The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown 11/19/15: Killer Of Sheep

Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown: Last week’s show was built around the remaining first round matches in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament, setting up the four excellent (okay, three excellent) (okay, two excellent, one pretty good and one awful) quarter-finals matches on Raw. Also on the show, The Wyatt Family and The Brothers of Destruction got SPOOKY. That’s … not ending any time soon.

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown for Nov. 19, 2015.

Best: R-Truth, Always A Bridesmaid

Back in June, R-Truth interrupted a segment on Raw to announce that he was going to win the Money in the Bank ladder match. The only problem? He wasn’t in the match. When this was explained to him, he said, “this is on me,” apologized to everyone and told the live crowd to “be good.” It was one of the most genuinely funny things to happen on Raw in ages.

On Smackdown, we got something even rarer than a genuinely funny moment on Raw: a CALLBACK.

This week’s show opens with The Miz interviewing the semi-finalists in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament on Miz TV. R-Truth interrupts to say he’s going to cut through his opponents “like a hot knife going through butter” at Survivor Series. The only problem, again, is that he’s not in the tournament. “This is on me. Gentlemen? My bad.” As he’s leaving, he wishes Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns good luck, but denies Owens and Del Rio. “I’m not wishin’ y’all good luck.” A+.

Even Reigns is pretty funny here, responding to The Miz’s insane ramblings with, “You need to chill out.” It ends with Miz getting punched in the face, of course, because in the history of Miz TV there have been like two episodes where he doesn’t get dropped on his face or brained with a thrown couch.

Best: La Miz-tica

The followup to that segment is The Miz DEMANDING SATISFACTION and getting a match with Cesaro, which he loses in like 40 seconds when Cesaro catches him with a boot to the face, then hits him with La Mistica (!!) and a crossface for the submission victory. WWE’s doing a great job of making me think we’re finally getting to the Cesaro Fireworks Factory. A quick win over The Miz isn’t exactly the Money in the Bank briefcase, but it makes Cesaro look like a guy who can (and will) instantaneously trounce anyone who steps to him that isn’t on his level.

There’s also a weird, great moment after the match where Stardust and The Ascension show up for their match before Cesaro’s gone. There’s a brief staredown on the stage — it starts at the 1:40 mark in the above video — but nothing happens. Then, in a moment of pure magic, Cesaro does a cartwheel up the ramp, does Stardust’s star-hand taunt and turns it into a crotch chop. Pretty sure he should’ve been awarded at least a secondary championship belt for that alone.

I don’t know if they’re gonna do anything with this, but I’m super into WWE doing Cesaro vs. Stardust at Survivor Series and letting them bust out every crazy thing they can do for 20 minutes for no reason. In my opinion, these are the two most underutilized talents on the show, so put them in a program together and let them go nuts. Just forget about it and let them book the entire thing themselves. Maybe it’ll end with a bunch of great matches. Maybe it’ll end with Cesaro dressing up like The Green Hornet. YOU NEVER KNOW. TELL ME YOU DON’T WANT THAT. TELL ME YOU DON’T WANT NEVILLE DRESSED LIKE KATO.

Worst: None Of These Guys Has Anything Going On

I appreciate how the opening talk show segment led to the first match, which bled into the second, but there’s really nothing for these guys to do. It’s Neville teaming up with the Dudley Boyz against the Cosmic Wasteland. The match is fine, but why’s it happening? There isn’t a tag team championship match at Survivor Series, they haven’t announced a traditional 5-on-5 thing (or even a 10-on-10 thing) to get the tag teams involved yet, and the Neville/Stardust beef is, at best, on the back burner until Stephen Amell can get back for WrestleMania. If that even happens.

So instead of these guys succeeding like the rest of the show, which has been improved TREMENDOUSLY by the WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament, there’s not a goal to fight for. They aren’t even fighting for bragging rights, they’re just wrestling. That’s all well and good, but if I’m gonna watch a show for nothing but the wrestling content, I’m not watching the one where D-Von Dudley wrestles Viktor.

The finish was rough here, too, with Neville not really clearing the rope and kinda clipping Konnor on the way down. That sets up a 3-D that Bubba barely got into position for, and the look on his face after the match should tell you everything:

The more Bubba looks like Charlie Day, the less successful the match was.

Best: Tyler Breeze Has To Get Called Up To Smackdown To Beat Dudes From NXT

The next match is Tyler Breeze vs. Zack Ryder, which in late 2015 is about as tough as wrestling a hot dog bun. It’s another good win for Tyler, as well as the main roster debut of his Unprettier, which has already made comments sections across YouTube scream, “what, is he trying to be Christian now???” First of all, Christian was just trying to be Tommy Rogers. Second of all, giving Tyler Breeze a movie called the Unprettier is such a lay-up. He should call it the “I’m Prettier.”

Worst: Dolph Ziggler, Horrible Person

During Breeze’s match, Dolph Ziggler shows up in a headband with a ponytail (and not in the good way, like Bayley) and what I initially thought were sweatpants. He crashes Breeze’s VIP section — leading to a funny moment where Summer screams “YOU’RE NOT VIP!” — and, because he’s a WWE babyface, drinks their fancy drinks and pours them out. Oh man, Dolph, you really got him there! How will Breeze ever get another drink?

When Breeze gets the pinfall, Ziggler rushes the ring and attacks him from behind, because, again, WWE babyfaces. He cuts a promo backstage explaining himself and just makes things worse, spending the entire time going I’M THE BEST WRESTLER EVER AND THE MOST RESPECTED PERSON IN THE LOCKER ROOM, FANS KNOW I’M BETTER THAN EVERYONE AND EVERYONE HAS TO BE AS GOOD AS ME. It’s a total heel promo, made “face” by the fact that we’re cheering him for it. I don’t know. The character’s pretty up its own ass if he’s had the 2015 Dolph Ziggler’s had and thinks that makes him the “measuring stick” of anything but losing throwaway Raw matches and giving sexual assault apology gifts.

At this point, Dolph Ziggler is just the expired meat version of Tyler Breeze. If I could change one thing about WWE, it’d be to stop trying to make people cheer Ziggler for having so much “attitude,” because he’s a Tweety Bird shirt from Wal-Mart and it’s the worst.

Best/Worst: Kane Kills Like 20 Guys

So, watch this segment. Watch the entire video. I have thoughts.

The point of the story as I understand it is that Bray Wyatt kidnapped Kane and The Undertaker and tried to “harvest their souls,” which entails stealing their supernatural powers of thunder-causing and lightning-summoning. Still with me? He accomplished this, but not to the degree he’d thought, because he underestimated the limits of their powers … so now Bray can control Undertaker’s druids and make lightning happen, but Kane and Undertaker haven’t lost their abilities to do so. So he didn’t really harvest anything, he just siphoned off a little bit. Now Undertaker and Kane want to beat him up for topping himself off with their occult street cred. Right? Is that all correct?

I guess the establishing point of the last two shows has been that The Undertaker druids aren’t people at all … they’re human-shaped zombies (or cloud monsters) Taker can “create” and use to, I don’t know, carry his torches and sing Gregorian chants. Bray’s control over them gave them sheep faces. He thought he had total control, but Kane made fire and it KILLED ALL THE DRUIDS. They just collapsed to the ground and died. So … it’s an Obi-Wan Kenobi thing? If they lose their power source or take damage, they dissipate. Either that, or Kane just straight-up murdered a gaggle of occult strangers on Smackdown.

I hope they’ve got some Matanza sh*t planned for Survivor Series, because otherwise I’m gonna feel cheated.

Worst: Charlotte Seems Fine, I Guess?

On Monday, Charlotte and Paige caused a sh*tstorm of “people who watch wrestling can’t handle bad guys doing things that actually makes them bad” heat when they referenced Charlotte’s late brother Reid in a promo. To briefly recap that, it was offensive and uncalled for and callous, but the person who did it wasn’t supposed to be cheered for it, so … yeah.

Anyway, avoiding that comments section conversation as much as possible, Charlotte had to wrestle Brie Bella on Smackdown. In 2015, that’s like having to wrestle a hot dog bun dipped in a glass of water. Charlotte plowed through Brie and got a strong victory, but … she didn’t really seem different at all. The anger and rage from Monday was gone, and she just did her moves and wrestled the match she wrestled independent of the story she’s in. It’s good to see her get a win and all, but couldn’t we have used this as an opportunity to continue telling that story? What did this prove, that Charlotte could beat Brie? We know that. We’ve seen it a few times.

Also, a supplemental Worst (as always) goes to any time Brie has to tap out, because she has no idea how to do it. I wish someone would sit her down and say, “this is how you’d tap out if you were actually in pain and trying to submit.” Instead, she just sorta lies back and pats at the mat like she’s petting a cat, and falls asleep. It’s the dirt worst. It’s such a simple thing to learn. “You’re in pain. You’re trying to get the pain to stop. OKAY, GO.”

Best: Ryback Hates Bowlies

Big E and The New Day use THE DAMN NUMBERS GAME to defeat Kalisto, because Sin Cara’s number is “zero.” After the match, The New Day do something I love — actually act like heels — and hold Kalisto down so E can splash him. That brings out Ryback, who HATES BOWLIES, and the only thing I love more about wrestling than dicks being dicks is CONSISTENCY. DICKISH CONSISTENCY! He not only stands up for Kalisto, but gives Big E his OWN Big E splash, because E is the nesting doll inside The Ryback. Note: Michael Elgin is the nesting doll inside Big E.

We can only hope that this is setting up a “we probably should’ve announced this ahead of time” 5-on-5 elimination match at Survivor Series. The Usos, The Lucha Dragons and Ryback are on one side, with The New Day on the other. Who teams up with New Day? Can it be Sasha Banks and Naomi? Can it be anyone who isn’t The Ascension? Let Kevin Owens go out in the first match of the show and have him come back to be on their team. They hashtag Stand With Owens, don’t they? New Day, Owens, and … f*ck it, Sasha Banks. I’m not wavering. Get her on the show. Give me Sasha Banks vs. Kalisto. You KNOW that would be good.

Smackdown

By itself, in bold.

We head into Survivor Series — the WWE event most associated with the term “traditional” — with the traditional Smackdown main-event: a tag team match pairing up guys with pay-per-view matches that is pretty fun, but nobody wins and nothing really matters. This one teams up The Brothers Of Room Temperature Water Destruction against Kevin Owens and Alberto Del Rio, and ends with a double count-out. Ambrose and Reigns end up standing tall, though, because of course they do.

My favorite moment of the entire show (which I forgot to mention earlier) is the interaction between Owens and Del Rio, because it’s such a killer dynamic. Owens is this incredibly passionate, pissed-off guy pretending like he doesn’t care what happens around him. Del Rio doesn’t care what happens around him, but is pretending to be passionate and pissed off. Not only is that good, but they gave us an AMAZING callback to Del Rio’s palatial Mexican estate. Remember that? Del Rio tells Owens that MexAmerica could use him to “clean our swimming pools.” If you remember the Ricardo Rodriguez days, the joke was that Del Rio was a rich-ass Mexican guy who employed illegal Canadian workers. Five stars.

So yeah, that’s where we leave it. The tag match accomplished nothing, but we’re heading into two matches at Survivor Series that will: Del Rio vs. Reigns, and Ambrose vs. Owens. We all know it’ll be Ambrose vs. Reigns in the finals, but at least they gave us a reason to care if it ends up being any other combination.

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