The Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown Live 11/14/17: Dark Territory


Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: Bill Hanstock filled in for me for a week, because if I watch many more episodes of Survivor Series build I’ll have to check myself into a mental institution.

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for November 14, 2017.

Best: The Advocate Daniel Bryan

Daniel Bryan’s always been underrated on the microphone. Back in the day, the criticisms against him were that his act only worked in front of tiny indie crowds, and that when he talked, he was as charismatic as a cardboard box full of rice cakes. As I think we all eventually learned, those were both talking points of people who hadn’t watched enough of his work. He certainly improved his promo game in WWE, but he was always good.

Tuesday’s show-opening promo featuring Bryan as the “advocate” for AJ Styles heading into Survivor Series might’ve been one of the best he’s ever done. I loved it, from Bryan’s super accurate burns on Brock Lesnar — he’s physically strong but mentally weak, doesn’t have much of a work ethic and “tapped out to a half-assed knee bar on a UFC show” — to the assumption of a Paul Heyman-esque persona that actually used Heyman’s words against him. Great, great stuff, and an example of why sometimes they should transition wrestlers who can’t wrestle anymore into actual characters on the show, instead of extremely placeholder authority figures working on the behalf of McMahons.

My only complaint: why the hell did AJ talk when Bryan was done? It almost killed the entire thing for me. Styles can be good-to-great on the mic, too, but he didn’t need to do anything here. It was like when someone overhears your joke and repeats it so people will laugh at them. There’s a reason Brock Lesnar doesn’t say “that’s right, Paul,” and continue Heyman’s promos. Heyman did the work for you. Stand there and look like a bad-ass.

Worst: Jinder Died On The Way Back To His Home Planet

I dunno, part of me was hoping that when Jinder lost the WWE Championship last week he was just gonna shrink back down to NXT Jinder and start losing again. The most counterproductive thing Smackdown did this week, I think, was build us up for Styles/Lesnar only to have Jinder pop in to remind us that (1) ultimately there’s no consequence to the champion vs. champion match, as it only has one week of build and nobody can win or lose anything, and (2) Jinder Mahal is waiting to rejoin the main-event scene when it’s over. Woof.

Worst: King Barrett Is Still The Intercontinental Champion

Don’t get me wrong, the Baron Corbin vs. Sin Cara United States Championship match was the best of their series and actually managed to play off of/build on their previous encounters, but it’s still the most Wade Barrett thing of all time. The worst character type WWE chooses for its secondary championships is the guy who loses non-title matches every week, then retains when the championship is on the line. The only way that even KIND OF works is if you really hammer home the talking point that the guy doesn’t have any respect for himself and prioritizes general honors like “holding a championship” over winning matches and being a champion, so he mails it in and doesn’t give a shit unless the belt’s on the line. And that’s more about possession of an object that being recognized as one of the best performers. It’s so weird. It’s one of those things that makes total sense to WWE and a lot of WWE fans, but makes me feel like I’m watching the pro wrestling equivalent of Man Getting Hit By Football.

Kinda wanted to see at least one of these Raw vs. Smackdown men’s matches at Survivor Series have clear alignment choices — Heel Miz vs. Babyface Sin Cara — but it wasn’t meant to be.

Best/Worst: The Women’s Title Match

I’m going to give this a Half-Best because it accomplished two things:

  • it got the Women’s Championship back onto Charlotte Flair, who honestly should’ve won it about 15 seconds into being on Smackdown, and
  • it got the Women’s Championship away from Natalya, whose normal English dialogue sounds like a Chinese bootleg DVD manufacturer trying to translate Japanese subtitles for American audiences

Plus, like every Charlotte vs. Natalya match, it wasn’t bad, despite not really being as good as they want you to believe.

Why is that? Because I’m still not convinced Natalya knows how wrestling works. That makes me sound like a total hater because she’s been wrestling for 17 years, but she still does that thing you see on indie show undercards where the wrestlers kinda shuffle in place and make too much eye contact like, “okay, ready to do the spot we talked about? Okay, LET’S GO WE’RE DOING IT!” Watch when she’s about to do anything that isn’t a regular spot. If Charlotte’s countering something, she’s like “okay, I’m standing here, are we ready to do the counter?” Maybe I’m just looking for it, or maybe I’m being too critical, but I just see it. Maybe it’s both of them? Watch when they do the spear spot. Natalya positions Charlotte in the middle of the ring like she usually does, and Charlotte like, scoots backwards without anyone making her to give them enough room to make the spot work. And then it only works as an idea, and the instant replay skips the entire setup for it.

Regardless, all of this week’s matches fall into the “pretty good” category, which is … pretty good. And hey, at least now the Women’s Champion vs. Women’s Champion match at Survivor Series has something behind it (with clearer alignments!) and should be enjoyable. Maybe we’ll get Charlotte vs. Asuka at WrestleMania, The One Other Time Each Year Raw And Smackdown Go Head-To-Head, Not Counting The Royal Rumble™.

Best: Ric Flair Got Me Verklempt

The best moment of the show by far was the return of The Nature Boy, who shows up after Charlotte’s match to hug her on the stage. Charlotte like, running into his teary-eyed hug was heartwarming as hell. If it didn’t make you feel something, I don’t even know.

Ric has looked various stages of “Ric Flair old” since like the early ’90s, but he finally looks like an actual old guy who isn’t going to get back in the ring, throw his jacket on the ground and elbow drop it. But he looks healthy, as healthy as he can, and that’s amazing. Diamonds are forever, and so is Ric Flair. We can’t ever lose that guy. Put his brain into a Ric Flair robot or something.

Who Is The Heel Here?

That’s not a criticism.

I love the Usos, but I don’t think I realized until this week that they aren’t really heels anymore. They’ve got a really entertaining style of mic work now, they don’t cheat, and they aren’t even really being rude to people. Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin are the ones who dissed them on a handshake and got aggro with them. Gable’s out here throwing vicious chop blocks one week, and controlling a singles match with overtly heel aggression this week. Somewhere along the line, the Usos became normal dudes again and “American Alpha 2” went rogue. I guess you can’t show up to Raw to beat up your injured old best friend and tag team partner with suckerpunches in a 5-on-1 attack and still be a dorky face.

I’m not sure why the last couple of weeks of WWE booking played out like it did, with nearly the entire Survivor Series card changing on a whim like last month’s weird 5-on-3 pile of stipulations TLC main, but it changed a lot of the build from “what’s happening on the show” to “what does WWE tell us is happening.” Title feuds and character relationships don’t even matter right now, because we’re building to a pay-per-view of show vs. show matches for nothing but esoteric McMahon children bragging rights. A battle for t-shirt supremacy. Eh, it’s almost over.

Worst: Bludgeon Brothers, Still

Shout-out to Erick Rowan, Luke Harper and that camera man for being lost in the woods for a month. Witness the makeover of the Bludgeon Brothers into Emmalina!

Worst: Under Siege 2

Before I point out the stuff I didn’t like, let me mention the two things I did:

  • New Day getting their asses abandoned by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn and kicked by The Shield. Why would Zayn and Owens hang out and fight that fight for them? New Day’s the ones that “invaded Raw” and made The Shield lose the tag titles. Zayn and Owens are the only reasonable dudes in the company right now, which is hilarious, because they’re supposed to be the opposite.
  • Roman Reigns and the Usos hesitating to fight each other, because I guess maybe they remembered they’re related and love each other?

And like I’ve said before, if you like “team warfare” or t-shirt battles or whatever and thought this was awesome, that’s great. I want you to be enjoying these shows, even if there are parts I don’t like.

That said, it’s the inevitable “Raw invades Smackdown because Smackdown invaded Raw” moment we’ve been waiting for for a month. The only problem is that now you’ve got The Shield and Kurt Angle following Stephanie McMahon’s orders, which feels tonally wrong. Not as wrong as Braun Strowman helping Roman Reigns beat people up. Really? I don’t think anything they’ve done this year (not counting haunted houses) has felt as wrong as Strowman being friends with Reigns. He’s finished with him, I guess? Braun “covering up” to protect from Shane’s punches is the saddest thing. Oh, and you’ve got Cesaro and Sheamus helping out Team Raw, and The Shield being pals with them, and Braun Strowman being like, “you guys tried to murder me in a garbage truck, but I took my aggression out on Curtis Axel, who did nothing to me but try to be my friend, so it’s fine.”

By the way, how do you make The Shield not cool? Give them Garth Brooks-style half-shirts!

Where was John Cena during this? That guy’s gotta be the worst friend in the history of wrestling. Randy Orton was nowhere to be found, either. Maybe they were hanging out in the VIP area with Triple H. And Shane McMahon’s out here getting beaten up by the entire Raw roster and Daniel Bryan’s in the back like, passive-aggressively texting Kane, I guess? All I can do is take a deep breath, understand that true knowledge of WWE booking decisions is knowing that I know nothing, and hope the Survivor Series match they’ve nuked like a year of stories and character relationships to put on is at least fun.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

The Real Birdman

*Cut to Asuka wearing Tamina’s face as a mask*

Luther Evers

Kurt’s final words before leading the attack: “Whatever you do. Don’t choke anybody with their tie!”

AshBlue

Dear Smackdown: That is how you do an attack. Love, Raw.

Dear Raw: That is how you do a good episode ending. Love, Smackdown

This_isnt_kayfabe

I want the shield to hold of a piece of plexiglass and then Kurt overheads Shane into it

JacksSmirkingRevenge

Triple H still doesn’t work Tuesdays.

troi

RIP Francesca 5 Special Turbo Directors Cut Edition with all the DLC

LUNI_TUNZ

“Oh no, my one weakness. Baby punches.” – Braun Strowman in Shane’s head.

The Perfect Tim

Oh shit, that’s his SERIOUS pageboy hat.

Harry Longabaugh

B Brian Bludgeon and Jim Bludgezell

Endy_Mion

Uproxx: “Wow I didn’t think that any McMahon could make their GM look more ineffectual and trod upon than Steph did last night with Kurt”
Daniel Bryan: “Hold my gluten free home-brew”

That’s it for this week’s show. I didn’t sound very enthusiastic about it because of the general build for the pay-per-view, but it wasn’t a bad show this week.

As for AutumnSlam, that leaves us with:

  • Team Red Shirts vs. Team Blue Shirts, where the youngest person in the match of 10 people is 34
  • Brock Lesnar vs. A Chay Stalls
  • Charlotte Flair vs. Alexa Bliss
  • Alicia Fox being eliminated 3 seconds into the Raw vs. Smackdown women’s match
  • The Bar vs. The Usos, which will steal the show unless something’s seriously wrong
  • The Miz turning super, super face against Baron Corbin
  • The Shield vs. The New Day, which should play out like that Shield vs. Kane and the New Age Outlaws match from WrestleMania 30 if we’re being honest
  • the long-awaited next installment in the Kalisto vs. Enzo Amore rivalry

Be here on Sunday for that. Until then, drop a comment and share the column. We’ll be back next week for the return of Actual Episodes! And make sure to listen to the McMahonsplaining podcast!

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