Smackdown Review and Reactions
After the brutal beating Roman Reigns took at the hands of Triple H this past week on Monday night RAW, Smackdown kick started with a promo from the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, the game himself, Triple H. Addressing he's actions from Monday night, Hunter gave us all an education in the history of Triple H. Talking highly about he's impressive WWE career and how at Wrestlemania he was going to teach Roman Reigns one final life lesson. Boasting about he's attack on Reigns Triple H made it perfectly clear that that beat down was just the start of what is to come. Now, I honestly do think that these two could put on a brilliant match at Wrestlemania. I think Triple H could really bring out the best in Reigns and push a really strong main event out of him at Mania. What the WWE need to focus on however is the build up. We need a strong, consistent build up that really captivate the fans and get everyone interested and invested in time for Wrestlemania. In my opinion what they should do is keep Triple H out of the suit. Everyone has so much more interest when we see old school Triple H, in he's jeans and leather jacket kicking butt. If the WWE can keep that level of brutality and keep that old Triple H on our screen then people will gain interest and fan will be invested in this storyline as we get closer to that main event. How they showcase Hunter will determine how this storyline and overall how this match goes down. I liked that Triple H kicked started this weeks Smackdown. He doesn't make many Smackdown appearances and so seeing him on last nights show on the road to Wrestlemania was a big deal and an important step in building up this storyline and the feud.
The first match of the night was an eight man tag team action with the Lucha Dragons teaming with Neville and Dolph Ziggler to take on the League of Nations. The match finally saw Barrett return to in ring action after suffering an injury a couple of months back. I have to admit that I really did miss seeing Barrett compete. I have a big blog posts coming up on him in a couple of weeks time so keep an eye out for that. Despite suffering an injury and this being he's first match back he did take a pretty fair beating being at the hands of not one but two perfectly executed red arrows by Neville. It's always great seeing them two share a ring together. They have a strong history and clear good chemistry. The match all round was a lot lot shorter than I was expecting it to be. I don't think we saw enough of any of the superstars competing. You all know that I'm going to moan about the booking for Kalisto again right? I'm such a big fan of he's and I'm getting so bored of seeing him compete in ta team matches on RAW and Smackdown. He's the United States champion and while I like to trust that the WWE know what they are doing with him I really want to see him booked much stronger as a singles competitor. He has so much to show and he's not being given the time and the matches to do so. The booking of Kalisto is something I really want to see change a little. The League of Nations on the other hand are receiving some interesting booking. I hated their involvement in the segment at Fastlane and I also hate the idea of them feuding with the New Day. The sooner they split these guys up and turn some of them (preferably Barrett) baby face the better if not that then at least make them come across a lot more intimidating, dangerous and entertaining. Sheamus continues to be the more dominate member of the faction. After brough kicking Neville he was able to pick up another victory for he's team giving the League of nations the momentum and win that they desperately needed.
I mentioned in Tuesday's RAW Review and Reactions post that I am actually really liking this rivalry between the Dudley Boys and The Usos. This of course is a huge surprise because as you know I'm one of the biggest Usos haters going! But I honestly think this feud has so much potential and we could get some great tag team action between these two teams. I also think the Usos are really going to benefit from this feud as are the Dudleys in the long run. Looking at the bigger picture. Last night Jimmy Usos went one on one with D-Von. Before the match started Bubba reminded everyone that there will be no more tables witch only made it even more clear that eventually there will one hundred percent be a tables match between these two teams, most probably at Wrestlemania. Fresh off he's tag team victory over the Ascension, Jimmy walked into this match with great momentum however after Bubba caused a distraction, D-Von was able to quickly roll Jimmy up and get the win. A short and simply match that was definitely booked right.
Earlier on in the night we saw a backstage segment between Kevin Owens and The Big Show witch resulted in a one on one match up between the two being announced for the nights card. Interesting booking but once again I liked it. It's nice seeing Owens pitted against multiple different types of opponents allowing him to be tested as a champion and for us to see how versatile he really is. It's also kinda nice seeing Big Show actually booked well. He's recently had some strong matches and bookings and that really did continue on through to last night and he's match with Owens. He may not have walked out the victor but it's refreshing seeing him used a well as he has been recently. The opening of this match saw Kevin Owens charge at Show trying he's best to gain he upper hand but the Big Show used he's power and strength to he's advantage reminding Owens that he was going to have to put up a big fight if he was to stand a chance of walking out with a victory. But this is Kevin Owens and after targeting the legs of Show he was able to bring the giant to he's knees allowing to gain some kind of control. Did it last long? Not at all. The WWE veteran was able to give the younger superstar a run for he's money and a real tough fight. Tossing the almost three hundred pounder around and out of the ring it looked as though the giant was going to talk away with a victory over the Intercontinental Champion but after an awkward landing on the ropes and rolling outside of the ring Owens was able to walk away with a count out victory over the Big Show. Another short and snappy match but an important one at that.
Divas action next as arguably two of the greatest technical female wrestlers to ever step foot in the company, Natalya and Becky Lynch went one on one. Now, I'm being deadly serious when I say that I would pay serious money to see these two wrestle for a straight fifteen plus minuets, now that would be something very very special. Unfortunately we didn't get to see that fantastic match last night with Naomi and Tamina coming down to the ring attacking Becky and causing the distraction. Sasha Banks soon came for the save. There wasn't really a need for Naomi and Tamina to interrupt this match but it was clear it only happened so that Banks could come to the ring and Charlotte would be able to make her announcement that on this up and coming Monday night RAW Becky and Sasha will go one on one to determine who will face Charlotte at Wrestlemania for the divas Championship. I want to quickly mention how much I would love to see the divas main event an episode of Smackdown one day, I really think that would be the right step in direction for the division.
R-Truth and Heath Slater also went one on one last night with the Social Outcast and Goldust at ringside. I'm not gonna lie I didn't have much interest in this match at all. I felt as thought it did make sense. I have actually been really interested in seeing the development between R-Truth and Goldust. I'm a big Goldust fan and so anything he does has my attention. Throughout the match Goldie was rallying on the crowd to help out R-truth a little but it didn't really do much help with Heath Slater spending most of this match in control dominating truth. The words dominating and Heath Slater feel weird being used in the same sentence. The closing moments of this match saw Goldust give Slater a gorgeous right hand helping R-truth picking up the victory, the first thing Goldust has actually done right. Maybe there is hope for Golden Truth in the after all?
Main event time and of course I was very happy to see the New Day headlining the show as they took on the team of Chris Jericho, AJ Styles, and Mark Henry. Before the match started the New Day talked trashed about the League of Nations ( I still hate the direction of this growing feud). They also talked a little more trash about their opponents of the night. The team of AJ Styles and Chris Jericho is interesting . For storyline purposes it made perfect sense and was a nice little touch to the end of their story but to actually make them a legit tag team... I really don't think its the right idea at all and I'm hopeing this is just a thing thats only going to last for a week or two at the most. What Styles should be focusing on is the IC championship and Kevin Owens. How they book Owens, Styles, and even Jericho for Mania is going to be very very interesting and seeing what develops in the next
couple of weeks is going to be one to watch. The New Day did get the early upper hand in this match until Mark Henry was tagged in by Jericho and the momentum very quickly shifted. The early moments of this match and throughout also really showed how amazingly well Jericho and Styles can actually work together. They clearly have fantastic chemistry and were very in-sync with one another. There was no denying that this was an extremely entertaining match up worthy of being the main event. I think that is the one thing I really love about Smackdown; we get such diversity in the main events every week or so and it's great to see. The New Day did struggle to get some control of this match. The baby face team worked much better together than expected and I found myself surprised at how much I was really backing them as the match went on. The change around in this match was when the New Day do what they do best and use their numbers with Big E sending Jericho into the post. I have said it before on my blog but you can put three great superstars together and thats all well but when you put them up against a team that have been together for so long and know each other so well they will always be the ones with the upper hand and we saw that last night. As always they showed us all why they are the tag team champions and one of the strongest units in the WWE today. Great team work as always. The longer this match went on the more it became one of my favourite matches of the entire match. I may be hyping this up a little too much but I honestly seriously enjoyed this main event. AJ Styles was of course as impressive as ever and in the closing moment he was able to pick up the huge victory for he's team when he forced Xavier Woods to tap out.
I did think this Smackdown was one big RAW Recap at times. The matches were very short but we had a great main event and some good developments and announcement. As always you can let me know what you thought of this weeks Smackdown by leaving a comment bellow or by tweeting me at @TezangiVictoria.
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