Welcome to the most must-see Vulture Hound weekly review in history; welcome to… The SmackDown Review
On this day, the 224th day of my never-ending VultureHound Review Tour (which actually took a momentary lapse last week due to illness), I take a look back at quite an interesting episode of SmackDown Live! An episode that featured a rift in the chase for the WWE World Championship, Dean Ambrose being buried, an unknown opponent for Alexa Bliss and Mojo Rawley showing a glimpse of becoming a real human being.
As promised by SmackDown management, James Ellsworth was given his title shot against WWE World Champion, AJ Styles. As expected the match was nothing more than a squash. In around a minute, Styles pasted Ellsworth with a spinning back fist and pinned him easily to defend his Championship. Following the match, Styles felt obliged to apologise to the WWE Universe fans to subjecting them to that match. Then, Dolph Ziggler showed up and repeated the same old crap he always does about willing to put everything on the line to become champion. Yawn. A twist was yet to come as Baron Corbin interrupted, clearly frustrated that he hasn’t been made number 1 contender for the top prize despite putting away the would be Cruiserweight, Rey Kalisto Jr. Corbin destroyed Ziggler with the unstoppable End of Days and stared down Styles. It’s great to see that Corbin is being given a push even if that does mean he has to go through Ziggler once again.
Apparently, Apollo Crews has somehow made his way to become the number 1 contender for Miz’s Intercontinental Championship. Crews got a good run out despite not having his entrance televised but a poke in the eyes was enough to allow the Miz to roll up the contender for the three count after hitting him with the Skull Crushing Finale. Another successful defence for the Miz and should put him in good stead ahead of his incoming feud with Dean Ambrose.
In less interesting news:
Natalya finally admitted what we already knew – she was the one who attacked Nikki Bella, rendering her unable to compete, back at Survivor Series. It’s something that happened over a month ago now and only serves the purpose to further the promotion of Total Bellas/Divas. Although there was one moment that sucked me in. Carmella claimed that John Cena will never marry Nikki Bella. Oh Em Gee! Whaaaat!?
Dean Ambrose beat Luke Harper but got beat down by the Wyatt’s following the match. The Miz followed suit and slammed the Lunatic Ginge with a Skull Crushing Finale for good measure. A nice touch for the Miz to get one over on Ambrose but there really wasn’t much point in Ambrose beating the tag team champs unless it serves the purpose of eventually pushing Harper out of the Wyatt’s for continuing to lose. Who knows? I don’t.
The most entertaining match of the night actually came from Alexa Bliss taking on little known jobber, “La Luchadora”. The two put on a good show and surprisingly in the end it was the fake Mexican that beat the SmackDown Women’s Champion with a Dis-Arm-Her. “Becky Lynch” uses that move, right?” Correct, she does! So when I said “fake Mexican” nary a moment ago you now know why. It was the Irish Lass Kicker in disguise! A sneaky way for her to get one over Bliss before she once again takes her on next week.
Due to the unfortunate knee injury to Zack Ryder we have now been subjected to watching his fellow ‘Hype Bro’, Mojo Rawley, in singles action. Yet, the man that was once called the “Zubaz Spaz” by David Otunga (yes, that actually happened), put on an okay performance for the Detroit crowd. The match didn’t actually have any relevance other than to help promote ‘Shooter’ as the lead star Ryan Phillippe was also on commentary.
The night’s main event was a Number 1 Contenders match between Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin. Ending in a double count out as Corbin sent Ziggler flying into AJ Styles sat in on commentary. Styles then also got involved by hitting the two competitors with a chair. Corbin is starting to look stronger against his opponents which could be seen as the Lone Wolf kicked out of a Zig Zag and Fameasser from Zigglypuff.
Next weeks post Christmas show is sure to be full of leftovers from this week as we see the same matches once again. Cheerio!