the hand is me about to steal his shoes
Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: After weeks of being stuck in traffic, we finally switched over to the Fastlane (which you should make sure to read Brandon’s Best and Worst Of!) Rusev actually wrestled, Asuka challenged Charlotte, and Shane McMahon proved himself to be the most evil man on the face of this earth.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE SmackDown Live for March 6, 2018.
Best: The Dream Of Wrestle Kingdom 10 Is Alive On Smackdown
Since Fastlane, John Cena and his psychological breakdown have moved safely over to Raw to get drunk off one sip of beer and call out/ruin the mystique of the Undertaker, and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief because we are, in fact, getting Shinsuke “Snickers” Nakamura vs. AJ (Almond Joy?) Styles at WrestleMania. And now that Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan have achieved their goal of building the biggest WWE Championship match ever over the longest possible period of time and removed the bubble wrap protecting our Royal Rumble winner, we are finally, finally properly building to the (fingers crossed) main event of WrestleMania 34!
AJ comes out at the top of the show to welcome us to the house that he built and cut a promo that checks all the babyface champion promo boxes. He says he respects Shinsuke and that they have similar pasts, and basically gets as close as he can to mentioning New Japan without actually mentioning New Japan. They’re really going with the “dream match” thing in hyping this match, which is interesting partly because NJPW also used those words (in English even, as you can see 15 seconds in to the Styles vs. Nakamura Wrestle Kingdom 10 promo video) to hype their first match. There’s so much inter-promotional continuity here, and yet almost none. It’s a weird vibe.
Shinsuke enters to cut a promo that honestly might be better than AJ’s because his level of English fluency means the WWE writers won’t risk using their usual unnatural verbiage. (Props to the crowd for not “what” chanting him even though he speaks more slowly; it’s the bare minimum, but Kairi Sane got “Pearl Harbor” chants at an NXT show recently, so that can’t always be expected from wrestling crowds.)
Shinsuke’s smile after saying, “My dream … knee to face. And I become champion” for some reason made me so excited about the side of Shinsuke Nakamura we could see come out at Mania or before. This is partly because the New Japan Cup is going on right now, and the promo video to every episode shows clips from Shinsuke’s 2014 win, during which he looked like this. I know we won’t get that level of blood, but I think we could get that level of intensity.
AJ has a match with Rusev, which is good, but not even close to what Rusev deserves. It looks like he really is getting the “you got yourself super over with minimal help from us, but that wasn’t part of the plan so we’re going to cool you off” treatment, which, frankly, sucks a lot. I hate when WWE does this, but it’s a thing that they do sometimes. I think best case scenario for him at WrestleMania right now is maybe winning the Andre. And hopefully getting the babyface push he deserves afterwards. Hopefully. But I wouldn’t say realistically. At least he got that killer kick-to-nearfall in this match?
Anyway, Shinsuke watches the match, and when English starts interfering, he intervenes to save AJ. But not until after letting him get beat up for a while, because he’s Shinsuke By God Nakamura and he isn’t (or shouldn’t be) that kind of babyface.
Two observations from this: 1) watching Shinsuke watch things continues to be absurdly entertaining, 2) it looks like the build to this match is mostly going to be Shinsuke saving AJ even when he doesn’t need it every week until WrestleMania in order to protect him/drive him into a redneck rage. That’s pretty low stakes, but it’s fun and not much on Smackdown has been fun lately, so I’m into it. I recognize this might feel kind of lame to other people, especially those who have only seen Shinsuke since he came up to the main roster, but to me it’s a continuation of a years-long saga between two of the greatest of all time and I’m enjoying it so much that I kind of don’t care. We got dueling “AJ Styles”-“Nakamura” chants, so I think it’s going over well enough.
Best: They Have Respect Women Juice At Catering Now
Our other Reigning Champion vs. Royal Rumble Winner promo battle also, oddly enough, features the two egotistical competitors respecting each other and a Japanese wrestler who speaks limited English out-promo-ing the native English speaker champ because they don’t have to say as many dumb WWE words. Charlotte’s lucky everybody already likes her, because her promos these past two weeks have been borderline disastrous.
I think we’re all psyched for Asuka vs. Charlotte because it seems like there’s no way this match could be bad. It will most likely be the best women’s WrestleMania match yet (not that the bar is super high for that right now) and I expect it to be in the top 4 matches at this year’s show. And the build really demostrates how far WWE has come in terms of how it treats both its female and non-American talent. The themes are “iron sharpens iron” and that both these women are royalty, with one trying to cement her legacy while the other is still working to make a name for herself in this company and prove that she can beat the best. This match feels like a glimpse of the future, a bright future full of badass women wrestlers and majestic entrance outerwear.
Worst: The Boring Version Of The IC Title Feud
Okay, first of all, this is the second week in a row that a women’s promo segment has been interrupted by a male superstar’s entrance music. Last week it kind of worked because Bobby Roode was musical-distraction-saving Charlotte. This week I guess Randy Orton was like “I feel uncomfortable when we’re not talking about me?” and just walked right out there. WWE has trained us to be ready for a fight or interruption of the same segment when someone’s entrance music hits in the middle of a segment, so this is very off-putting because the male and female rosters rarely interact outside of the Mixed Match Challenge. Either stop doing this or have Asuka armbar the eff out of the Viper, is what I’m saying, Road Dogg.
Grandal Slamdal Randal, who is a babyface here despite delivering his lines like a sociopath, says no one will stop him taking his title to WrestleMania. Bobby Roode, also apparently STILL a babyface after we got so close, SO GLORIOUSLY CLOSE to a heel turn after the match at Fastlane, enters to be like, “You are correct, but I will use my rematch clause at WrestleMania, so … !” Jinder enters and attempts to manipulate these two middle aged dads with points that don’t really make sense, and then is like “Watch me beat up your boyfriend, The Viper Randy Orton!”
I realized this week that this is like the boring version of the IC title feud on Raw right now: we have a blue guy with a rad entrance who hasn’t reached his NXT/other promotion heights on the main roster yet, a guy who was aligned with the Authority a few years back, and a manipulative pot-stirrer. Except Jinder isn’t working in this role that the Miz is shining in, and there’s little to no chance of the other two competitors creating a perpetual motion machine by slingblading each other at the same time.
It’s all going to pay off when Orton finally reveals his true feelings for Roode at Mania, though. I know I said that was definitely going to happen at Fastlane, but Randy talking about how happy it made him to watch John Cena cry on Talking Smack afterwards made me realize the truth. See, you can tell from the intensity with which Randy watches Bob during his match with Jinder than they did get together, but it was offscreen. How else would Roode have gotten those Singh-murdering skills?
But they’re not going to reveal it until Mania, because Randy ALSO wants to upstage his long-time rival John Cena, who got engaged at WrestleMania last year. And a dramatic gay kiss on the Grandest Stage Of Them All would definitely do that! Watch the Undertaker no show and Cena sit in the stands and get his big, romantic Wrestlemania Moment get showed up by Newly Progressive Apex Predator! This is truly brilliant long-term booking.
Best: New Day One Ish
Even when they’ve been split up and pieced back together in a new combination, Usos – New Day is a Smackdown highlight. Big E and Jimmy Uso vs. the Bludgeon Brothers gives us fired up babyfaces teaming up to get justified vengeance for their friends, Serious Big E, and a HAMMERS VS. CHAIRS FIGHT. My only complaint is that there wasn’t more HAMMERS VS. CHAIRS FIGHT. Oh, and also that commentary is now calling the hammers “mallets,” which does not sound intimidating at all, and also that the BBs barely use them.
I know some people (people way more into metal and ren fairs than me?) think the Bludgeon Brothers are super cool and that’s great for them, but to me they are two dudes with a lame aesthetic who are trying (and partially succeeding) in murdering my faves. So, basically, very effective heels! Nice job, Smackdown! I can’t wait to see somebody get these dudes’ number.
Best: The Fabulous Mella
They finally remembered Ms. Money In The Bank Carmella exists, and she’s probably the actual best heel on the roster right now. She talks trash, she screams obnoxiously during matches, her extensions are terrible, and she wins in cheap, frustrating ways. She’s a great asset to the Smackdown women’s division, and I’m actually getting hyped for her cash-in, even though it will probably make me mad if it’s against anyone except Alexa. Or, like, Brock right after what would have been the match-winning spear for Roman. They keep mentioning Seth’s cash in from Reigns vs. Lesnar I! That could be foreshadowing!
Shoot Worst: The Fabulous Moolah And How WWE Deals With The Uncomfortable Parts Of Wrestling History
It’s funny that after Divas Battles Royal were dumb things that happened sometimes for years, WWE putting all the women not in other types of matches in a battle royal this WrestleMania feels like a good, respectful idea.
But then they went and named it after the Fabulous Moolah because they already named the Mae Young Classic after Mae Young and they can’t name things after Trish and/or Lita yet. In case you don’t know why the internet is mad about this, most of the dark details are in this reddit thread. The allegations against Moolah range from ripping off talent to pimping out talent, and a lot of them are about as verified as wrestling history gets.
Will WWE change the name of this match? Mainstream media attention is part of what got JBL fired, and the fan outrage about this has been written about by sites like Forbes, so maybe.
Will WWE ever talk about the sketchy behavior of “legendary” wrestling promoters in a real way? I doubt it. The closest I can think of to that happening was in 2015 when Mr. McMahon told Roman Reigns, “May I remind you you’re one generation away from a bone in your nose.” Which was crazy because actual Vince McMahon has actually presided over a lot of racist crap over the decades! And then he used real life evil wrestling promoter history to make his fictional evil wrestling promoter character feel more evil!
I don’t know that he or many WWE higher-ups actually care about not being racist or sexist anymore in their heart of hearts, but I know they just know being more inclusive makes more money. And I don’t really expect any more than that from WWE, because it’s a giant, publicly traded, global company. But although I’ve loved watching the women’s division progress over the past few years, it’s still frustrating sometimes when they talk about how “women’s wrestling was not respected” when WWE, in large part, perpetuated the status quo of it not being respected! They were the most influential organization not respecting it!
Tl;dr: I’m not shocked or offended they named this battle royal after Moolah because my expectations for WWE are super low, but I think they could be swayed to change it by enough mainstream media attention.
Best/Worst: Canadian Stampede
Somebody please explain to me why I left all the frustrating stuff for the end of the article.
The Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahon feud has a very good feud in it, and that’s Zayn vs. Owens. These two have a emotionally and violence … ly complex history, and I don’t know if putting them together or against each other will ever produce something not good.
Renee Young, in a dress I would very much like to own and have occasion to wear, interviews both men backstage, and their story progresses in a way that makes enough sense. Sami is still fed up with everything, and although he blames Shane in part for his not winning the title at Fastlane, he blames Kevin more because Kevin’s betrayal hurts more. He thought they were friends, but now he sees how Kevin sees him, and that’s what finally broke him. Kevin rightly blames Shane as the instigator of this whole thing, but also puts down Sami in such an awful way that it reminds you, oh yeah, KO is a terrible person and that’s the reason all his super fun heel friendships end in tragedy. I want to see Sami win a title and rub it in this dude’s face.
But that probably won’t happen any time soon because this is a feud that involves the indestructible, red-faced man in the worst shape out of anyone in the world, Shane McMahon. I know Smackdown has been terrible for a while so this shouldn’t shock me, but it shocks me that they are STILL trying to put him over as the babyface of this feud. At least, I think that’s what that very dark beatdown was aiming to do.
Kevin and Sami’s beatdown definitely left me feeling bad, but not bad for Shane. Sure, Owens heatbutted Mr. McMahon a million years ago, and okay, fine, I can buy Shane being mad about that even though he and Vince have the history they have. But Shane has been abusing his power as commissioner to avenge this one incident for months to the point of costing people legitimately earned titles. He has not been dealing with this like a good guy, and he ‘s been looking so freaking smug about it the whole time! He made the purest babyface in WWE turn heel with his shenanigans! Plus, he showed up on Raw on Monday, which they did not acknowledge or explain on Smackdown when I actually thought they might, and tried to stick up for his dad, who was appearing there as the Big Bad of WWE. How is he still a face???
This whole thing is exhausting. I think best case scenario right now is that when Daniel Bryan returns next week he adds not only Shane to Kevin vs. Sami, but himself for a return-to-the-ring tag match. But I think he’s more likely to make himself special guest referee on the side of the heels. I hope I’m wrong about that. At least Styles vs. Nakamura is fun and not interacting with this train wreck at all, I guess.
Best: Top Ten Comments Of The Week
Luther Evers
On the “turning purple scale,” Shane has rocketed past “Brock Lesner” into “adjust your television settings”
AddMayne
Shane attempts to leave, ensuring he won’t have a wrestlemania match. KO and Sami attack him, ensuring he will have a wrestlemania match.
Well you did it writers. You finally got me to boo KO and Sami.
Cami
Shane is taking a leave of absence to gently jab orphans in Mexico.
Dave M J
Claiming Randy Orton hit an RKO out of nowhere when he ran into the ring in full view of everyone (35)
The Real Birdman
“I am now the United States champion. The United States lest we forget was founded in 1776 and consists of 50 states, which are represented by stars on the American flag, which was originally created by Betsy Ross. This makes me a Grand Slam Champion. A grand slam meaning a baseball term where a batter hits a home run, which is when the ball leaves the ballpark from his bat, while a runner is upon first, second, and third base…”
That’s what “deserve” means, AJ. You earned it
Is the trophy for the Moolah Battle Royal just a statue of The Godfather?
AddMayne
*Randy starts pleading to Asuka to forgive him for being rude*
Shane: “oh god, throw up my announcement graphic and go to commercial! now, now!”
Mr Bliss
The crowd half-assed that GLORIOUS worse than Orton half-asses a match he is booked to lose.
Bigsexy75
Kick to the Face That Runs the Place?
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