The Miz is back where he belongs, on the hottest show in town, the blue brand, the A-lister on the A show. As you can tell, I’m a lot more jovial about SmackDown Live these days. So it’s best we get things underway before I get too carried away. Welcome to the most must-see Vulture Hound weekly review in history; welcome to… The SmackDown Review.
Miz was to open the show with special guest Daniel Bryan on Miz TV. However, instead of Bryan, we were treated to Big Cass. If you could call it a treat? Cass went on to claim that everyone else will be living in his shadow once he puts Bryan on the sidelines again. Backstage, Daniel Bryan was found on the ground, having been attacked. It’s a real ‘whodunnit’ scenario, except we know Big Cass gon dunnit.
The Other Bits:
– The IIconics defeated Becky Lynch and Asuka thanks to Royce using the ropes to gain leverage with a roll-up on Lynch.
– Jimmy Uso defeated Erick Rowan, or just “Rowan” as they seem to be calling him now. Naomi’s music was enough to distract the Super Smash Bro to enable Jimmy to roll him up.
– There were vignettes for the debuts of both Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas and Sanity.
– Before her contract signing for the title rematch with Charlotte Flair, Carmella repeatedly showed the same highlight package from last week. She was interrupted by Flair who slammed Carmella’s head off the table and flipped it over onto her. Woo!
– Shelton Benjamin was set to face Jeff Hardy. Instead, Randy Orton slithered his way into the match by interrupting Hardy. Whilst Hardy sat in on commentary, he was attacked by a masked man. Orton unmasked the man as Sunil Singh, then hit him with an RKO. Benjamin used the distraction to hit Orton with a Paydirt and win the match.
Shinsuke Day:
The team of Shinsuke Nakamura, Rusev and Aiden English took on the reunited Club of AJ Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. It was a fairly average six-man tag match where everyone but Aiden English was able to showcase their signature moves. Though I guess shouting “Rusev Daaaaaaaaaay” is English’s signature these days.
Further storytelling was to feature once the match was over. After Nakamura pinned Gallows from a Kinshasa, Styles attacked Nakamura, releasing a lot of anger following weeks of low blows from the Artist. How did Nakamura counter this assault? With a low blow of course. As Nakamura was about to hit Styles with a Kinshasa, Karl Anderson jumped between them and took it himself. Nakamura lined up Anderson for a second Kinshasa right to the mush.
On a side note, Shinsuke’s entrance music has been altered to sound more “heel-ish”. Check it out here.