The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown 12/26/17: Staccolade


Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live:

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for December 26, 2017.

Best: The Smackdown Tag Team Division, Even If The Booking Isn’t 10% As Good As The Talent

This week’s Smackdown starts with one of those terrible “revolving door” promo parades to set up a match they could’ve just announced and done, but it provided us with one magnificent situation: our precious Handsome Rusev suddenly being so beloved and over that there are massive “RUSEV DAY” chants while Daniel Bryan AND the New Day are out there. That’s crazy.

You’ve got the most over person to step foot in a WWE ring in a decade out there, and you’ve got the most pandering, merch-happy smile-faced babyfaces out there throwing discus pancakes. The crowd’s chanting for the Bulgarian guy who has spend most of his WWE career hating America and currently doesn’t know how calendars or holidays work. That rules. And I continue to love that it’s getting Aiden English over by proxy. People still aren’t sure if they wanna cheer him, but they’re gonna at least politely woo through it to get to the Rusev parts.

The segment goes through the announcement of a four-person United States Championship tournament, which is pretty weak, but quickly sets up Rusev Day vs. New Day vs. Chad Gable and Old Jason Jordan for a shot at The Usos’ Smackdown Tag Team Championship.

First of all, this is the best TV match we’ve gotten since the Reigns/Cesaro Intercontinental Championship match earlier this month, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The past couple of weeks of WWE TV have been pretty brutal, especially with the non-denominational winter holiday happening, so even the normally “good” stuff has felt rushed or flat. Outside of Ru Ru stomping a pancake and maybe Matt Hardy playing chess with a French goldfish the shows have been lame, and the best in-ring work between that and this is like, “Jason Jordan doing all right.” That’s the peak.

I love that everyone got an opportunity to shine here. Chad Gable continues to be everything we want him to be in the ring (with a grating personality outside of it), Shelton Benjamin’s added some big knee strikes to his offense that are making him feel a little more dangerous and a little less time-displaced, Big E is a goddamn national treasure who should be WWE Champion sooner rather than later unless we’re absolutely out of our minds, and even Aiden English got to do a big Latino Heat tribute splash, and even though it was more five-star frog splash than Eddie, it cemented him in my mind (at least) as our greatest living Guerrero. He married into the family, it counts.


Also, in a moment that does not need its glory communicated, the STACCOLADE.

My only complaint, really, is that the booking of the tag team division isn’t as good as anyone in it. Smackdown has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to tag team talent, you know? They’ve got The Usos, New Day, Rusev Day, Gable and Benjamin, Breezango, the Bludgies, and even the Ascension have gotten some love from popping up in the Fashion Files. They’re all succeeding in spite of creative, not really because of it. Want an example? The triple threat match for a shot at the Smackdown Tag Team Championship you just watched, good as it was, featured the same three teams The Usos just beat at Clash of Champions in a fatal four-way for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship like nine days ago.

There’s not a story to set up challengers to the championship. Just like the women’s division, they just throw everyone into a pile and say “fight for a shot,” and they spend a month fighting for it only to all get tossed into a title match at a pay-per-view. Rinse and repeat. If you’re on Smackdown, the WWE and United States Championship divisions feature a maximum of 3 people at a time, and the Tag and Women’s Divisions are “everybody into the pool.” The division itself is great, again, but imagine how great it’d be if there was some creative passion behind it, and guys like Rusev got something really engaging to do beyond hitting signature moves in a finishing sprint and being funny backstage?

Speaking Of The Dreadful State Of Smackdown Creative And Its Influence On Two Very Good Divisions

Breezango had a rematch with the Bludgeon Brothers, and it was … close to what we were expecting at Clash of Champions. Instead of a full-on squash, we got the Bludgies refusing to pin Tyler Breeze because they wanted to beat him repeatedly with a bludgeon or other heavy object and The Ascension doing a little hit-and-run run-in to save them.

I think Konnor and Viktor actually taking a bullet for the Fashion Police to save them from the Bludgeon Brothers at Clash would’ve been the better call, because then you could’ve given the rematch some heat beyond a murdered hobby horse, but I liked this until the post-match segment. Backstage, The Ascension is like, “BREEZANGO WANTS ANOTHER MATCH BECAUSE THEY’RE OUR FRIENDS,” and it felt like a misunderstanding of the relationship. The Ascension were more or less the straight men in the Fashion Files, not the comical idiots who got everyone hurt. That was Breeze and Dango’s job. I dunno. This was fine, but they did two Breezango vs. Bludgeon Brothers matches to set up Breezango vs. Bludgeon Brothers, so …

It’s better than the women’s division, who get a whopping 0:59 of in-ring action this week. Total. Ruby Riott’s able to pin Naomi after a distraction, which is also how the main event ends. And she wins by kicking her opponent in the back of the leg and hitting her finish, which is also how one of the United States Championship tournament matches ends. This is all on this one episode. Do a second draft sometimes, guys.

The post-match stuff is the same “Riott Squad tries to use the Damned Numbers Game™ to beat up their opponent, the entire division makes the save to brawl independent of character alignment or preexisting relationships” thing you’ve seen for weeks, and will continue to see for weeks until we get to the women’s Rumble. That’s all they’ve got.

When You Order Something Online Vs. When It Arrives

Worst: Can Shane And Daniel Talk About This Shit Somewhere Private, Where We Don’t Have To Listen To It

We all know this passive-aggressive stuff is leading to one of them (Shane) turning on the other, but right now it feels like Mr. Peanutbutter talking to Diane after they’ve gone to couples therapy. “I affirm your feelings, Shane. Your feelings have value.” “I feel heard, Daniel.” “I hear that you feel heard.”

Perfectly Fine: The United States Championship Tournament You Were Expecting

So yeah, Daniel Bryan books a four-person United States Championship match to give an opportunity to more people — not very many more, I guess — featuring only one guy from the United States. The other three are from Canada. They need to put the Lance Storm Canada stickers on the belt.

(EDIT: WWE actually announced an 8-person tournament on Dot Com, so apologizes for all the four-person tournament jokes!)

The better of the two is Baron Corbin vs. Bobby Roode, which is something we’ve already seen for the United States Championship in one form or another too many times. I honestly agree with Shane McMahon here, that Daniel probably should’ve just booked Corbin vs. Roode for the championship since they were the ones feuding for it, and Dolph Ziggler just got randomly added to the match at the last minute before winning the title and immediately bailing. The nightmarish part of my brain expects Roode to move on to the finals, his opponent to get hurt, Baron Corbin to get that spot again somehow and then Ziggler showing up to make it a triple threat, because he’s the “real champion.” Oh man, this is totally just to give Dolph Ziggler another match with a frustrating story, isn’t it? (Please don’t be.)

The lesser of the two is Jinder Mahal vs. Tye Dillinger, because Tye would need the Staff of Moses to work a miracle out of Jinder. The best AJ Styles could get out of him was, “a pretty good match with a story that made sense.”

That said, working in the mid-card competing for the United States Championship is exactly where Jinder needs to be, and lord, Jinder Mahal as United States Champion is such a WWE wet dream. The only reason that championship exists in WWE, I think, is so a guy from the United States can hold something that says “United States” on it and make people mad about it. NWA/WCW kept that story pretty rare — I can really only think of Nikita Koloff, Storm and maybe Kensuke Sasaki — but WWE LOVES it. Cesaro hates the U.S.! U.S. Champion! Rusev hates the U.S.! U.S. Champion! Alberto Del Rio! Xenophobic Jack Swagger! Kevin Owens says he’s the face of America but he’s Canadian! Jinder tossing some India stickers on that belt and calling it the Punjabi Heavyweight Championship would be a lay-up.

Worst: Kevin Owens Has Pinned The WWE Champion!

Don’t get me wrong … Kevin Owens and AJ Styles don’t have much chemistry, honestly, considering how good they both are, but unless something goes horribly wrong, they aren’t going to have a *bad* match. The problem is — you guessed it! — creative. Which is to say, not very.

Shane McMahon shows up to get in Sami Zayn’s face for getting up on the apron and causing a distraction. Zayn was mad about Styles diving onto him, but sure. Styles gets a roll-up on Owens, but the referee’s out of position because he’s too busy dealing with Shane. That causes ANOTHER distraction, which allows OWENS to roll up STYLES and win the match. So that’s two distractions, two false finishes and two roll-ups.

I guess the major problem I have with this is that it doesn’t go anywhere good. At best, we get another Styles vs. Owens match for the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble, which we’ve already seen so many times and is never as good as it should be. The championship matches at the Rumble are usually throwaways, but shit, the Raw one has KANE in it. I was hoping Smackdown would give us something better. At worst, we’re either spinning this into more Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens, or more Shane McMahon vs. AJ Styles, which we’ve ALSO already seen too many times.

The weird challenger/champion cycle is starting to hurt my brain. Jinder was champion for almost an entire year, and he only ever fought Nakamura and Orton before losing to Styles. As champion, Styles only seems to fight Owens, so now that he’s champ and we’ve worked through the Jinder rematch, it’s right back to KO. Can we do … anything else? ANYTHING? If you’re gonna throw away these matches and you’re running a fucking Kane main, couldn’t Smackdown do AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn for the WWE Championship? Wouldn’t you want to see that? It’s not For The First Time Ever™ or whatever, but it feels fresh as hell comparatively.

Smackdown needs to jettison whoever’s writing these shows and booking everyone into piles and corners before another era passes and we realize we wasted what might be the most talented roster in the history of the show on Jinder and Shane.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

Mark Silletti

Rusev with the Big Poppa Pump memorial cruiserweight murder camel clutch

Dave M J

“He has an illness!”

Accute TEN-donitis?

Mr. Bliss

“The way you’re smiling is like someone who doesn’t know what smiles are for.” A line from “Happy” or something Natalya’s acting coach says every week?

Harry Longabaugh

“Go back to NXT!”

Camera rotates 180 degrees, revealing that Corbin has been screaming into a mirror.

Roode’s entrance has him rotating yet creative refuses to let him turn.

ccxxii

“See I’m Punk” – Ruby Riott

Amaterasu’s Son

Ascension with the save? Wait what?

Does that mean we’ll get….A vs B?

The Real Birdman

Johnny Curtis doesn’t need redemption, he won NXT

“AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens was one of the most vicious feuds of 2017”

I’ve never been more convinced Daniel Bryan has had multiple concussions

AddMayne

Shane: Instead of booking several high profile matches that would get eyes on our product, why didn’t you just book a match with two guys that people have seen interact with each other 100s of times now?

Daniel: you know when I was comparing you to your dad I wasn’t complimenting you right

That’s it for this week. How fitting was it that the final match of the year for the WWE main roster shows was a distraction roll-up and the champion getting pinned?

Thanks for another year of Best and Worst of Smackdown Live (and Raw) columns. Show us a little end of the year love by sharing this thing on social media, where we can get new eyeballs on it and maybe make a few people laugh, and drop us a comment in our comments section below.

See you next year, featuring Ronda Rousey tapping out Asuka, Cody Rhodes returning only to get stuck in a United States Championship feud with Baron Corbin, and everyone on Earth trying to figure out how WWE booked KENTA vs. Jack Gallagher and got it a “this is awful” chant.

Wait, did we already do one of those?

(Check out our must-listen McMahonsplaining podcast with WWE superstar Braun Strowman. Subscribe on iTunes or Google.)

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