Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: Rusev continued not to wrestle, Shane McMahon almost died eating popcorn, and John Cena showed up to make speeches and crush dreams.
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Hey, this is once again Emily Pratt, who usually just writes these about New Japan. I’m going to be covering the Smackdown reports for Brandon for a while. I temporarily gained this column the exact same way John Cena got into the main event at Fastlane, if Cena vs. Styles had gone down in the parking lot of a Whole Foods and Styles had lost on purpose and also Cena couldn’t afford to shop at Whole Foods.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for March 6, 2018.
Best: Ra Ra Riott
First of all, if Renee Young wasn’t home sick and livetweeting the Bachelor we would have had a more informed reporter on the scene and this segment wouldn’t have even had to escalate the way it did … so I guess it’s good she took a day, because Ruby Riott opened the show with a very good promo.
It has those qualities that most people would say make a quality heel promo: it contains some truth about the face, but also enough of an untruthful spin and/or denial of the wrongness of the heel’s own actions that it doesn’t get you to root for them. Her points about Charlotte having a ton of advantages with her more conventional good looks and family connections make sense, as does her being pissed off about the champ’s haughty attitude.
But Ruby denies that Charlotte is actually super talented and doesn’t the hypocrisy of her responding to this perceived injustice with more injustice by forming a vigilante mob and attacking all the other women on Smackdown, too. Especially if you watched the Ric Flair 30 for 30, the claim that her family background has only made things easier for Charlotte in life rings false too, although that’s just in a shoot way.
Charlotte’s response is, unfortunately, not all that sympathetic because she is essentially a heel character. “I actually had to work harder because my dad’s a two time hall of famer” is such Ivanka Trump nonsense and doesn’t do her any favors as a face. I’m sure these two will have at least a decent match at Fastlane, and I hope that ends this feud forever and Ruby turns face soon so I don’t have to watch this weird alignment anymore.
Another big highlight of this was when Bobby Roode’s music hit and the announce team was like “He’s coming to save his Mixed Match Challenge partner!” because 1) yay for recognition of MMC relationships on regular WWE programming! 2) for a second, I thought Roode was going to beat up three women, and that would be the most exciting thing he’s done since, like, he had that little moment with Triple H at Survivor Series. Or possibly his main roster debut entrance.
Worst: Fight Forever
Jinder Mahal and Randy Orton, Randy Orton and Jinder Mahal. We’ve seen this two men go at it time and again, from a Punjabi Prison to a regular wrestling ring without a weird, racist cage around it that makes it hard to see the wrestling. At this point we have to ask ourselves, are they the Rock v. Austin of this generation? Or was Rock v. Austin really the Orton v. Mahal of the Attitude Era?
Hoo boy, this U.S. Championship feud is boring and terrible. I’d say at least it’s going to be over on Sunday, but I think they’ll find a way to get these three guys on the WrestleMania card with this somehow. Here are the ways they could fix this feud for me:
- Jinder Mahal is already the Regina George of the SD men’s single’s division, so have him go way more manipulative mean girl
- Randy Orton finally freaks out about the Top Ten List, which literally no one else on the show cares about anymore
- Randy Orton reveals he’s been so passive aggressive about the Top Ten List because he’s insulted Roode didn’t vote for him because he’s in love with Bobby Roode but in denial of his feelings, and Bob thinks this is too good to be true because when he’s been saying he respects Randy so hard he really means he wants to make out with him.
Best: Fight Forever
We’re getting Usos vs. New Day at WrestleMania, right? That’s what this extremely good video package means? Please?
Worst: Road Dogg Saw Someone Use Snapchat Once And Didn’t Understand It And Now We’re All Suffering
For the record, I’m down with the selfie promos. Most feuds we see in real life take place mostly over social media, so they add an element of realism that works for me. Then Smackdown brutally murders any realism and makes the vibe confusing and the videos aesthetically repulsive by putting pop up text on them.
Baron Corbin’s promo on Cena was an egregious example of this, especially because it also featured PPV LOGOS showing up on screen. Who thinks this is a good idea? What is this supposed to accomplish? Who watched Cena’s very good, sermon-y promo from last night’s Raw and thought adding clashing purple and green text improved it?
Best: THEY REMEMBERED THESE WONDERFUL PEOPLE ARE ON THE SMACKDOWN ROSTER
Worst: Why Did They Just Now Remember This?
The answer to that, I guess, is that they realized Fastlane is on Sunday and they still need to set up like half the card! We could have been watching Rusev and Aiden English and Shinsuke Nakamura antagonize each other for weeks instead of watching the slow death of Daniel Bryan’s soul on live television! But at least we’re getting Rusev vs. Nakamura at Fastlane, and it looks like the writers finally remembered that these super charismatic, popular, funny people are on this show. Nak gets the same Obnoxious WWE Dialogue that every top babyface gets, but his natural weirdness makes it work for him.
Hopefully this means the build to Nakamura vs. Styles II will play to both performers’ strengths and won’t be hurt by the men’s promos sounding too similar, and that our long national nightmare of no Rusev Day is over. Rusev’s definitely going to lose on Sunday and I have no idea what they’ll do with him afterwards, but at least he’s wrestling again.
Even more miraculously, they remembered that the rest of the women’s division exists and that Becky Lynch and Naomi have characters besides Charlotte’s Friends. Becky Lynch vs. Carmella was no classic, but it used basic in-ring storytelling to remind us of who these women are and why they matter on this show. That’s a good start.
Naomi, looking adorable and watching TV in a shockingly normal way, is confronted by Natalya, who lost her mind (source: her INSANE magical girl anime villain outfit with one million ruffles!!!) but somehow gained the ability to sort of talk like a human being, backstage. In a world where John Cena has to wander the earth begging for matches, Naomi just speaks a PPV tag match into existence. It’s dumb, but if this means the SD women’s division is going to become more functional and Becky and Naomi will be used better as babyfaces, I can deal with it.
Best: AJ Styles Is Fighting For Me Personally
After jobbing to Cena last week, AJ Styles gets to shine. He cuts his first good promo in forever (he’s been thinking “Kami” is clever and explaining match stipulations for so long I sort of forgot he could do those), and it frames the Fastlane main event in a way I didn’t expect. The stuff about how he’ll stand and fight and not make excuses is typical babyface fighting spirit, but then he shows the tape of Cena’s Raw promo.
A lot of us, especially New Japan marks like me, watched that and got annoyed by Cena thinking we were mad about him potentially taking AJ’s WrestleMania Moment (TM), when really we were mad about him potentially killing Steamboat vs. Flair II. But John Cena is Mr. WWE, so why would he recognize the importance of things that happened in other wrestling promotions?
AJ, shockingly, basically makes all these points in his promo. He talks about John Cena as not a bad guy, not a guy he can’t respect, but a status quo, close-minded guy. To pull back for a second, this promo is another moment like Cena being used as a heel in the Rumble and beating babyface Finn in a match that contained a Two Sweet AA.
This is WWE being aware of the response Cena gets from a not insignificant amount of the fans, and using it to make him this choose your own adventure face or heel. If you’re a Cena Kid, you probably still want him to win, and you’re not rooting for a villain and your parents won’t feel bad about buying you a bright-colored t-shirt. But I can stress about Cena stealing my dream match (and they keep using the phrase “dream match!”) from me, and that’s also a totally valid response that the company recognizes. This is such a strange, meta thing that’s happening, and it feels important.
Speaking of important, how much is that not a word you would use to describe Dolph Ziggler after that promo? But Dolph cuts a good heel promo, you people-ing it up super hard and hilariously calling AJ Styles, who is three years older than him, “kid.” I heard another veteran performer is also looking for a match at WrestleMania, Dolph. If only you could see him!
Anyway, what we saw of their singles match was fine, but soon epically overshadowed by
Worst: “Here Comes The Money” Now Makes Me Want To Stab Myself In The Leg With A Fork
I made a note about halfway through the show: “DANIEL AND SHANE AREN’T HERE THAT’S WHY THIS EP IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN USUAL.” The lack of interfering beatdowns helped this Smackdown feel way less bleak too. But my heart sank into my stomach when Sami and Kevin came out to beat up AJ and Dolph like we’ve watched for what feels like months (and I think might literally be months?) and then Shane entered to smugly set up a fatal five way. We were so close to being able to write “1” on the whiteboard that says “Episodes of Smackdown Live without any of this dumb crap happening!”
Best: Friendship Ended With Kevin Owens, Now The WWE Championship Is My Best Friend
But Smackdown ended up shocking me again. The fatal five way was a low stakes version of the Fastlane main event minus Cena, sure, but it started out fine, with everybody getting some good moments. I thought that was all it would be.
Their too wholesome to be true backstage segment made me hope Sami would betray Kevin, but I thought that would happen on the PPV, if at all. Good thing this actually happened before Fastlane, because a swerve like this at a high speed could send a car right off that road! Seriously, I have no idea why they did this now, but I was extremely into it.
Sami, after claiming for weeks he would lay down his life (er, body to be pinned) for Kevin despite how horribly Kevin has treated him, pins Owens to win the match. Everyone is shocked, none more than KO, who just had his friendship and strategy blow up in his face. Sami spits some hot, true fire about how he’s been overlooked and he’s not going to take it anymore. We heard a similar thing after he first turned heel about how doing the right thing got him nowhere, but he was still, in his sweet Sami Zayn way, trying to use the positive power of friendship to get ahead. This feels like the final Heel Sami form now, and one that could transition into a more intense face form. I think this could be the development that finally really puts WWE Main Roster Sami Zayn over to the degree he deserves.
Flat caps off to you, Smackdown Live. You got my hyped for most of your pay per view at the last possible moment, mostly because my expectations for you are extremely low. Now let’s see if all these steps in the right direction keep going that way.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
The Real Birdman
Cena should somehow win this
Blade_222
Im still hoping Unsolved is just a really long Nacho Fries commercial.
For the record, I stabbed Ziggler in the front.
The Real Birdman
SDL is the House AJ Styles built, which just goes to show you should probably get a contractor to build a house and not a wrestler
Mark Silletti
is John Cena The Riddler now?
Bigsexy75
That fall was more scripted than Natty’s promo.
Wendel31
That’s not how you watch TV backstage, Naomi.
This exchange:
David MJ: “There is no wasted movement by the Viper!”
::Orton literally stands still for like 10 seconds::
Cami:Standing is not a move though
LUNI_TUNZ
Based on this promo alone, Ruby should be the forever champion for her ability to speak like a living human being.
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