble. I loved this for two reasons. The idea of Street Preacher Bray Wyatt, broken out of his foggy backstage closet, out amongst the people proselytizing is amazing. Spread the word of the Family, Bray Wyatt. I want a Nitro-style segment where they cut away from a Heath Slater/Goldust match to Bray Wyatt out by the concession stand, standing on a soap box preaching. The second reason I loved this is because Bray Wyatt’s words seem so much more threatening after he’s defeated someone like Ryback. I’d like to see a more Wyatt Family segments like this one before Brock Lesnar destroys them.
Worst: And Now Your Smackdown Rewind
This week’s Smackdown taping ran a little short, so WWE re-ran a Titus O’Neil/Stardust match from a few weeks ago. Unlike other infinity loop feuds like Owens/Ambrose or Kalisto/Del Rio, these Titus O’Neil/Stardust matches aren’t getting any better. The WWE has no idea what to do with these guys. Its creative has nothing for you but the rest of the roster is injured, so we’re going to put you on TV anyway. O’Neil wins with Clash of the Titus in a match where Cody got in little offense. This is one of those extremely rare occasions where I prefer watching a feud unfold outside the ring instead of in it. Unlike Bray Wyatt, it’s time to put these two back in the janitor’s closet.
Best: People Who Need People Are The Luckiest People In The World
Backstage, Renee Young is interviewing Kalisto about how small he is, when Alberto Del Rio shows up to talk about the same thing. Soon the rest of the League of Nations surround Kalisto and give him gangland beatdown, ending with a Brogue Kick and some cheap shots for good measure. I like this, because unlike most things in WWE these days, it makes sense. If you belong to a group of four giant foreign men, don’t leave two of them backstage and just bring Wade Barrett with you. You have a Bulgarian Brute who once went on a massive undefeated streak and a multi-time World Champion in Sheamus. No matter how big or small your opponent is, if having these guys in your corner is an option, use them –especially if you’re someone as opportunistic as Alberto Del Rio. Why put a faction together if they’re not gonna come to ringside with you during your matches, or jump a guy with you in an interview segment. Are you joining up with a faction just to make sure you’re not jumped at the Waffle House after the show? Say what you will about Hollywood Hogan (and you should), but he never lost when he was smart enough to bring 25 NWO members to the ring with him.
This seemed to be a theme tonight. Not only did the League of Nations work together tonight, the Wyatt Family did earlier, and later on the Usos finally come to the rescue of Roman Reigns after months of what seemed like them hitting the showers whenever Roman was in trouble. Plus, it makes Kalisto feel even more like the underdog heading into Sunday’s match. Does he have any chance at all on Sunday if Del Rio has the whole League of Nations with him? That’s a nice added twist to a match we’ve seen a million times on RAW.
Worst: Smackdown Still Doesn’t Matter
Your main event this week was a four-on-one handicap match with the League of Nations vs. Roman Reigns. That doesn’t matter at all though, because the match only exists to set up the brawl between Rumble opponents that ends the show. It may as well have been a Miz TV with the League of Nations, or one of those segments where Roman Reigns makes his way to the ring and calls someone out. There was so much I didn’t like about this. It’s the exact same ending as RAW, except a lighter version because there’s no Lesnar. Ending Smackdown the same way they end RAW is one of the laziest things WWE does, and does nothing to make people want to watch Smackdown. The RAW recap video at the beginning of Smackdown could have been a video previewing what was coming up on Smackdown; the ending of both shows looked so similar. Not only that, but this is the third Smackdown in a row (which means all of the Smackdowns since moving to USA) that ended in some sort of out of control brawl without a pinfall or submission. Are the WWE Superstars less concerned about winning their main event matches when they take place on Smackdown? I know we all got tired of the last TV taping before each Royal Rumble ending in one big brawl between all the Royal Rumble participants, but that would have been a lot more fun than repeating the RAW ending.
Worst: A One Man Rumble
Well that’s the end of Smackdown for this week. But before we go, I want to touch on a piece of Royal Rumble history that I really miss. The first time I ever saw wrestling on television, it wasn’t a match. It was a backstage segment with Mean Gene Okerlund promoting the 1989 Royal Rumble. I had known of wrestling — I had watched a few episodes of the Hulk Hogan cartoon and had seen those big rubber LJN figures in toy stores, but for some reason I was never compelled to watch wrestling. Then one Saturday morning, while flipping around the television dial, I ran into Mean Gene Okerlund telling me about something called the Royal Rumble. He announced that this would be a match with 30 men. Gene then went about listing off all 30 participants, showing a picture of each one. Some of them even followed by pre-taped interviews with the grapplers. One after another I was presented with all of these larger than life characters — the Macho Man, Andre the Giant, Million Dollar Man. I was a huge comic-book fan and these were a sort of version of comic-book heroes and villains come to life. But Gene wasn’t done. He also showed me all of these crazy off-the-wall characters like the Bushwhackers, Akeem, the Honky Tonk Man. By the time Okerlund had introduced me to all 30 characters, I was dying to find out what it was going to be like when they were all in one match together. I have not gone a week without watching WWE programming since that Saturday in 1989 when a Royal Rumble promo sent my imagination into hyperdrive. My point is, before that day I had seen Hulk Hogan on television plenty of times. I saw him in Rocky and on the A-Team, but I didn’t immediately connect with him. Hulk Hogan didn’t make me want to watch wrestling, but all of these other crazy characters and the idea that they were going to be in one match did. And that’s what’s sad to me about WWE marketing this Sunday’s show as a One Man Rumble. I would hate for a kid in 2016 to miss out on being introduced to the weird wonderful world of professional wrestling just because they don’t connect with Roman Reigns and don’t fully know who these 29 other characters are, because why does it matter when it’s one against all?
Until next week, I’m Justin Donaldson and I’m no-showing my Step-Grandmother’s birthday party because it’s at the same time as the Royal Rumble.
