TV Review: WWE Smackdown Live #895 - AJ Styles v James Ellsworth + WWE Talking Smack #12 - Nikki Bella Interview

Two days removed from the No Mercy supercard, WWE's Smackdown brand was in San Jose, California with a card headlined by World Champion AJ Styles facing hand-picked opponent, James Ellsworth, with Dean Ambrose slotting in as the special guest referee. With Kane, Randy Orton, NEW Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler, Bray Wyatt and a returning Luke Harper getting major spots, would Smackdown come out of swinging as the brand began it's journey towards Autumn's biggest event, Survivor Series? 

So, yeah, this week's main event saw World Champion AJ Styles pinned by lowly underdog job guy James Ellsworth. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this and it was quite possibly one of the hardest matches I've ever had to give a rating to. For a bit of context, Dean Ambrose played the role of special guest referee and, of course, gave Ellsworth every opportunity he could. This included various comedy spots, Ambrose tripping Styles and seemingly taking a phone call just as Ellsworth tapped to the Calf Crusher. Of course, after Styles had hit a Styles Clash (that would have broken Ellsworth's neck, had Styles not been able to shift his weight at the last moment), Ambrose refused to count the pin and went on to hit two Dirty Deeds to give a limp Ellsworth the win. I found it all mildly entertaining, but not all that funny and I'm not quite sure what it achieves in the long run. With six weeks of television to fill before Survivor Series, I can see why a side story was needed and I understand why Ellsworth was chosen for his cult stardom, but the whole shape of the match felt backwards and I'll go into a bit further down.

The semi-main was Luke Harper's return to action for the first time since March, tagging with Bray Wyatt for a victory over Randy Orton and Kane. I wasn't particularly enamoured with main bulk of the contest, which mainly consisted of Orton and Kane getting beats on, feeling like every piece of Wyatt Family offence was responded to with five or six things from the makeshift babyface team of former WrestleMania opponents. I'm not sure what was up with Kane because his offence was sloppy and he took a poor bump into the barricade. A sub-par performance from a guy who is usually reliable for this kind of spot. For all the awkwardness of the build to finish with Kane arguing with the ref, giving Harper a chance to slide in a hit a superkick on Orton, the actual finish was pretty damn cool. Moments after the superkick, Wyatt missed a running senton and with both men reaching for the tag, the lights went out, Wyatt's screen gimmick hit and when they came up, Harper was standing in Orton's corner and Kane had completely disappeared. It looked fantastic and was worked quickly enough that it got a good pop out of the crowd. Wyatt won the bout with a Sister Abigail on Orton. With Harper back there's potential to create some interesting stuff with Orton and Wyatt, parts of the match touched on how good it could be, hopefully it's those parts that are empathised going forward.   

So, I've explained the Styles v Ellsworth bout, but not quite how it came about. It all began with what was probably the strongest work of the show as Styles dazzled on the microphone with a powerful egotistical promo. He spoke about his victory at No Mercy, bragging about his beating John Cena and Dean Ambrose in the same night, glossed over the fact that he tapped out to both, as well as playing with the crowd, initially basking in a portion of cheers, before burning those cheering, by saying that they had to live through him. After a short interlude where Dean Ambrose claimed Styles was afraid to fight him, Styles announced his hand-picked opponent as James Ellsworth, who confusedly walked down the ramp, apparently unaware. The segment would conclude with General Manager Daniel Bryan making Ambrose the special guest referee. As mentioned above this didn't quite sit right with me as stacking the deck against a champion, having the Authority figure place a crooked referee in charge, almost makes Styles the match's babyface. 

The opener saw the new Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler get a victory over The Spirit Squad duo of Kenny (Dykstra) and Mikey (Mondo) in a Two-on-One Handicap match, that would hopefully put that story to bed. The match went too long for me, which might have been something to do with them airing it through the advert break. With The Miz on commentary, I would have bought more into the action had he been more involved in the action, giving the distractions that allowed Kenny and Mikey to take control. The bout plodding along for four or five minutes and I just couldn't buy into the Spirit Squad as threat. The double DDT spot by Ziggler was nice, but having the momentum switch back and give Kenny a near fall felt unnecessary at this point. The most interesting thing that came out of the match was Tag Team Champions Heath Slater and Rhyno making the save for the victorious Ziggler, as Miz and Spirit Squad attempted to take him out post match. 

Before the bout, Dolph Ziggler opened the show with a hot crowd hanging on his every word. It was the right decision to start the show with the hottest storyline that the show had coming out of No Mercy and Ziggler took the moment and ran with it. He built his promo wonderfully, talking about his feelings before his retirement match and concluded with a passion declaration that he belonged in this ring. He also made the belt feel like a big part of what he had to say, constantly referencing what it meant to him and making sure to hold it aloft at every opportunity. The Miz and Maryse's interruption also featured some good content, with the highlight having to be the pair dressed entirely in black and supposedly being in a period of mourning for Miz's title loss. Whilst Ziggler and the crowd taking the piss out of Miz for seemingly crying on Sunday at first didn't sit right to me, Miz rallying out with a fiery speech, saying that he'd do absolutely anything to get the title back and leading into introducing the Spirit Squad for the aforementioned handicap match.

Best of the Rest 

• Naomi pinned Carmella after Nikki Bella caused a distraction at ringside, with Carmella eventually able to escape an attack from Bella by running through the crowd.

• Against the run of play, Jimmy Uso defeated Chad Gable - Commissioner Shane McMahon & General Manager Daniel Bryan challenged RAW's Commissioner Stephanie McMahon & General Manager Mick Foley to three matches for 20th November's Survivor Series supercard, all traditional Survivor Series elimination matches with one for male singles, one for female singles and one for tag teams – Before her match, Carmella attacked Nikki Bella backstage...

Finally...

ATPW Scale Rating - 3.88/10

Show in a Sentence - Strong promos, ineffective matches and questionable stories.

Strongest Moment - Dolph Ziggler and The Miz opening the show

Weakest Moment - Dolph Ziggler v The Spirit Squad

Only a short episode of Talking Smack this week, but an interesting one for sure. Nikki Bella's interview was the headliner, but there was a lot going on elsewhere also. 

I found myself rather enjoying Renee Young and Daniel Bryan interviewing Nikki Bella, in a way that I perhaps didn't expect I would. This was mainly because Bella felt like she being real, rather than attempting to deliver a promo or play a character, whilst still remaining true to current storylines. This was helped by her chemistry with brother-in-law Bryan, which came across well as they joked and teased each other. A really good plug for the Total Bellas reality show. I would have liked to have seen Bella discuss her feud with Carmella a bit more, as well as sell the attack from Carmella earlier in the night, but perhaps that is asking too much? 

Best of the Rest 

• James Ellsworth's appearance was highlighted by Daniel Bryan announcing that Ellsworth had a World Championship match on next week's Smackdown Live - Bray Wyatt & Luke Harper appeared in the studio and both cut angry and creepy but low key promos 

Finally... 

Show in a Sentence - A nice way to round out the evening, with some brave experiments with different styles.

Words - James Marston

Smackdown Live Banner - Kai Stellar

TV Review: WWE Smackdown Live #894 - The Dolphumentary + Talking Smack #10 - Dolph Ziggler Interview

As the final episode before the No Mercy supercard on 9th October, the 894th Smackdown Live saw Dolph Ziggler take centre stage as Intercontinental Champion The Miz premiered a new "Dolphumentary" and Ziggler's buddies from the Spirit Squad, Kenny and Mikey returned. With a supercard just days away and the likes of World Champion AJ Styles, Women's Champion Becky Lynch, Dean Ambrose, Alexa Bliss and Jack Swagger all in major spots, this was going to great, right?

The heat on the Intercontinental Championship was turned up a notch as title holder, The Miz, presented a video package on No Mercy opponent Dolph Ziggler, that looked at some of the more infamous moments in The Show Off's career, before Ziggler fought off old pals from The Spirit Squad, Kenny [Dykstra] and Mikey [Mondo] in their WWE returns. I wasn't overly excited about Kenny and Mikey and the segment could have been just as effective without it, but it definitely gave the interaction a nice boost of nostalgia for the heady days of 2006. Whilst most of the coverage of this looked at the return, it was Ziggler and Miz would worked the hardest to keep stirring their feud up. Both worked when on the attack throwing verbal barbs, but it was when reacting to these barbs that the pair created their most effective work. Ziggler's frustration and aggression when Miz told him he'd be doing $5 autograph signings should he lose at No Mercy was the standout moment of an enjoyable scene. 

In a show that was full of talking, World Champion AJ Styles and #1 Contenders John Cena and Dean Ambrose closed the show, in what developed into Styles and Ambrose taking turns to take shots at Cena. There was a surprising amount of variety here as The Phenomenal One stuck to Cena's attempts at equaling Ric Flair's "World Championship record", whilst Ambrose went about questioning Cena's personality traits and his Hustle Loyalty Respect mantra. Both Styles and Ambrose brought strong performances to match the strong content, with the segment building nicely to Cena beginning the scrap without having to really say a word. The close of the show was a little paint by numbers, as all three men got a chance to hold the belt up, with Ambrose ending the show in control. There were ways of getting the supposed chaos of a triple threat match over without having to fall into the predictable and formulaic.

The adjoining episode of Talking Smack was headlined by an appearance from Dolph Ziggler, as he discussed his match with The Miz at No Mercy and added some depth to the tie. With Ziggler's career on the line on 9th October, this was another fact and fiction mixing effort from The Show Off, which long-time fans may have become a little numb towards over recent years. Ziggler definitely has knack at getting his pacing and passion just right, this was only interrupted by Renee Young appearing to want to steer Ziggler in a certain direction. The style worked for the audience that would be watching Talking Smack, as you'd expect these to more interested in insider terms and therefore I think that the upcoming bout has been given an extra layer of interest, as this was more a look at how Nicholas Nemeth feels about his current situation in the company, than it was a look at his issues with Miz. 

After Alexa Bliss and Nikki Bella's singles match had ended in a no contest, thanks to Carmella interference, Daniel Bryan pulled a Teddy Long and booked a tag match with Bella being joined by Women's Champion Becky Lynch. The tag bout, managed to carry two storylines well, but couldn't have been called anything more than basic. Taking up just over 4 minutes, Bella worked in the face in peril, which mainly involved rest holds from Carmella & Bliss. There wasn't a lot to get excited about, but the San Diego crowd seemed largely into it, which at least gave a bit of drive when watching at home. Lynch's hot tag was probably the best part, featuring crisp exploder suplexes in quick succession and the finish gave fuel for the two upcoming supercard bouts as Carmella and Bella brawled to the back, whilst Bliss pinning Lynch gives her even more momentum heading into her title challenge.

Round off the top part of the card, Baron Corbin suffered defeat to Jack Swagger in controversial fashion, as the referee called for the bell despite Corbin not appearing to tap whilst in the Patriot Lock. Despite the dodgy finish, I was surprised by the strength of this contest, as Corbin and Swagger put together some quality action. The story appeared to paint Swagger as the more powerful of the pair, getting the better of Corbin in the early stages, leading to Corbin having to resort to taking advantage of a rope break and then shoving Swagger into the barricade. This was well put across by the performers and managed to get Corbin a decent amount of heat, which was only added up when The Lone Wolf took his time during his beat down. The transition into the Patriot Lock, showed that perhaps with an extra five minutes and a real finish that Corbin and Swagger could do something good together. 

Best of the Rest 

• On Talking Smack, AJ Styles' interview with Renee Young and Daniel Bryan covered a variety of topics, with Styles handling the occasions well, adding to what he'd said at the close of Smackdown Live and ending with a passionate promo about defeating anyone Bryan or Shane McMahon put in front of him, because he's a winner.

• Bray Wyatt and Kane went through the motions, until Randy Orton appeared on the big screen upside down and Wyatt left to find out where he was, leading to multiple pre-taped backstage skits. 

• The Hype Bros (Mojo Rawley & Zack Ryder) went over The Vaudevillains (Aiden English & Simon Gotch) in an awkward and cringey tag encounter, that also involved The Ascension standing about on the ramp and pointing a bit.

• Daniel Bryan introduced five female fund-raisers for Susan G. Kommen and presented them all with Women's Championship belts, in an emotionally charged in-ring event.

Finally....

ATPW Scale Rating - 

4.45/10 [Smackdown Live Only]

4.67/10 [+ Talking Smack]

The main storylines this week were well served as World and IC title stories carried the show, with two good segments. It was a shame that there was a distinct lack of wrestling as only Corbin v Swagger went longer than five minutes, which, of course, reflects on the rating. With this being the last chance to get people interested in the No Mercy supercard, I can understand wanting to hammer the main stories and make sure that each narrative is hammered home. Despite, a lack lustre showing for this episode, there was a lot of good groundwork laid for No Mercy to build upon.

Words - James Marston

Banner - Kai Stellar

Match of the Night - Jack Swagger v Baron Corbin

Non-Wrestling Segment of the Night - The Dolphumentary