The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown 12/17/15: Not A Re-Run, We Swear

Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown: The go-home show for TLC (which you can read about here) featured … well, almost everything you see this week. It’s like the show didn’t even happen. Everything different is a result of Raw. So, uh, if you didn’t watch last week’s show, enjoy Smackdown!

With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown for Dec. 17, 2015.

Best: Roman Reigns Beats Up 3.0

Roman Reigns is your WWE World Heavyweight Champion and absolutely not an amalgamated retread of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, so his first show as champ begins with him cutting a long promo before fighting security and getting thrown out of the building. Next week, Roman drives into the arena and sprays down The Authority with a truck full of room-temperature water, and they play a Limp Bizkit hype video where he fights himself.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I liked the gist of the Smackdown open. It had a lot of the problems WWE show-opening promos have — nobody sounds human, everyone’s too relaxed to sell the situations as high-stakes, they take 20 minutes to do and say what could’ve been done and said in five, etc. — but the point of it is good. Roman knows there will be repercussions for beating up two of this three nominal bosses, so he’s going to have fun tonight and try not to worry about it. The repercussions will be “on Monday,” because Smackdown doesn’t matter. Cough. Coughing sounds. Sheamus shows up and throws Roman out of the building by order of Authority Ghosts, Roman says, “if you want me to leave, make me,” and Sheamus sends the Chikara roster after him.

That’s a joke about bad WWE security guards, but former Campeonatos de Parejas 3.0 are actually part of the squad. Not gonna lie, Big Magic getting punched in the face is an automatic Best. A supplemental Best goes to the security guard who couldn’t quite get over the rope on the clothesline and ended up hitting the floor so hard he bounced. Roman could benefit from these God of War situations where he’s confronted by 10-15 random dudes and just jumps around punching and spearing until the ring’s covered in blood.

Worst: Distract-O-Rama

Quick, raise your hand if you thought I’d enjoy this Ryback/Alberto Del Rio match.

The first thing to note is that it ends on a distraction, which is the most placeholder Smackdown thing ever. The show is live next week and gets a new identity when it heads to USA Network in January, so the awkward in-between has the normal “whatever happened on Raw, but less important”-ness of Smackdown getting amplified by ten.

What bothered me more than the distraction is the limb work. It didn’t make any sense. Alberto has to finish off Ryback with his cross armbreaker, assumedly because Ryback can’t be trusted to hold himself in the Tree of Woe for a minute and a half to set up the double-stomp. Alberto works the arm and shoulder early on, and the match ends with an armbar … but the middle is one big chinlock. Not sure if the WWE midcard has a chinlock quota you have to hit every month and guys are scrambling to get them in when they can or what.

I am also trying to think of constructive things to say about Ryback vs. Alberto Del Rio. It’s the in-ring equivalent of watching a sloth eat grass. I don’t even know if sloths eat grass, but if they did, it would look like this. I’m going to start coughing up actual tumbleweeds if they keep this up.

Best: Distract-O-Rama Part 2

This one gets a Best instead of a Worst because it involves Tyler Breeze and Goldust. The actual material is terrible, but we all have our favorites, right?

Because Dolph Ziggler’s going to be busy until Royal Rumble and can’t wrestle him twice every week, Tyler Breeze needs something to do. That “something” is being stalked by Goldust, who has to replace the psycho-sexual mind games he would’ve played in 1996 with “taking unauthorized selfies” and “knocking over trays of food.” He sits in in Tyler’s VIP area and harasses poor, easily-harassable Summer Rae until Tyler gets distracted. That allows Titus O’Neil to pick up a victory, and makes us 2-2 on distraction finishes. Like I said, we’re flipping through issues of Golf Digest in a waiting room until Dr. New Smackdown can see us.

The thing that makes this work for me is that PG Goldust is particularly bizarre and ridiculous, and that he’s the right kind of talent to feud with Breeze and actually put him over. As much as I’d like to see Goldust be treated seriously again before his career’s over, I’d also like to see Breeze have great matches with a guy he doesn’t have to lose to exactly as much as he defeats.

Best/Worst: Distract-O-Rama Part 3

Distraction #3 is somewhere in the middle, because it’s annoying and milquetoast as hell, but it advances a story that we really need advanced.

Over the past few weeks — week? I’ve lost track of time — Becky Lynch has been bothered by Charlotte’s descent into … well, being a Flair. The woman who said she doesn’t want to live on her father’s legacy and ride his coattails is out here managed by Ric, having Ric cheat to help her win matches she doesn’t have to cheat to win, with a big WOOOO across her chest. Becky’s already seen Paige turn against them for ill-defined, bullsh*t reasons, and she’s worried that Charlotte’s gonna abandon her for heel glory and she’s gonna have no one. Who does she turn to, Team B.A.D.? They can’t even get matches on the show. Team Bella? Don’t be so gowlbowl, you’re hurting my fillings.

Here, Becky’s wrestling Brie Bella. They wrestle for about 2 minutes when Charlotte shows up, concerned that Becky needs help winning. She trips up Brie when the ref isn’t looking and Becky sees it, but she does want to win, so she locks in the Disarmer and gets the victory. After the match, Becky’s all, “hey, what the hell, I was out there for like 90 seconds, did you seriously have to interfere,” and they get into a stunted conversation about confidence and expectations. I don’t like the story or the performance of it, but I do appreciate that they’re actually attempting to tell one, even if it’s about how everyone in the Divas Division is an a-hole and you have to be a garbage human if you want to fit in.

Worst: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before

Man, I hate when jokes from the spoilers report become my actual talking point.

So, the build for the tag-team championship match at TLC was The New Day losing a series of non-title matches to the Lucha Dragons. New Day won at TLC and got jumped by the Dragons (and the Usos) in a blatant “we don’t understand heels and faces” moment, and now the build for the tag-team championship match at Royal Rumble is … New Day losing a series of non-title matches to the Lucha Dragons. Did we write on the white board in permanent marker again?

The match is fun, Kalisto continues to be exceptional and they even attempted a “this isn’t sing-along with the champ” moment with New Day Rocks, but we’ve seen it so many times in such a short period that it’s impossible to get excited about it. This is the fourth match involving these teams in two weeks, and the third with the same result. These are some talented motherf*ckers and Sin Cara, you’re doing them a disservice by putting them in the same hamster wheel every week.

Live Smackdown, New Smackdown. Gonna keep telling myself that.

Best: Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler, Or
Worst: The “Too Much Fighting” DQ

Speaking of good matches with disappointing finishes, this week’s main event is Dolph Ziggler vs. Kevin Owens, and it’s the beginning of something great. Unfortunately, it all builds to the very worst of all WWE finishes, the “referee decides to stop the match because TOO MUCH FIGHTING IS HAPPENING” finish. Sometimes it’s the ref being upset that a guy won’t stop doing stomps in the corner. Sometimes it’s tag partners wrestling too much and things getting temporarily confusing. Here, it’s Owens and Ziggler fighting outside the ring at the announce table. The ref could’ve stayed in the ring and counted them out, but he goes to the outside and badgers them while they’re fighting. Owens isn’t being counted out, so he keeps beating up Ziggler, and eventually the ref has had enough. The same emotion you get from this could be accomplished by simply cutting to black 8 minutes into a match and having Michael Cole say, “SORRY, NO FINISH.”

To make matters worse, the post-match has Dean Ambrose making the save for Ziggler and Ziggler superkicking him, because Dolph Ziggler The Character is the worst person. Maybe the idea is that Ziggler didn’t do it on purpose, but Booker T’s like, “that was super obviously on purpose,” so who knows. I appreciate Kevin Owens just standing at the top of the ramp and laughing at them, because if I was a WWE heel, half my day would be standing around watching WWE babyfaces hurt each other for stupid kindergarten baby reasons.

Next Week: Live Smackdown, thank God.
Then: New Smackdown, maybe!

×