Previously on the Best and Worst of Smackdown Live: Sami Zayn turned all the way heel by ruthlessly bagging on Daniel Bryan, and then Raw’s dumb ending turned him face again by turning everyone else on Smackdown heel.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for October 24, 2017.
Worst: Everybody’s Fighting For Nothing
Look, I already breathlessly ranted about this during the ending to Raw and there’s still like a month of this left, so I’ll spare you the 15 dense paragraphs. But the truth is that Raw and Smackdown are still teaming up and invading each other and feuding and fighting over nothing, and Shane McMahon’s explanation for “hashtag under siege” boils down to, “we’re in a fight, so we’re fighting.” It’s WWE’s chicken-or-the-egg booking style. Are two guys having a ladder match because one of them attacked the other with a ladder, or did one of them attack the other with a ladder because they’re having a ladder match? To WWE, and to most people, it’s the same thing. I feel like Luke Wilson in Idiocracy trying to explain that it’s important to know whose ass it is, and why it’s farting.
I’m also pretty disappointed that Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are on this show and that they’re response is, “we’d like to be on your Smackdown team, Shane McMahon,” instead of, “holy shit, look how right we are, Shane McMahon is a sociopath and everyone’s crazy for no reason so we’re just gonna look out for ourselves.” I know the explanation is that Zayn and Owens want a spotlight and want to be the most important guys on the show, but to just immediately volunteer to help Shane and then compete in singles matches against rivals to prove they deserve to be in those spots is pretty tone deaf.
I guess you can’t be deaf to tone if it’s completely absent. From chicken or the egg to a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it, whatever.
Best: That Said, Sami Zayn’s Sarcastic Skanking Might Be The Best Thing In The World
Look at him go!
Best: At Least Daniel Bryan Seems Reasonable
In a world where Sami Zayn is the show’s most condescending heel, Becky Lynch is arrogantly leading gang sneak attacks and Chad Gable is beating up an already injured Jason Jordan for wearing the wrong color shirt, it’s nice that Daniel Bryan’s response to Shane McMahon’s shit was, “maybe that was a crappy thing to do?” Midlife-crisis-ass Shane McMahon in a leather jacket is the worst, and if Bryan was suddenly like, “I think it’s awesome that a McMahon orchestrated an attack on a bunch of wrestlers,” I might not be able to take it.
Anyway, how crummy is it that Shane attacked Raw for no reason to “strike first” in a battle his family arbitrarily decided should happen and then fills his arena and lines his block with security to protect himself? I hope the stinger at the end is foreshadowing D-Bry letting Raw into the building to go full Nexus on his bloated ass.
Eh: Fashion Dogs
I like the Fashion Files segments a lot, but can we like, do something with them? There’s a real diminishing returns thing going on, especially if Breeze and Fandango only wrestle on TV once every couple of months now. I think adding barking S&M Ellsworth to the crew made it worse for me, and the “there’s no B in brothers/oh it’s silent” gag is some real first-draft stuff.
Again, I haven’t turned on these yet and I think the Stranger Things parody could be fun, but let’s use the good will these clips gave the audience to help Breezango be a popular actual tag team.
Worst: LOL The Bludgeon Brothers
These are getting so spectacularly bad I don’t even know what to do with them. Why have they been standing in the woods for a month? Why is Luke Harper doing the Pete Hogwallop “do not seek the treasure” voice? Does the “we have hammers now” gimmick really need Bray Wyatt promos written by first graders? “Up is down! Down is up!” is like seven grades of English classes away from, “I will claim the soul of the Undertaker.”
Best: The Usos Response To The Jolly Ranchers Slogan
Michael Cole: “This match is brought to you by Jolly Ranchers. Keep on sucking!”
Usos: “… what”
I wonder if they made Alicia Fox a team captain so they could connect her craziness to Jolly Ranchers and bust out a, “when you nut but she keep suckin.”
Anyway, aside from a couple of throwaway squashes, some of the wrestling on this episode was solid. Gable and Benjamin vs. The New Day was fine, even if it’s borderline impossible for me to see anyone involved as a face right now. New Day’s backstage beating up fruit because a sign they clearly made says “raw fruit,” and I guess I’m supposed to laugh at that, but no amount of winky winking and nudgy nudging and condescending kayfabe explanations is going to make me think that was great.
“They were representing Smackdown” is such a boring excuse. None of you are fighting for anything, you don’t get anything. If you are the superior brand you’re all under the same branding umbrella. It’s like Mountain Dew getting really arrogant, insisting they’re the best Pepsi Co. product and burning down the Mug Root Beer factory. It’s like those Left Twix and Right Twix commercials, but everyone’s hurting themselves.
Best/Worst: Fatal Five-ways Are The New Tag Team Match
If Teddy Long were a part of the current administration, he’d be out here turning every opening promo parade into a fatal five-way. Is anybody else tired of these? They’re always laid out the same, always get about seven minutes, and never give anyone any real time to shine. The battling to be team captain thing really doesn’t have any weight if there’s no reason or benefit for being it. You’re just getting vague bragging rights you could claim anyway. It’s like having a match to decide who gets to be the “real Queen of Smackdown.”
Outside of that, the match was fine. It was a little disjointed, but it is what it is. Becky as team captain is a good decision, especially if you’re going to do Charlotte vs. Natalya for the strap at Starrcade after Survivor Series and don’t need to give her the preemptive rub. And Becky was the crazy one leading the women’s side of the fight on Raw, so if she’s already drank the Kool-Aid you might as well give her the bluest shirt.
Worst: The Never-Ending Truth That Dolph Ziggler Can Only Wrestle One Person At A Time
Were you bored by Dolph Ziggler vs. Bobby Roode at Hell in a Cell? Were you even more bored by the rematch on Smackdown last week? Well, tune in next week for three more Dolph Ziggler vs. Bobby Roode matches.
Worst: Championships Are Meaningless
As a reminder, being a champion of any kind makes you the worst wrestler on the show. Jinder Mahal is the WWE Champion and couldn’t win a match against the timekeeper unless the Singh Brothers were there to cause a distraction. Carmella has the Money in the Bank briefcase and tapped out to Becky Lynch in the women’s match. We made jokes at the pay-per-view that Baron Corbin, a guy who’d been humiliated and losing for months, was going to win the United States Championship just to lose a never-ending string of non-title matches. Last week he lost to Sin Cara by count-out. This week he loses to Sin Cara by disqualification. You know how this ends? With Sin Cara getting a title shot, Corbin winning that one, and the cycle repeating with someone else.
I guess the only silver lining is that there’s no way they’re doing The Miz vs. Baron Corbin at Survivor Series, so one of them’s losing their title before that. As good as he is, that feels like it’s going to be Miz, because Corbin’s gotta do this “he’s terrible but he’s champion, so” thing they can’t stop doing.
Can I Just Give An ‘Eh’ To Everything
AJ Styles, the Benedict Arnold who lost a match to a Raw star and then suckerpunched his friends to prove Smackdown’s dominance, defeats one of the Singh Brothers in like 30 seconds. They’re supposed to be fighting for Jinder Mahal’s honor, but you’re also not supposed to think the Singhs OR Jinder Mahal are worth a shit, so … it accomplished what it was going for?
Best: Sarcastic Skanking, Part Two
Even Randy Orton loves it!
Also, before I forget, how great is that subtle touch that when Owens was friends with Jericho they were always calling themselves “Team My Name and Your Name” and putting themselves first, but Owens insists Sami’s name comes before his? I really want Jericho to show up and react to this at some point.
The main event and best match of the night is Sami Zayn vs. Randy Orton, mostly built around Orton needing revenge for getting uppercutted in the balls on last week’s show. I don’t like how Zayn instantly got his comeuppance, but I do love that Sami went from an afterthought losing to Aiden English in 90 seconds three weeks in a row to being a main-event player with promo time. Kevin Owens is always right, guys.
I’m also not a huge fan of Randy Orton being on the Survivor Series team instead of Zayn, as Zayn would open up a lot of better storytelling possibilities, but I figure we’ve got to do Zayn and Owens teaming up against someone — Shane and his super best friend AJ Styles? — at the pay-per-view. That’s fine. Plus, getting Orton and Nakamura on the Smackdown team does make it feel more like a “Smackdown team,” and if anybody’s going to get eaten to death by Braun Strowman in his garbage truck armor, it should be Orton.
And that’s this week’s show. Hopefully the stink of the Raw finish will wear off and I can watch it like a normal person again next week.
Clay Quartermain
In 30 minutes, the 205 roster gets massacred as Angle forgot SDL is only 2 hours
AddMayne
*wears paperboy hat evilly*
Baron Von Raschke
Bobby Roode is starting his heel turn by suggesting a 2 out of 3 falls match with Dolph! GLORIOUS!
Brocky
Harper: Up is Down!
Rowan: And Down is Up.
Harper: Dark is Light!
Rowan: and light is dark
Harper: Sami and Kevin are friends again!
Rowan: and Kevin and Sami are…. wait what?
Amaterasu’s Son
Well Dolph, you’re right nobody wants to hear what you have to say anymore.
AshBlue
I approve of that Nattie appearance based entirely on the fact she didn’t talk and isn’t on commentary.
ItDoesntMatterWhatMyNameIs
Dammit, AJ! Calves are SACRED in India!
The Real Birdman
Sunil dressed up as Dean Ambrose for Halloween
This_isnt_kayfabe
This Jinder segment has me reaching for a Modern Day Marg-ha-rita
Yukon Cornelius
Man, Jason Jordan is gonna be so pissed the New Day got rid of the stuff he was gonna throw at Elias next week.
That’s it for this week. I’M TRYING.
Leave us a comment to let us know what you thought of the show, where you think everything’s going, and how many horse tranqs you think Shane McMahon is on. And if you’ve got a second, share the column to get some new eyes on it.
We’ll be back next week, when Raw really burns Smackdown by putting on a watchable 3-hour show that does not reference Smackdown.
(Be sure to listen to the McMahonsplaining podcast, rate and review us on iTunes)
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