Hey, it’s WWE Smackdown! And everybody’s in Abu Dhabi!
The show started with Kane & The Big Show holding court backstage. They had a bunch of tag teams assembled to announce that there would be a Tag Team Turmoil gauntlet match tonight.
They said that the order of entry would be randomly drawn, but that the famous tag team of Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns would start out. They assured the teams that this was their chance to get tag team title shots – even the Usos, who were stood there carrying the tag team titles. The idiots.
All the teams left and Kane & The Big Show laughed an evil laugh at the dumb bastards…
Hey, it’s Bray Wyatt! He came to the ring with his usual spooky entrance. I really like his music. It’s relaxing. It’s not often you can say that about a wrestling theme.
He’s fighting R-Truth, because everybody else is in Abu Dhabi, and because everybody else is in Abu Dhabi Truth got to do his full entrance.
So they had a match, and Bray Wyatt won. Along the way, R-Truth got far too much of the match considering they’ve given Dolph Ziggler nothing against Wyatt the last two weeks. Ziggler, by the way, is in Abu Dhabi. Did I mention everybody is in Abu Dhabi?
Paige was shown walking down a corridor backstage. She made a geek jump and then hugged him. Oh, that Paige!
After a commercial break, Summer Rae was in the ring awaiting her opponent, who was Paige. The Bellas were on commentary.
So this wasn’t awful. It was three minutes of solid wrestling, even if the crowd couldn’t have cared less – and had to be taunted into caring by Summer Rae. Yes, Summer Rae.
Paige got the win with the PTO, while Michael Cole talked ENDLESSLY about Total Divas and the Bellas did bad commentary. I now want to see Paige fight Nikki Bella at Fastlane because there’s a slim chance she’ll break her larynx.
They showed the Cena-Rusev angle from Raw. Guess where Cena & Rusev are tonight?
Hey, it’s Adam Rose! He came to the ring with his Rosebuds, and they re-showed his Trust Fall Fail from a couple of weeks back. This time he did not do the Trust Fall, because he says he does not trust his Rosebuds any more. Seriously, it’s such an abusive relationship.
He’s fighting Fandango, who was already in the ring. Fandango is a ballroom dancer who we never get to see dance. There again, we never saw TL Hopper fix toilets, I guess.
This was really short and not without its charm. I like these two guys despite myself, and wish they could do something different with them. Fandango could go back to being Johnny Curtis, and Rose could do Shinsuke Nakamura. I may have gone too far with that one.
After the match, Rose beat up on his Rosebuds. Poor The Rosebuds.
They showed the HHH-Sting stuff from Raw. This could be the best non-match ever!
Daniel Bryan came to the ring for the Tag Team Turmoil match. He got a good reception, but some of that might just be that people like saying “Yes!” a lot.
After a break, Reigns came out, too, making his entrance through the crowd. They barely acknowledged each other.
Their first opponents – and surely that “first” is not any kind of a spoiler for any of you reading this – were Miz & Mizdow, and we got the Miz being annoyed at Mizdow being unable to help himself being a stunt double stuff.
Miz started out, of course, and was beaten down by Bryan and Reigns and Bryan again. He actually tagged out to Mizdow, who got some heat on Bryan before Miz tagged himself back in and got hit by a corner dropkick from Bryan, a Superman punch from Reigns, and the running knee from Bryan for the pinfall.
Next out were the Usos. This put the show on shaky ground. The Usos are the tag team champions, a specialist team who should be more than a match for any two singles wrestlers thrust together. But Bryan and Reigns’s story still had a way to go. What to do?
Well, have a really good match, for a start. They went for almost 27 minutes of back and forth stuff, with the Usos matching Bryan and Reigns step for step.
There was an added narrative here, with Reigns being the Usos’ cousin, and stepping in when Bryan got a little too heavy with his kinfolk.
This got turned around when Reigns interrupted a Jey Uso pin attempt to save his partner, and Jimmy got in his face and they brawled. Bryan hooked on the Yes! Lock for the submission victory.
Los Matadores were the next team out, and Bryan dispatched them without tagging Reigns in.
This brought out Heath Slater and Titus O’Neil, who it seems will have to team together for all eternity. Reigns tagged himself in, and took Slater down. He then knocked Titus off the apron, and took Slater down again. Titus got back in the ring and walked into a Superman Punch, and Slater ate a spear for the pin.
Hey, it’s The Ascension! They’re the next victimsentrants in the Tag Team Turmoil match, and Bryan started out with Viktor, making The Ascension look big for once.
Bryan was on top but ran the ropes and got sent to the outside by Konnor pulling the top rope down. They double-teamed him on the outside until Reigns came over to help, but then they beat Reigns down, and threw him over the announcers’ table.
They worked on Bryan some, and threw him into the ring post, and then did the same to Reigns. They threw Bryan back into the ring and gave him the Fall Of Man, and the ref told them they were disqualified. They then brought Reigns back in, too, and were about to do the same to him when the referee stopped them, and a bunch of referees ran out to make sure they didn’t do any more damage.
The Big Show came out, and was joined by Kane, and the announcers told us that the match was still ongoing, and that Bryan and Reigns would face these two flat tyres.
The big men worked the good guys over until there was some dissention in their camp when Kane threw Bryan into the corner and he hit Big Show. Show was annoyed but Kane shrugged it off.
Show tagged in and Bryan got a hope spot with a DDT but couldn’t make the tag. He did kick out of a pin attempt, which annoyed Kane because he thought Show wasn’t taking it seriously. He told Show to finish him but Show told him, “I’m having fun!”
The crowd got on the Big Show’s back, and Kane tagged himself in, much to the annoyance of Show. Bryan hooked a Yes! Lock on, but Show broke it up. He shouted at Kane, then tagged in and he got hooked in a Yes! Lock, which Kane broke up.
The two argued and Show punched Kane out, before turning into a Roman Reigns spear, and Daniel Bryan jot the running knee for the win.
After the match, Bryan and Reigns leaned on the top rope and looked up at the hanging Wrestlemania sign, and exchanged knowing glances…
This was a Good Show. Yeah, I enjoyed it. The Tag Team Turmoil was great, and the Usos segment really great. I’m not any more excited about Fastlane but maybe everybody should go to Abu Dhabi more often if we get simple shows like this when they’re gone?