Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live: We held a Hell in a Cell and nothing really changed, but Becky Lynch is the Smackdown Women’s Champion now, so that’s something.
Remember that With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter. BUY THE SHIRT.
One more thing: Hit those share buttons! Spread the word about the column on Facebook, Twitter and whatever else you use. Be sure to leave us a comment in our comment section below as well. I know we always ask this, and that this part is copy and pasted in every week, but we appreciate it every week.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for September 18, 2018.
Best, Mostly: Miz Is The Worst
Before I get complimentary about the show (because unlike Raw, Smackdown contains a few things I can compliment besides “Seth Rollins” and “jobbers I like showing up”), I want to take a second to point out how little Hell in a Cell changed for the show. Last week we had Becky putting Charlotte in the Disarmer, Joe and AJ’s rivalry continuing, The Bar trying to get a Tag Team Championship shot, and Bryan and Miz brawling about their wives. This week’s show features Becky putting Charlotte in the Disarmer, Joe and AJ’s rivalry continuing (for the third pay-per-view cycle in a row, after two straight wonky finishes), The Bar getting a Tag Team Championship shot despite them losing in the final of a tournament last week, and Bryan and Miz brawling about their wives. I know this is supposed to be episodic TV and sometimes it takes multiple weeks for stories to play out, but aside from Becky vs. Charlotte getting one upgrade, everything else is pretty much identical. The old joke used to be that WWE was great if you only watched the pay-per-views, but now even the pay-per-views don’t really advance the stories.
Anyway, this week’s show opens with Miz continuing to play the Greatest Hits of Heeling, from (1) hosting his own talk show segment, to (2) playing up that he got a very special guest for this week’s show only for it to be his wife, (3) being a sore winner and rubbing in his opponent’s loss until he ends up getting punched in the face about it, (4) a fake injury angle that turns out to be a swerve, (5) a gentle peppering of that “whoops you bumped into me and now I’m having a miscarriage” stuff WWE loves to do, and (6) Miz doing all of this and still ending the segment getting beaten up.
I’ll give it a Best for Miz’s general greatness, Maryse somehow speaking better English than Brie Bella despite Brie being a native English speaker, and the announcement of Bryan vs. Miz at Super Show-Down for a shot at the WWE Championship. The thing this feud desperately needed to move forward was a match of consequence, and that’s definitely a match of consequence. Although now I’m picturing an AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan championship match in Saudi Arabia that includes like four run-ins. Do I want to watch that? Ugh, I still probably do.
Best: Cesaro
The Bar getting a title shot after losing a match last week for a title shot and the general pre-match bantering between the teams was so lame it nearly cost me the use of my legs, but I have to give a Best to Big Tony Cesaro for yanking Kofi Kingston off the ground by the crotch to hit the Neutralizer. That is so bad-ass. I know they’ve been trying to get us to boo Cesaro or whatever, but that’s bullshit. Just let him do crazy stuff no human should be able to do, while he’s young and healthy enough to still do it.
I really hope The Bar wins at Super Show-Down and gets actual characters again, because right now they’ve got the same problem the Riott Squad has: They’re not really characters, they’re just an aesthetic. Everything we know about them is what we knew before they were a tag team, and neither of them has grown an inch since then, unless you count doing the Zangief taunt from the Street Fighter movie “growth.”
Best: Hey, Finally!
After weeks and weeks of “this is probably where Rusev turns on Aiden English” or vice versa, we finally get to Happy Aiden Day with English boisterously costing Rusev a match for the United States Championship, bopping him in the back of the head with a microphone, and singing over his corpse.
I really think Aiden English has legs as a character, and as much as I liked the pairing, it’s time to get him focused up on being a legit singles star. I love his stupid singing, I love his wit, I love his frog splash (which is only behind Kevin Owens’ on my list of current favorites, because Owens’ looks like it should legit kill you), and as much as I don’t want every tag team they create to break it up, it finally gets Rusev into a story with some emotional gravity. The last time he was in one was what, the Dolph Ziggler/Summer Rae/Lana love rectangle? Enzo trying to go to his hotel and have sex with his wife? If we can keep English away from shit that emasculates him and keep Rusev away from comedy dancing and romance, we’ve got a stew going.
Study question: Does Nakamura even want to be here anymore?
Worst: Viper, No Viping
If you’d like to never be able to watch wrestling with your friends and family, you might enjoy this segment of Randy Orton abusing a production guy so he can get weird about Jeff Hardy’s bloody body and earlobe manipulation. He even has the dude saying, “yes, sir.” I kept expecting the guy to call Orton “master.” Honestly I’d probably be into this if I thought they were doing it on purpose.
Best: Surprise! AJ Styles Is Good When You Let Him Finish Wrestling Wrestling Matches
The best match on the show is this 14-minute affair between AJ Styles and Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas, because Almas could have a match with a paint can right now and get three stars out of it. Styles is also, you know, AJ Styles, a fact they always seem to forget when they get to the end of booking his pay-per-view Championship matches and decide he’s either got to win or lose like a complete idiot. On PPV, he tapped out and still managed to pin his opponent, then acted like nothing happened. On Smackdown, he does cool move reversals and hits his finisher. I’m not sure why one of those two things seems so hard for them to do.
I didn’t love Joe attacking and then running away as soon as Styles fought back, but it is what it is. That story’s seemingly never going to end, and we’ve raced past Oh Wendy and straight into generic run-ins. Which is probably fine at this point, because we did two months of family stalkings with nothing to show for it. Joe won the first match by disqualification, won the second match by losing it, and didn’t get the championship at either. Maybe they’re trying to get Styles past CM Punk’s 434 days mark, since Lesnar spent two years making sure the Universal Championship barely counts as a title.
I hope all those rumors of Vince McMahon “seeing something” in Almas are true, because hey man, the rest of us see it too. See some Zelina Vega while you’re at it.
Best: Flossing Is Officially Redeemed
I shaded it in the Raw report this week, but now that I’ve seen Peyton Royce do it — and floss threateningly at the end — I’m okay with it. Although I still want the Backpack Kid to guest star at WrestleMania and get powerbombed off the stage by Kevin Owens.
A few truths:
- It’s good to see Asuka back on television again as a wrestler
- It’s good to see Asuka getting a dominant win again, which should be her default setting, instead of “helpless tag team partner” or whatever they’ve been doing with her since WrestleMania
- If the IIconics don’t win that match in Australia and celebrate in glorious fashion, I will need to speak to your manager
Best: Smackdown Live Is Lynch Burg
I know they’re still halfway pushing the “Lynch is the bad guy, Flair’s the good guy” stuff, but they’re leaving enough of it up in the air to completely justify us hating Charlotte. Becky’s entire point heading into the match is that Flair saw her as second best and always wanted the spotlight for herself, so even when Becky beat her clean as a sheet, Charlotte tried to hang around and do the Women’s Division Memorial Hug and raise her hand so she could still be in the spotlight, even as a loser. Then Becky has a “coronation” on Tuesday, and who shows up? Charlotte Flair, to once again be the focus, and to be in the spotlight. She wants an apology, and respect, at Becky’s championship coronation. How in the world are we supposed to think THAT is the person we should cheer? Becky’s a billion percent in the right to keep shitting in her cereal.
It’s the same thing that Roman Reigns does sometimes, where he as a performer seems oblivious to whether or not he’s supposed to be getting cheered, but he’s going down a list of by-the-numbers ways to be cheered, and we see that, and we hate it. It’s why Rocky Maivia didn’t work, and The Rock did. It’s not that one was a “face” and one was a “heel,” it’s that one didn’t know how to get a purposeful reaction, and the other only ever got reactions on purpose. It’s why Sheamus’ “if they’re reacting AT ALL I’m doing my job” thing is such bullshit. No, man, your job is to get the reaction your characters have been written and designed to get. If they don’t, it might not be your fault — it might completely rest on the shoulders of creative, or some random person in charge — but you can’t force a narrative with all your announce team voices, force that same narrative with the words the wrestlers say, and then deny the narrative exists at all when you get the opposite reaction.
Anyway, Becky’s still taking Charlotte to the woodshed, and I’m okay with whatever they do as long as that keeps happening.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
AJ Dusman
Becky: You’re a bitch and I’ll piss on your grave!
*crowd cheers*
Becky: Your dad was overrated and was always in Hogan’s shadow!
*crowd cheers*
Becky: I hate puppies and Mario Kart and pizza.
*crowd cheers louder*
Becky to herself: wtf…wait I know.
*Becky kneels during national anthem*
*Crowd spontaneously combusts*
Blade_222
They should call Becky “Florence” because she devastated the Queen City.
Baron Von Raschke
Graves with the most Heenan comment on WWE TV in a long time: “What good is getting to the top of the mountain if you can’t look down on everyone else.”
In keeping with weird finishes to AJ’s championship matches, Zelina Vega will throw a DIY t-shirt at him in about 15 minutes and that will cause a DQ.
Zinger
Careful Becky, you’re on Truth’s radar now
The Real Birdman
Just roll over Billie! The ref won’t see you tap!
JayBone2
AIDEN ENGLISH: As far back as I could remember, I always wanted to be a Nakamerican!
Mark Silletti
the difference in skin tone between lana and aiden is destroying the contrast on my tv
Martin Morrow
You can tell Lana is really mad cause she slipped back into her Russian accent.
Pdragon619
If she went over to Japan to join Stardom, would she have to change her name to Zelina Balrog?
Gotta bounce, but we hope you enjoyed this week’s column. Be sure to drop a comment in the section below, share the column to help keep us in the business of writing wrestling jokes, and several additional calls to action. And hey, don’t forget to join us for the variety of televised house shows happening over the next month!
