Hey, it’s WWE Smackdown! Second verse, same as the first!
The show started with WWE World Heavyweight champion Seth Rollins coming down to the ring, accompanied by Kane & Joey Mercury. No Jamie Noble, because Brock Lesnar broke three of his ribs on Raw on Monday…
The announcers welcomed us to the show, and what an odd crew it was, too. Alongside regular hosts Todd “Tom” Phillips & Jerry Lawler was Jimmy Uso, sitting in for Byron Saxton, and he would go on to make Saxton look like a valuable contributor as the night progressed.
Back to the ring, where Seth Rollins cut a talky. He said that The Authority had burned Suplex City to the ground on Raw when they beat down Brock Lesnar. Rollins heaped compliments on Kane & Mercury and then explained where Noble was, dedicating this episode of Smackdown to his fallen comrade.
Kane said that The Authority were also missing an extended family member, The Big Show, because of The Ryback’s cowardly attack on him on Raw. They then showed a clip from that show, with The Big Show starting a fight backstage with The Ryback and coming off much worse.
Kane called The Ryback out and made a match for later in the show – The Ryback versus Kane – and then The Authority headed to the back. When they got to the top of the ramp, Rollins said he was tired of the lack of respect he’d been getting, especially since he’d beaten Ambrose at Money In The Bank. He made a match for himself, against Ambrose, for tonight’s show.
Backstage, Dolph Ziggler & Lana were shown walking down a corridor, arm-in-arm. *vom*
Hey, it’s Dolph Ziggler! He came down to the ring, accompanied by Lana. Lana has stopped wearing her hair in a bun, leaving it in a long ponytail down her back. It is not an improvement.
Ziggler was out for a match with Sheamus, and it feels like I’ve seen this match a bazillion times before. You probably have, too, so you can pretty much imagine how it went.
Halfway through the match, Rusev hobbled out and shouted for Lana. he begged her to take him back again but she turned her back on him. He ranted in Bulgarian and then left. Odd.
The match continued and Sheamus got the win with a Brogue Kick as Ziggler was crotched on the top turnbuckle. Dictionary definition of pointless.
Backstage, Rusev was hobbling down a corridor and accosted a random geek. “Do you like Lana?” he asked, and before the man could answer he shouted, “GET OUT!” Summer Rae walked up, put her hand on his shoulder, and told him lana wasn’t worth it. Christ.
Hey, it’s Alicia Fox! She came down to the ring with her new besties, The Bella Twins, for a match with Naomi, who had Tamina at ringside. Paige was still notable by her absence.
Guess what? These two had a GREAT match! Only joking, it was shit. Apparently these are two of the most athletic Divas in the division. Kind of like watching Mo Farah & Usain Bolt having a match, then. Only worse. Oh, Fox won after the Bellas and Tamina got involved in shenanigans.
They hyped up the John Cena-Kevin Owens feud, and announced their rubber match for Battleground. They also announced that The Prime Time Players would face The New Day at Battleground, and then threw backstage to JoJo, who was with The New Day.
The New Day delivered a “sermon of strength”, which was interrupted by The Prime Time Players. They mocked The New Day and noted that one of them would have to sit on the sidelines at Battleground, and thus be labelled the weakest link.
The Prime Time Players left and Bo Dallas walked up. He said that The New Day inspired him and he’d asked The Authority if he could team up with them against The Prime Time Players and whoever else they could find to even the sides tonight. They all clapped together, with Dallas out of time. This was hokey but I liked it.
Hey, it’s Kane! He came down to the ring for his match with The Ryback and they went to a commercial break.
After the break, The Ryback came out and was attacked on the ramp by The Big Show, who Kane had said was not there tonight, the big fat liar. The Big Show kicked The Ryback’s ass all the way to ringside, and then threw him into the barriers, before rolling him into the ring. Kane then instructed the referee the ring the bell.
So Kane and The Ryback had a match and it was every bit as bad as you’d imagine, only worse because it ended in a DQ as The Big Show interfered. What’s worse is that Kane, the conqueror of Dean Ambrose & Brock Lesnar on Raw, was getting his ass kicked by The Ryback, who’d just been taken out by The Big Show. THIS FUCKING COMPANY.
After the match, Kane & The Big Show continued to attack The Ryback and, sadly, no hundred ton weight dropped out of the sky onto all three.
They showed some clips from the first episode of Tough Enough, which I haven’t seen yet and thus I’m trying to forget the glimpse I got of the first guy eliminated.
Hey, it’s The Prime Time Players! They came out for their match with The New Day & Bo Dallas, with the bad guys already in the ring. The PTP’s partners for this match? The Lucha Dragons. Yay! GENUINE YAY!
So they had a fun ten-minute match, with Kalisto looking great in his spots. So far they’ve not fucked up the slowest of slow pushes towards him becoming a big, new kids’ star. Everyone worked hard and Titus O’Neil was barely in the ring, so all good, really. Kalisto got the win with his team with a springboard 450 Splash.
They showed the latest happenings in the Bray Wyatt-Roman Reigns I’m A Little Teapot feud, and then cut to backstage, where Reigns was talking with Dean Ambrose.
Ambrose told Reigns he had his back against Bray Wyatt and said he had a plan to go after him. Reigns told him to worry about The Authority, and said he would have Ambrose’s back in the main event tonight. Ambrose walked off for the match and Reigns went to put on his vest. A piece of paper fell out of the vest, with a picture of Reigns with his eyes and mouth scratched out, and the words ANYONE BUT YOU.
Reigns stormed off to try and find Wyatt, and asked a random backstage geek to get on his headset and find out where Wyatt was. Kane came up and accused Reigns of flying off the handle, and called security to eject him. Reigns left under his own power, walking through a door marked EXIT which was right next to an huge opening which led to the same place.
Hey, it’s our main event! It’s Seth Rollins versus Dean Ambrose! Which was a PPV main event ten days ago!
So you know how this went. Ambrose on top early doors, Rollins went after the knee, Ambrose sold it for a few minutes then forgot all about it and started running all over the ring. Kane & Joey Mercury got involved and Ambrose sent them packing, looking stronger than Brock Lesnar on Raw while doing so, but still fell to Rollins and a Pedigree for the win.
After the match, The Authority stood over Ambrose and celebrated, and that’s your show.
This was an Okay Show. Some of the promo work was good, and the tag-team match was fun. The main event was alright but I’d rather see no selling at all than the inconsistency shown by the otherwise-ace Ambrose lately. The booking is all over the shop, with Kane & Ambrose looking stronger than Lesnar, and The Ryback looking stronger than all of them. It makes zero sense…