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Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: I consulted my doctor to see which anxiety medication was right for me.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for February 20, 2018.
Worst: How Many Times Do We Have To See This
I guess I should start this week’s review with Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon, who are still standing shoulder-to-shoulder backstage, looking at nothing, passive-aggressively going over everything that happened on the show. Honesty, you can just watch this video by itself. It’s a perfect encapsulation of current Smackdown. These two dudes are having the same basic argument they’ve been having for months, the talent’s just going around in circles, and the crowd stays at a bored murmur in the background. That’s it.
I’ve spent several [checks notes] months on how Smackdown episodes seem to just happen without regard for WWE as a whole or the episodes that came before them, but after those two spectacular hours of Raw on Monday, this shit is nigh unbearable. And it’s not even that bad this week, you know? There’s not enough in either direction. It doesn’t get us excited, and we can’t make fun of it. It’s the difference between eating food you don’t like and eating cardboard. At least one of them’s food.
I think the most notable thing that happened was Jinder Mahal saying he had “Bobby Roode’s actual Smackdown top 10 list” and displaying it with house-approved graphics. Mahal wants to point out how Roode didn’t put Orton on his top 10, and all I want from any of these guys is, “have you been paying attention? These lists don’t mean anything. It was a worker poll to see who deserved opportunities, we couldn’t vote for ourselves, I apparently voted for myself at #1, the list just has the champions at the top, the list hasn’t been used to give anyone any opportunities, and there are four dudes challenging for the WWE Championship at the pay-per-view and NONE OF THEM MADE SMACKDOWN’S TOP 10 LIST. Booker T and Edge feuding over a shampoo commercial had more of a leg to stand on than we do. Let’s just go home.”
Jinder’s “what about the Smackdown top 10 list” is quickly becoming the “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” of Smackdown.
Worst: Speaking Of Opportunities, Where The Hell Is Rusev?
Shane: “this is the land of opportunities, where we give opportunities to people who deserve opportunities”
Crowd: “RUSEV DAY! RUSEV DAY! RUSEV DAY!”
Shane: “… noted!”
Shane (to everyone else): “make sure Rusev isn’t on the show for two weeks”
It’s All The Same!
We saw a six-woman tag team match on Raw and the Riott Squad won’t move unless Absolution does, so we get a six-woman tag team match on Smackdown. That’s mostly a joke since this was announced last week, but it works!
This at least … advanced the plot, I guess? The self-feeding story has been that Charlotte wants revenge on the Riott Squad for attacking her, so she’s been going through them one-by-one. Suddenly she can’t actually get a match against Ruby Riott unless she puts her championship on the line, which she is happily doing, and they get the best of her again here to set that up. I keep wondering why Charlotte doesn’t just wait a couple of weeks, because there’s no way Smackdown creative has another idea. Just show up and say “I want Ruby Riott!” and in a maximum of three shows you’ll get 5-to-6 matches with her.
Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin are stuck in this weird spot where they’re one of only a few tag teams getting opportunities, but they still feel like they aren’t being treated fairly, they win most of the non-title matches and lose all the title matches. If it’s 2-out-of-3 falls, they lose two straight. If the titles aren’t on the line though, they can beat the champs in like three minutes.
They wrestle New Day this week and have them pinned, but the referee is distracted and doesn’t make the count. Here’s Gable’s tweet about it. This plays off a similar beat from a few weeks ago when Gable and Benjamin had the Usos beaten and won the Smackdown Tag Team Championship, but it turned out via instant replay that they’d pinned the wrong Uso, and the match was restarted. It’s one of those situations where the referee’s decision is only “final” if it fits the story. The story informs the rules, when the rules should be informing the story. See also AJ Styles pinning the illegal man to retain the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble, and everyone just kinda moving past it because the bad thing didn’t happen to someone we clap for.
That’s such a big part of why Smackdown feels like such a bummer right now. Shit only matters situationally, and you can’t really anticipate when something’s going to matter and when it isn’t.
The Bludgies won another match against cans, which was fine. One thing I don’t like about WWE jobber squashes is that jobbers only appear to face these “unstoppable” characters. The Bludgeon Brothers, Braun Strowman, Asuka, Nia Jax. You never see like, Heath Slater and Rhyno picking up a win over “local competitors.” That could really help them. Or like, hey, a local guy answered one of these open challenges and isn’t good enough to win. Nothing is there to create the idea that lower-level WWE competitors even exist, as people are just not employed or “Superstars.” There’s no in-between, which suggests they (kayfabe, just to clarify) only bring in these guys because they aren’t good and it’ll be fun to see them get killed for real. I … don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to be thinking, but maybe I’m wrong?
It makes it hard to integrate these people into normal competition. There’s always that awkward transitional period where you either have to start throwing some of your other “Superstars” under the bus to keep putting them over, or you have to come up with a way to suddenly end their winning streak. It’s like watching child stars trying to get adult acting jobs. Some of them make it, most of them don’t.
Also, bring back Johnny Knockout.
Finally we have the “series of matches” main event you’re used to, in which one person from a multi-man match has a promo about how they’re going to win*, only to get interrupted by one of their opponents. And then another of their opponents interrupts, and either this continues until everyone’s out there, or an authority figure shows up to put them in matches right here tonight. That sets up Styles vs. Corbin and Owens vs. Ziggler.
*My least favorite thing anyone in WWE does in promos right now is AJ Styles’ dismissal of his opponents using his catchphrase. Drives me absolutely insane. If you’re Bobby Roode and your nickname is ‘Glorious,’ Styles will say, “Bobby Roode might be glorious, but he’s not PHENOMENAL!” Okay. Those nicknames are barely not synonyms. “Dolph Ziggler might be the showoff, but he’s not phenomenal!” Styles might as well be out here saying, “Sami Zayn might have red hair, but he doesn’t have BROWN hair!”
Owens vs. Ziggler was actually very good at points, but falls victim to the worst thing about Smackdown: overbearing plot points burying the shit out of the talent trying to perform them. What was a good match ended with Sami Zayn causing a distraction, allowing Owens to attack him from behind and win. It’s running a 5K only to find out when you get to the finish line you were supposed to be riding golf carts.
The drama here is that Owens and Zayn haven’t been acting like friends recently, so Zayn’s showing up to right those perceived wrongs. He also tells Owens that if it comes down to the two of them at Fastlane, he’ll “do the right thing” and lay down for KO. This is probably the actual best part of the show, as it at least attempts to add some layers to this endless Shane McMahon vs. The Talent story. They aren’t great layers, really, but at least now we have a small sliver of a thing to talk about when we’re predicting the title match. It’s better than Corbin’s motivation, which is nothing, or Ziggler’s, which makes no sense. Like, four out of the five people in the main event of the final Smackdown pay-per-view don’t like Smackdown and don’t want to be here. The only one on the Top 10 is the guy who’s already champion, and one of the competitors literally laid down his title belt and quit the last time he won one. So … high morale.
Finally we have Styles vs. Corbin, which also isn’t horrible, but recalls the last like, year-plus of Styles trying to will good matches out of Smackdown mid-carders. It’s also only really there to set up Owens and Zayn attacking them, again, and Corbin “standing tall” in what FEELS like a go-home show for Fastlane, but isn’t.
To summarize all of this, this week’s Smackdown was actually better than it’s been in weeks by being nothing. By doing nothing, saying nothing and not really moving anything forward, Smackdown managed to be (mostly) inoffensive instead of a broken, illogical mess. That’s … not a strong compliment, but it is what it is. Fingers crossed for something to magically change and happen after Fastlane.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Cami
If Road Dogg’s booking was a finishing move, it would be a pump handle slam.
AshBlue
This whole show is one giant record scratch right now.
The Real Birdman
In honor of Jeff Jarrett’s hall of fame induction, SDL has become TNA
troi
Corey Graves looks like the third most successful Soundcloud rapper in North Eastern Connecticut
AshBlue
Oh my, that Chrisley promo was perfect– interrupting Smackdown with “what the hell is this”. Someone in production is on our side.
Amaterasu’s Son
Is Baron Corbin’s theme music related to the Bludgeon Brothers? They sound like they come off the same video game soundtrack.
Nippopotamus
If only Charlotte inherited Slick Ric’s promo gene.
Brute Farce
Anaconda Vice? Sarah calls it “Snake Meat.”
muchsarcasm
Can Smackdown just wake up in bed next to Suzanne Pleshette and say that nothing in the past year counts?
Baron Von Raschke
Bobby Roode broke the Cardinal Rule and voted Tye Dillinger at #9.
Wrong camera, Liv.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading. Click the social share buttons and drop us a comment. Make sure you’re here for our Elimination Chamber coverage this weekend, Fastlane coverage after that, and Smackdown being replaced by The Best And Worst Of Me Finding Something Better To Do With My Time On Tuesday Nights.
As always, subscribe to the With Spandex podcast on iTunes!
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