Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live: Dolph Ziggler returned from his comedy tour, and the people did rejoice. Also, Carmella dressed up R-Truth as “Carmella with the 24/7 Championship” to keep people from knowing he had the 24/7 Championship, or something.
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Anyway, here’s the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for May 28, 2019.
Best/Worst: By The Numbers
Another week, another promo parade to set up a match that’d already been announced. It’s Kofi Kingston vs. Kevin Owens, which just happened at Money in the Bank and features the WWE Champion and his top challenger. You’d think anyone watching Smackdown would be able to go straight into that match without 7 minutes of Owens recapping the past few weeks and 3 minutes of Kingston responding, but maybe these are like those modern Mortal Kombat fights where the fighters are animated to say something sassy before they fight.
Anyway, it’s a good match — not as good as the one at Money in the Bank, but perfectly serviceable — hurt a little by Kingston getting his neck Pillmanized last week and being at 100% strength. I should’ve mentioned this on Raw as well, but treating the brands as independent timelines it’s on Smackdown where it matters most. I’m trying to make sense of the universe they’ve made here, stay with me. It’s sorta like when Seth Rollins blew out his knee, and then all his matches were guys attacking the injured knee somehow healed him instead of making it worse.
It’s also kind of a shame because it’s clearly intended (at least from my point of view) to write Owens out of the main event scene and make room for a Super Showing of Down with Dolph Ziggler. It’s still a strong, clean win for the champion against a legit opponent, and Kofi’s settling nicely into WWE’s “babyface gets beaten down for 17 minutes, kicks out of opponent’s entire moveset, hits one move and wins” championship legacy. Macho Man Randy Savage added 10 years to his career by just letting people stomp him for a while and then Instant Killing them with an elbow. It’s good work if you can get it.
Note: Sorry for the milquetoast tone this week, it’s just that WWE TV is pretty much a wash until Saudi Arabia. It’s certainly not an “equal to or exceeding WrestleMania” build.
Best: RIP Wiggles And Wilbur
Daniel Bryan and Rowan get challenged by Heavy Machinery, who are like Enzo and Cass if they grew up in the midwest instead of the northeast. Bryan’s promo, as always, is glorious, as he shits on the fans for eating meat on Memorial Day, gives backstories to the animals they’re eating, and declares Oklahoma the Worst State He’s Ever Been To. He also buries the Smackdown Tag Team Division for not existing, and it’s like, where’s the lie? He’s one half of the Smackdown Tag Team Champions and had to wrestle a non-title match against a Raw team on the pay-per-view pre-show because senile 73-year old Thanos snapped all the tag teams out of existence.
My only complaint here is that Daniel Bryan cut a promo about a pig and a cow, and named the COW “Wilbur.” That’s like me introducing my cat and dog as, “Stinky and Garfield.” Although now that I think about it, naming a dog Garfield might be the funniest thing in the world. Nevermind.
Wait, no, here’s an actual complaint: Why aren’t the tag belts eco-friendly yet? What’s up, WWE, do you not want 400 more dollars?
Worst: Triple H Takes Out His AEW Anger On Legacy’s Leader!
No Country’s Ever Truly Good
From the Best and Worst of Smackdown two weeks ago:
Occult William Shatner is still doing this thing. If we get any more of these before he wrestles again, I’m going to recite the preamble to the Constitution as Aleister Black and upload it here instead of trying to come up with something to say about it.
Welp,
If he doesn’t wrestle before we see another one of these, I’ll have him do a song from Hamilton.
Best: Female Friendship
Female friendship continues to be an ongoing theme on Smackdown Live, most notably when Good Friend Sonya Deville helps distribute copies of Mandy Rose’s edition of Muscle & Fitness Hers magazine to help the wandering IIconics and layabout bookworm Ember Moon learn … 10 ways to make a butt and 20 ways to firm it, I don’t know, the entire cover is about butts. Good for her!
Mandy also gets a quick win over Carmella, who takes a break from being the Penny to R-Truth’s Brain to compete. Mandy spends most of the match still promoting Hers, which (1) is great for publicity and a future working relationship with the magazine, and (2) makes me wish Mandy Rose would start doing a Toru Yano gimmick and trying to sell off all her copies of Hers magazine.
The other bit of friendship I loved was Charlotte Flair and Lacey Evans having an actual tea party with the fancy tea set Evans presumably carries with her wherever she goes. It’s a nice nod to Charlotte’s former friendship with Becky Lynch, where they were always drinking from and clinking invisible teacups, because neither of them was right-wing enough to dress up like burlesque Peggy Carter and have actual tea parties.
That friendship doesn’t last, however, as Lacey loses a match to Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley. It’s a nice way to keep the heat on Bayley vs. Charlotte without having to have them wrestle over and over. I just wish Charlotte had pulled a Chris Jericho/Lenny Lane gambit and dressed Lacey like her for the match.
Lacey loses, because while she looks like Charlotte on the outside, she doesn’t have Charlotte’s Superior Genes® on the inside. She also takes a random opportunity to attack Charlotte from behind for some reason and get her ass kicked for it, because I guess she doesn’t want to share any more of her (I’m guessing sweet) tea.
Worst: WWE’s Decision Making Process
1. Realize Andrade is from Mexico and needs a mouthpiece to do his talking
2. Give Andrade a great mouthpiece who is good at talking
3. Have Andrade still cut his own promos while the mouthpiece stands just off-screen
4. Profit?
Worst: Shane McMahon Appreciation Night
What, is every night of WWE TV not already that?
Up first, Shane McMahon (along with Drew McIntyre and Elias, who just look thrilled to be there) does his normal fancy intro thing and segues into a lengthy Shane McMahon video package, intended to educate Roman Reigns on … whatever. The superiority of non-wrestling rich people? The value of being completely blown up 30 seconds into every match?
This turns into an appearance from R-Truth and the 24/7 Championship, where we learn that the champion CAN win matches. He pins Drake Maverick for trying to pin him. Does that mean the champion also operates under 24/7 rules, and can attack and pin anyone he wants? Could the 24/7 Champion attack like, the Intercontinental Champion from behind and pin him and win the IC belt? That’d be a cool attribute of the belt, at least … you’d want to have it so you could basically cash in “Money in the Bank” on anyone, but while you’re doing it you’ve got everyone else trying to pin you. They could introduce military strategy to being champion and everything.
Instead of any of that, the heels beat up Truth and Elias wins the 24/7 Championship.
That gives Shane the bright idea to sign R-Truth and Roman Reigns vs. Elias and Drew McIntyre for the main event, reminding us that heel general managers still manipulate and control everything (because the McMahon family are lying liars who lie) and that apparently we’re going to never do our homework and underestimate Roman Reigns forever. Shane, bruh, did you really think a tag team match against two heel cronies was going to hurt Roman Reigns? Even less than 100% recovery Roman Reigns could beat two henches on his own. Truth’s like, a bonus. A non-factor.
Still, that’s where we go with it. Reigns wins with a spear, big surprise, and Truth pins Elias again to win back the 24/7 Championship. I was really hoping Roman was going to bound in from out of nowhere and spear the shit out of Truth to win an extra title just for funsies, but alas.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
troi
this isnt the first time a white woman has helped her black boyfriend hide from a mob in Oklahoma
notJames
You can’t get Smackdown Live cookin’ if you keep serving it RAW.
Mr. Bliss
I hope this is setting up a fatal 4way in Jeddah with Becky, Lacey, Bayley and Char….oh, wait, that actually would be fatal for all of them, never mind
The Real Birdman
You’re supposed to eliminate your Looper, Charlotte
Endy_Mion
The real reason Lacey hates Becky is she disapproves of her relationship being The Man dating The Man because the bible is against two men lying with one another.
muchsarcasm
If the writers had any more protection from Black they’d cost two white mana and have first strike.
Pdragon619
I would love it Bray shows up and is aggressively supportive of Roman Reigns, “nobody but you Roman buddy!”
FreewayKnight
Can we bring back the old Smackdown fist stage, except have the fist be flipping the audience off the entire time?
Big Baby Yeezus
The only way I’d even consider watching Super Showdown is if they give us the rematch we deserve: The Human Spider vs. Bonesaw McGraw
Dave M J
::cut to Alexa Bliss squeezing Larry Steve a little closer::
To recap this week of WWE television,
That’s it for this week’s Smackdown. Thanks as always for reading. Your social media share is appreciated, your comment down below in our comments section is encouraged, and your participation in this weekend’s NXT TakeOver 25 festivities is mandatory. Don’t worry, we’re not gonna ask you to sit around on a Friday morning watching Super Showdown.
See you next week! [gets rolled up]
