As Smackdown continues to look like WWE’s “wrestling” show,
featuring longer matches and adding more depth to the feuds that are seen on
Raw, it continues to grow into a more enjoyable show, this week stuck to the
trend, although certain segments continue to bring it down.
Miz TV: With Team Hell No & Randy Orton
The show kicked off with another edition of Miz TV, which is
becoming a regular opener for Smackdown as of late. The usually loud mouth host
The Miz was especially quiet for this edition with Daniel Bryan and Kane doing
most of the talking, advancing their storyline, with some input from Randy
Orton. Daniel Bryan and Kane did an excellent job with lengthy speech that
could have caused some other talent to trip up. Randy Orton seems to enjoying
himself again, as his role is allowing him to play less smiling face and more
of a tweener character as he continued to wind up Daniel Bryan.
With Daniel Bryan exploding in anger at Kane, accusing him
of rather tagging with a different competitor, causing Kane to leave the ring.
This was a well-played moment from both men, and could have easily come across
as a cheesy moment, without the intensity employed by both men. As The Miz
teased the end of Team Hell No, Smackdown Senior Adviser Teddy Long came out, determined
once again to prove his fetish for a good old fashioned TAG TEAM MATCH, placing
Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton together to take on Tag Team Champions The Shield in
the main event.
WWE Tag Team Champions The Shield (Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins) Vs. Randy Orton & Daniel Bryan
Further building up to this contest, there was a backstage
segment between Orton and Bryan. With Orton informing Bryan of Kane having to
go to the trainer’s room after a match with Ryback. Bryan showed little concern
for Kane, it will be interesting to see if WWE try’s to turn Bryan in to the
heel in the inevitable rivalry, and it will be extremely difficult with Bryan
uber-over at the moment. With Orton revealing that he didn’t like Bryan, the
conflict between the two would build nicely heading into the tag team contest.
It’s becoming repetitive to have to keep writing about how
good The Shield’s matches are, but the fact is they just are that good and when
you through in Daniel Bryan who is also on fire at the moment and reinvigorated
Randy Orton to mix you’ve got a great combination. With Bryan refusing to tag
in Orton near the start of the match, the tension between the two continued to
build throughout. With The Shield keeping control of Bryan, until “The
Submission Specialist” finally accepted Orton’s helped and The Viper exploded off
the hot tag. The Shield soon got control of Orton but it wasn’t long before
another hot tag, and this time to man who has turned the hot tag into an art
form as of late, Daniel Bryan. This time threw in a beautiful belly to back
suplex which turned Seth Rollins inside out. The ending came when Bryan
accidentally connected with Orton in the corner with a front kick, Rollins went
for a roll up, only for Bryan to lock in the No Lock. This was too much for The
Shield as United States Champion Dean Ambrose made the interference. With Bryan
using The Shield’s own momentum to take out Rollins and Ambrose, it was Randy
Orton who had the final say with an RKO to Bryan. This was one of the best
ending’s to Smackdown for a while, as it felt like it would actually have some
consequence and has left me eager to see how the storyline develops on Monday.
Chris Jericho vs. Curtis Axel w/Paul Heyman
Paul Heyman continues to not only talk up Curtis Axel’s
victories over recent weeks but also to give Axel the time to talk himself.
This time only a sort promo to tie into Axel’s victories over World Champions,
this seems to be recycled from 2006 when MVP was going around saying similar things
about his cheap victories over World Champions. Axel has begun to finish his
promo with the word “Perfect” Axel will need to be careful not to play the same
role his father did as similar situations, such as when Ted DiBiase played the
exact same character as The Million Dollar complete with Million Dollar
Championship and Virgil, it didn’t really work out.
Paul Heyman joined Michael Cole and JBL on commentary, this
was a good decision by WWE. It allowed Heyman to continue to talk up his
client, as well as explain his motivations during the contest, although at
times it seemed to be more about CM Punk that it did about Curtis Axel. Punk’s
match with Jericho did need to get pushed, but it did take the focus somewhat
off Axel at various points throughout the match.
The match included dominant spells for both men, as it went
back and forth throughout. There were some nice sequences included a dive
between the rope to the outside from Jericho, who later surprisingly missed a
Lionsault, before being hit with Axel’s Spinning Neckbreaker, only to kick out.
The ending sequence saw Axel escaped the Walls of Jericho to the outside, and
with Heyman jumping on top the announce table, pointing to the tron and CM Punk’s
music hitting, with Jericho confused, Axel crawled in the ring for the roll up
victory. It was a nice ending, but Axel continues to look like an afterthought
in Heyman’s stable, merely giving him something to when CM Punk and Brock
Lesnar aren’t around, which is a shame considering his in ring ability.
After the contest, Jericho beat on Axel eventually hitting
him with a Code Breaker. This keeps Jericho looking strong heading in to his
contest with Punk at Payback. Axel on the other hand is now undefeated in Six
since joining Paul Heyman, and his cheap victories are helping him build into
his heel role, however he could really do with some clean victories over some
mid card talent on Raw and Smackdown to prove he is capable of hanging with the
bigger names. He could also do with a new finisher since both the Perfect Plex
and Spinning Neckbreaker have been kicked out of in recent weeks.
Best of the Rest
Elsewhere, Alberto Del Rio was supposed to take on Heath
Slater. However, with the other member of 3MB attacking Del Rio pre-match the
match didn’t start. Del Rio was however easily able to fend off his attackers
before placing Slater in the Cross Armbreaker, Slater quickly tapped out.
McIntyre and Mahal however weren’t finished off and came back for more. This
time however they were met by Ricardo Rodrigues who teamed with Del Rio to take
them out of the ring, before heading to the top rope for a flying splash. It’s
funny to think that Ricardo is probably more over with the fans as a face than
Del Rio, but it’s because he plays a more sympathetic character and looks a lot
more comfortable in the role. The segments was fun, but meaningless doing little
for either party but it was what happened afterwards that was the real talking
point.
Dolph Ziggler appeared on the tron, marking his first real
appearance on WWE TV in around a month, which is long time for a World
Heavyweight Champion as WWE chooses to circumnavigate the 30 day defence rule
once more. With Ziggler cutting a good short promo, before announcing that he’s
cleared for competition and will be on the next Raw, it appear WWE can finally
stop treading water with the rivalry, but with just a week until Payback it
could be a push to develop anything resembling a meaningful rivalry.
As mentioned earlier Kane was also in the action against
Ryback. In a segment reminiscent to Ryback’s meeting with Daniel Bryan on Raw.
With Kane defending Bryan and asking Ryback if he could put him through a
table, surprisingly however the match that followed was a regular singles
match. Kane’s work on interviews and promos has been really impressive over recent
weeks and his ability to switch between comedic and serious is something not a
lot of WWE competitors possess.
I was really surprised by this contest, as I expected
something similar to Ryback’s match with Mark Henry at Wrestlemania. However
Ryback and Kane put on a pretty good match, not a technical bout no, but it was
back and forth, as well as both men landing some heavy hits which certainly
added to the match. Unfortunately, it was cut short when Ryback pulled out the
table and after some reversals by both parties, just about managed to powerbomb
Kane through the table. Ryback has really benefit from his number of longer
contest with the likes of Kofi Kingston and Daniel Bryan as of late and WWE has
finally built him up into a realistic challenger for Cena’s title at Payback.
As mentioned earlier Kane was also in the action against
Ryback. In a segment reminiscent to Ryback’s meeting with Daniel Bryan on Raw.
With Kane defending Bryan and asking Ryback if he could put him through a
table, surprisingly however the match that followed was a regular singles
match. Kane’s work on interviews and promos has been really impressive over recent
weeks and his ability to switch between comedic and serious is something not a
lot of WWE competitors possess.
I was really surprised by this contest, as I expected
something similar to Ryback’s match with Mark Henry at Wrestlemania. However
Ryback and Kane put on a pretty good match, not a technical bout no, but it was
back and forth, as well as both men landing some heavy hits which certainly
added to the match. Unfortunately, it was cut short when Ryback pulled out the
table and after some reversals by both parties, just about managed to power
bomb Kane through the table. Ryback has really benefit from his number of
longer contest with the likes of Kofi Kingston and Daniel Bryan as of late and
WWE has finally built him up into a realistic challenger for Cena’s title at
Payback.
There was also a quick match between Fandango and Zack
Ryder. Ryder got in a surprising amount of offence, probably down to being in
his hometown of Long Island, but it was always clear who was going to win.
After Fandango reversed the Rough Ryder into a power bomb, he hit a diving leg
drop from a ridiculous distance for the win. Fandango is currently trending in
the right direction at the moment and with Vince McMahon apparently being high
on him, it’s very possible that Fandango could win the Intercontinental
Championship come Payback.
Once again Smackdown produced an embarrassingly bad segment,
with Damien Sandow and Sheamus. With Sandow introducing a Super computer and proceeding
to play it at chess, it got proceeding worse from here. Sheamus came out saying
he could beat the computer with one more, which was painfully obvious would be
the Brogue Kick. After Sheamus smashed the computer, Sandow took him out,
throwing him into a table. These two could have a pretty decent feud, this just
isn’t the way to do it.
There was also a random segment with Kaitlyn and Natalya.
Kaitlyn revealed she would meet her secret admirer on Raw, with Natalya telling
her to be careful. Kaitlyn appeared to turn heel, yelling at Natalya and
accusing her of being jealous. This could have been a big moment in the story,
if there had been any build up to it at all!
Finally…
What have we learnt from Smackdown this week?
1. The old Randy Orton is back (to some extent)
2. Curtis Axel is in desperate need of a finishing move.
3. WWE can finally get going with the Dolph Ziggler/Alberto Del Rio feud, with just a week til Payback!
Announced for Monday's Raw.
Triple H Vs. Curtis Axel w/ Paul Heyman will open the show
Dolph Ziggler will return.
Announced for Payback on June 16th:
Intercontinental Championship Triple Threat Match: Wade Barrett (C) Vs. The Miz Vs. Fandango
No comments:
Post a Comment