Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live: Mandy Rose, Xavier Woods fell, and Rusev got a surprise (but not that surprising, really, I mean, honestly) win over Daniel Bryan.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE Smackdown Live for May 15, 2018.
Best: Daniel Bryan Beating The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Shit Out Of Big Cass
Hey, you know what’s great about Daniel Bryan?
Hurry, gather round, children! The man on the Internet is about to tell us what’s great about Daniel Bryan.
He’s a real person. I mean, “Daniel Bryan’ isn’t a real person, but Bryan Danielson MAKES Daniel Bryan speak and react and feel like he’s real, and you rarely (if ever) hear something come out of his mouth it doesn’t sound like he believes. That’s part of what connects him so strongly to crowds. I also love that he’s one of the only guys around who understands that when the crowd starts chanting for you, you don’t have to stop and look at them so the camera picks it up … you can keep talking over them, passionately, so they have to chant LOUDER, and then it sounds like they aren’t reacting TO you, they’re reacting WITH and FOR you. It’s beautiful.
This week’s Smackdown opens with Bryan getting interrupted by Big Cass, who is the opposite of everything I typed, but to great effect. He’s the opposite of Bryan in every way, from his size to the way he speaks to his understanding of crowd interaction. So, you know, as a fan, it’s great to see little-ass Daniel Bryan take this big hot dog-colored goober to the damn woodshed. Just beats the crap out of him. Ties him up in the ropes and kicks him so many times the production team’s kung fu zooms start giving us motion sickness. Can … can we just start every show like this?
As a fun note, Cass has a Money in the Bank qualifier against Samoa Joe next week, which will continue the trend of putting him with the world’s top wrestling aces and asking him to hang in the ring and on the mic. He’s either gonna turn a corner soon and figure out what works for his new character — because you can’t possibly be working with more talented, experienced and versatile wrestlers — or keep getting exposed until they stop giving him the spot. He could still turn that corner, though. If you remember 10 years ago, “no mic skills” was a big complaint against Bryan AND Joe. Somehow.
Best: You’re Cien A Great Debut
The most important development this week (if you aren’t super into AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura’s lengthy, Tolkein-esque journey to fires of Mt. Nut Shot) is the main roster debut of Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas and Zelina Vega. Almas is great right out of the box, but adding Vega to the act gave him a laser focus and turned him into not only one of NXT’s most reliable, top-level performers, but the NXT Champion. He rules, and I almost did the “gather round children” bit again for a guy on the Internet telling you he likes La Sombra.
If you’re wondering about Almas’ opponent and why he looks like he’s wrestling in some boxer briefs he bought at Dick’s Sporting Goods, that’s British MMA fighter Jake Constantinou. No relation to Rico.
Best: Car-cele
Nothing cracks me up quite like a good overdone heel celebration, so here’s Carmella having a “Royal Mellabration” with a guy in a tri-corner hat screaming excitedly about how she’s from the “isle of Staten” and how she “beat Charlotte Flair twice.” Like, a local actor had to dress up like that and read those lines. Plus, an admirable attempt at moonwalking in kinky boots. The most obnoxious thing about Carmella is still that she thinks moonwalking is just sliding your feet back like that, instead of moving backwards while making it look like you’re walking forwards.
ANYWAY, this is mostly here to once again get over how insufferable Carmella is — she’s still got a way to go before she reaches Big Cass’ natural ooze, but she’s working on it — and to set up a “Carmella’s definitely losing, but somehow she’ll retain” match against Asuka at Money in the Bank. I say that because of my tendency to observe patterns and also probably my natural pessimism, but the idea of Asuka winning the Smackdown Women’s Championship and having to defend it against the woman who ended her streak at SummerSlam is SUCH a good idea I’m afraid they won’t pull the trigger and do it.
Either way, we get Asuka as women’s champ or more domestic Mellabrations, so I’m good with either.
Best: Becky Wins A Game! Becky Wins A Game!
In other women’s division news, poor downtrodden Becky Lynch finally picks up another big win and gets into the Money in the Bank ladder match by defeating Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. Which is nothing like the dynamic they had on raw with Bayley taking on Alexa Bliss and Mickie James, nothing to see here. (I love that even when Smackdown’s good, part of it’s still like, “what did they do on Raw? Just do that again.”)
Regardless of that small complaint, I’m (1) very happy to see Becky Lynch getting an important spot on an upcoming pay-per-view card, even if there feels like little to no chance of her actually winning there, and (2) happy they went with the only story that made sense for this match, which is Absolution being in control for most of it until they get sloppy and make a mistake, allowing Becky to grab a quick submission and get out of there alive.
Next week there’s a Billie Kay vs. Lana qualifier, which seems like a dunk for Billie but will probably be another upset Lana win. I don’t know if I want Kay to steamroll her, or if I want the IIconics to have to wacky mug their way through another promo about how they lost. Again, totally fine either way.
Best: So Many Bests!
♫ see my Best, see my Best, it’s involving Big E’s chest ♫
Another unsurprising Best this week (because they can do them so easily when they want to) is The New Day vs. The Bar, which is a little over seven minutes of quality tag team wrestling given consequence by making it a Money in the Bank qualifier. Not only that, but it gives the winner a chance to pick someone from their team to enter the match, which creates a fun talking point for fans at home. That’s an underrated part of writing a story, I think … leaving enough space between the plot points to let things settle, and to give people watching/reading/listening/whatever a minute to think constructively and speculate, even if it’s meaningless. Deciding who New Day should send into Money in the Bank is an awesome question. Do you send Kofi, who has all the experience, but no wins? Do you send Big E, who’s a powerhouse but might not be able to get up the ladder as quick as the other guys? Or do you send Woods, who’s been the wild card of the team and could use his smarts to win, but doesn’t have his strength or agility stat maxed out like his partners.
I also think we’ve had Cesaro around in the lower mid-card for so long we forgot to mention how great it is that they put him on the “wrestling” roster with all these guys he can have great matches with, instead of feeding him the same two or three guys for a year on Raw. The fact that Cesaro hasn’t had any major title wins outside of the tag and secondary singles championships is fucking absurd.
gather round children, Cesaro is good at wrestling, and so forth
Best, But Also Worst: Styles VS. Nakamura, The Legend Continues
First the Best: Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles wrestled for over 17 minutes in the main event of Smackdown in what was probably their best WWE match yet. Nakamura even plays off the nut-shot-centric psychology of the previous encounters by pretending Styles low-blowed him, causing Styles to get into it with the ref and leaving him open to a reverse Exploder and a Kinshasa.
The Worst: WWE doing a non-title singles match with a decisive finish to set up another singles match for the championship. It’s such a bad trope. We already saw the match, you know? What’s selling us on seeing it again? Especially when we saw it four times in a little over a month — WrestleMania, Greatest Royal Rumble, Backlash and now on Smackdown — to set up number five. More than anything, it feels like both men are holding back for a blowoff finale, despite neither of them having any idea which one’s supposed to be the blowoff finale.
I’m guessing this will set up an Iron Man match or whatever since Nakamura gets to pick the stipulation. I’ll passively mention how Nak should actually use that power and pick something like “I can’t be disqualified, but Styles can be, and if he is, he loses the championship” or something ridiculous, but that’s probably writing them into a corner and making them actually do something with these match results.
Regardless, you know it was a good episode when match stipulation fantasy bickering is the low point.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Former IC Champion Pdragon
Damn, who knew it took being on a regular ass episode of SmackDown for Styles and Nakamura to finally have an awesome match?
The Voice of Raisin
Mandy’s theme song makes me keep checking nervously out the window to see if my parents are home yet.
Amaterasu’s Son
OHHHH. Cass just wants another short charismatic guy who’s more important than him to follow around again. Poor guy.
AJ Dusman
Wrestlemania 3’s attendance figure is more legit than this Cena/Nikki break up.
Things that I’m glad are over:
1) Daniel Bryan
2) That Big Cass promo
FeltLuke
Asuka is here to add regicide to her list of accomplishments.
Endy_Mion
AJ should go out to the ring with some Beefeaters flanking him, cause it is their traditional job to protect the royal jewels.
AddMayne
“Family, is for the weak.”
– The Bludgeon Brothers
The Real Birdman
His name is Daniel Bryan. And he is a certified professional wrestler and bonafide submission master. And you can, in fact, teach that as he’s about to show you while he rips your knee from your body
dl316bh
If Cass never fucked with Bryan again after that and just kind of quietly backed off, he’d be the smartest heel WWE’s had in years.
Thanks for reading. Your final study question this week: How hard did you cringe when Rusev said the line, “unlike that overrated band, I can get satisfaction?” Somebody at creative wrote that, handed it in, got it approved, and had it filmed and broadcast on actual prime-time television.
Anyway, thanks again, and be sure to share and comment if the muse moves you. Make sure to join us next week, as this extremely positive pay-per-view cycle continues.
