Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: Daniel Bryan made us all cry and stan for Brie Bella, Daniel Bryan fired Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, we saw Daniel Bryan wrestle for the first time in years when he defended himself from Kevin and Sami’s subsequent attack, and other people did some stuff too, I think.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE SmackDown Live for March 27, 2018.
Best: RUSEVMANIA RUSEV MATCHKA
This week’s show opened with a video that really gave Sami and Kevin the “I killed Earl Milford” edit, and the poor US Championship feud had to follow all of us revisiting our Daniel Bryan emotions. For a second I thought they might get “Yes” chants throughout the tag match, but then they added the instigator of everybody’s second-favorite chant!
Bobby Roode & Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal & Rusev (accompanied by Sunil Singh and Aiden English) had the Can They Coexist? tag team dynamic we’ve seen a million times before, and the match itself was never going to get any “This is awesome” chants. Still, there were enough semi-intentionally hilarious things going on that I kind of loved it, especially this sequence:
- Corey Graves putting over Sunil Singh hard when it looked like he was going to be Jinder’s tag partner while injured: “Sunil Singh is a hero to be praised, and honestly serves the Modern Day Maharaja!” Hahaha, what?
- Jinder Mahal also putting over the “tiger” Sunil Singh and making it seem like our babyfaces were about to beat the crap out of a one-armed guy
- Corey and Jinder both immediately burying Sunil Singh after Rusev showed up. “What an upgrade!”
I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing more of Orton and Roode as a tag team either. It was oddly endearing to watch these two pose-happy, spray-tanned dads root for each other. Did Randy finally make one (1) friend? No, because he RKO’d his even more orange partner by the end of the match. They could not coexist. They say it’s lonely at the apex, but when you’re Randy Orton that loneliness is pretty much self-inflicted.
But the un-ironic best thing about the US Title feud this week was the addition of Rusev. I did not think they would find something for him to do beyond the Andre and/or fighting Kid Rock until after WrestleMania, but I’m so glad I was wrong.
Rusev finally matchka’d his problem of not having a match on the Mania card by using not only his muscles, but his brain. (A lot of people used their brains this week! I appreciated it!) He saw how Jinder got himself to the title match and used exactly the same tactic right under the former WWE Champion’s nose. Good stuff. I’m glad Smackdown finally chose to/figured out how to feature one of their most popular performers on the show in a way that doesn’t squander the things that caused that surge in popularity.
Best: A Riottous Lass-Kicking, and
Worst: The Uterus/Ovary Model Battle Royal
Becky Lynch vs. Ruby Riott was a fun match between half the futch scale of lesbians who had booths at the farmer’s market in my neighborhood when I lived in Seattle (ranging from Femme to Soft Butch, obviously.)
Like the recent Becky vs. Carmella match, it allowed our scrappy babyface to shine against the heel’s classic underhanded tactics. I especially dug Becky’s bridge-y escape early on. Ruby very obviously putting her feet up on the ropes to secure the pin, though – did she need to do that? It really didn’t look like she did, but she did, and the ref shockingly noticed somebody cheating, so maybe it was a moment of hubris? More proof that Ruby is truly a face because she sucks at cheating?
The stuff for the Thank You Snickers Battle Royal at WrestleMania is unfortunately not working for me though. First, acting like the Lady Andre is going to launch careers when the Dude Andre absolutely has not done that is still making me roll my eyes. Second, can Smackdown please stop acting like the Riott Squad is the Shield (the Sheeld, if you will?)? Does anyone care what will happen if these three are the last three left in the ring? I feel like there are more interesting intra-Battle Royal rivalries they could be setting up with the Smackdown women’s roster.
Also Worst: The Smooth Golden Eunuch Battle Royal
You can’t see the waistband of the trunks on that trophy, so I’m justified in calling it this.
Tyler Breeze vs. Dolph Ziggler had some entertaining moments, but was frustrating overall. The best part was definitely the video setting it up WWE put out like an hour before the show, which took place in the most hellish area of the SD Live Backstage Blue Hell Zone and included the Ascension as cameramen and Dolph Ziggler inexplicably wearing a Fashion Police shirt while hating on the Fashion Police.
This match was a reminder that Tyler Breeze is a really good wrestler and that Breezango should 1) wrestle more, 2) even if they’re not wrestling, have their segments on the actual TV show. Fandago hip-thrusting to either distract Ziggler, encourage Breeze, or just because that’s his natural resting state was a funny moment, as was Dango running laps around the ring and Breeze getting distracted by his cramp.
Here’s a concept to get these two very talented wrestlers’ careers back on track: Breezango works together/gets lucky to be in the last two in the Andre. They stare into each other’s eyes, torn about having to fight each other. They never really thought it would get this far. Then they go for twenty-five minutes. Blood. Sweat. Tears. Glitter. It’ll be an epic for the ages.
Best: Burn Your Blazer
Speaking of careers getting back on track, Daniel freaking Bryan ingeniously repositioned himself with that promo. He’s not really an underdog anymore, but he’s a relatable everyman in a new way. You could tell the part of his promo about how he hates filling out paperwork, going to meetings, and wearing confusing cardigans (that was absolutely not a blazer) was cathartic for a lot of the audience. Who doesn’t hate those things? But Daniel isn’t just a regular dissatisfied middle manager, and he can quit to be a gladiator!
This promo put him over not just as a recently cleared athlete, but as more of a regular dude we can easily get behind achieving his dreams. And also a dude who just moved a few places on the Who Says F*ck? Chart.
Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon vs. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens has the potential for a lot of swerves. Sami and Kevin have to win, but there’s the possibility of Sami turning on KO again, Daniel turning on Shane out of sympathy for his indie faves (I liked how especially Jesus-like he looked this week as he declared he would give them a second chance), and Shane straight up dying in the ring because he decided to compete with shoot diverticulitis and a freakin’ hernia.
Like we said when we reported on his surgery earlier this week, it’s hard to tell how much of this is a shoot/work because of how WWE tied everything in with Sami and KO’s attack. WON says it’s all legit, but that doesn’t make me 100 percent sure than Shane won’t show up with an IV drip and nobody stops him from performing because he’s Shane McMahon. But hopefully, and most likely, we’re getting either Daniel Bryan looking more like an underdog in a handicap match OR a mystery partner for Bryan. Let’s brainstorm who that could be:
- Kane, in a reunion of Team Hell No
- Dean Ambrose, since he’s been pulled from WM weekend stuff in a way that makes it look like we’re getting a return of Uncle Deano either at WM or the Raw afterwards. They were buddies in the Golden Age of Smackdown early days of the brand split! It could happen!
- Samoa Joe, and they both just yell “Ring of Honor, bitches!” by way of explanation as they walk down the ramp (I miss Joe)
- Brie?
- El Generico, who only seems to appear after Sami Zayn rolls under the ring and somehow only ever fights Kevin Steen Owens
- Braun Strowman, since he’s looking for a tag team partner for himself?
- Please, please let it be the Undertaker
Then Daniel Bryan Remembers He Totally Forgot About The Tag Team Division Amidst All This “Getting Cleared For In-Ring Competition Stuff,” Sorry, Guys!
Here’s a question for the room: would this build have been better if the New Day vs. the Usos vs. the Bludgeon Brothers triple threat title match at WrestleMania had been announced several weeks ago? I think it might have been. Because now these guys just got added to a title match after invading PPV match to try to kill people with foreign objects for no reason. I think giving the Mallet Men that motivation for ruthlessly trying to take out their opponents would have made them a lot more interesting to me.
Anyway, at this point the story is “Can the Usos and/or the New Day figure out how to beat the seemingly unstoppable Bludgeon Brothers?” One of the best parts of the Usos vs. New Day feud was watching each team learn from the other and use that knowledge to develop new strategies, so this has the makings of a great Mania match.
Oh, and I liked how we returned from commercial right as Rowan started working Xavier’s already injured back. The Bludgeon Brothers have brains and brawn! (Not Braun though; he has recovered from cult membership a lot better and more quickly and doesn’t feel the need to still be family with these two. I bet if they showed up on Raw he would pointedly ignore them.)
Best: King Of Cerebral Style
Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles have my favorite relationship on main roster WWE programming right now.
We first see AJ this episode with a shot of him looking SO SAD in the locker room, and it made me laugh out loud. After staying mostly cool through the Sami and Kevin stuff and all the nonsense of a million people being added to his title match, AJ now cannot handle ANYTHING Shinsuke does, and it’s so good. Shinsuke is now living in AJ’s head rent free, and it looks like he could assume ownership of that house he built with his own forearm.
Shinsuke asks AJ to be in his corner to protect him and their dream match (even though, as he reminds AJ, he didn’t need that last week) when he takes on Shelton Benjamin, since Chad Gable will probably interfere. (Plus, as the former Chaos leader knows, it’s always smart to be ready for anything when you’re fighting a member of Suzukigun.) (How much would Gable love being in Suzukigun?) (How much should submission master Drew Gulak lead Suzukigun USA?)
I liked that Nakamura vs. Benjamin left the shenanigans for after the match. I wish we could have watched those two go at it for like twenty minutes, but maybe we’ll get a rematch in the future. It was a good technical match that showed off Shinsuke’s MMA background and Benjamin’s amateur wrestling skill. It was a strong win for the King of Strong Style that didn’t make his opponent look weak.
After the match, Shinsuke got on the mic and called AJ into the ring. He revealed he only wanted him there to show how he would beat him at WrestleMania. Styles FREAKS OUT. His catchphrases can’t hide how incredibly shook he is, which works even better if you’re familiar with their semi-canon-in-WWE Wrestle Kingdom match, because Styles lost that one. Sure, they had that iconic fist bump out of respect afterwards, but that loss has been weighing on AJ for two years. He got to the top of WWE, and then the guy who served him one of his most memorable defeats in New Japan, right before he had to leave Japan, showed up to challenge him. And now AJ’s the one with the title to lose.
It makes even more sense that AJ’s freaking out because we are finally seeing the true Shinsuke Nakamura emerge. He’s eccentric, sure, but you can’t tell how much of that is real and how much of that is screwing with you until he’s kneed you in the face and it’s all over. The teased Kinshasa he stopped at the last minute to pat AJ on the head was such a good moment. I loved the audience’s reactions to this whole segment too, because initially they didn’t know how to respond to AJ being vulnerable and Shinsuke being more of a manipulative jerk, but they were into the whole thing by the end. Their match is going to be so, so good.
If we’re playing by Survivor Series rules, I’d say the Blue Team definitely won this week. Overall, these characters got where they needed to go to make me more interested in their WM matches. Plus, we got a lot more wrestling. That’s always ideal on a wrestling show.
Best: Top Ten Comments Of The Night
cyniclone
So Nakamura just said AJ’s problem is that he isn’t … tranquilo
Brute Farce
Hombre the Giant? That’d be that Gonzales guy, wouldn’t it?
Captain Fram
In another timeline this is an awesome intercontinental title match
The Perfect Tim
Have we considered the possibility their names are Harper and Rowan Bludgeon now?
troi
their is something truly heartwarming about seeing a little girl get pancakes poured on her from 3 professional wrestlers
Awkward Loser
The Bludgeon Bros should call themselves “The Authors of Kane”
JoeSpence
Wow, Paperwork and Board Meetings have more crowd reaction than Jinder Mahal
Captain Fram
PLEEEEEAAAAASE DROP AN ELBOW ON THAT BLAZER DANIEL
LUNI_TUNZ
Greatest news? Wow, Birdie Danielson buried.
FinntheHuman
This looks like the Saudi Arabia version of the mixed/matched challenge.
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