I’ve just come back from a week off and it’s safe to say I didn’t miss a lot. We’re still no closer to finding out which member of the New Day will be in the Money in the Bank ladder match, Sanity has disappeared off the face of the earth, and Shinsuke Nakamura is still playing games with AJ Styles. Welcome to the most must-see Vulture Hound weekly review in history; welcome to… The SmackDown Review.
SmackDown Women’s champion, Carmella opened the show as she promised to “unmask” Asuka by showing footage of her losing at WrestleMania. Aside from Mella’s impressive editing skills, we were blown away by her comments that Asuka is no longer the same performer she was during her undefeated streak. Having heard such blasphemy, Asuka interrupted but was then interrupted herself by Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. This led to the SmackDown GM, Paige, giving Asuka a choice of who she wanted to fight. Of course, Asuka chose both Rose and Deville.
It was Deville who looked the better of the handicapped pair – by that I mean they had the numbers advantage and not that they’re disabled – starting off strong with a series of kicks and strikes straight from her MMA locker. Yet, Asuka would come out on top as she eventually caught Deville in the eponymous Asuka lock. After the match, Carmella attacked Asuka, hitting her with a superkick.
The middle bits:
– Karl Anderson defeated Harper in singles action with a shocking roll-up in about two minutes. They must have been on a tight schedule.
– There was mixed-tag action as Naomi and Jimmy Uso teamed up to face Lana (is the best, Lana number one) and Aiden English. Naomi hit a high crossbody onto English, which Uso followed up with a superkick to win the match.
– Backstage, Paige presided over a contract signing between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura for their WWE Championship match at Money in the Bank. Initially, Nakamura refused to sign the contract, so Styles slapped him. Nakamura signed the contract after Styles had been taken away.
– A good throwaway match between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair saw a victory for Straight Fire with the Dis-arm-her.
– Big Cass promised to beat up Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank. Yawn.
– After snubbing Sin Cara last week, Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas attacked the Faceless One backstage and shouted some words in Spanish that I couldn’t understand because I’m an ignorant Englishman that doesn’t have time for other languages.
Main event pancakes:
WWE are really stretching their creative genius this week for what can constitute the build-up for the main event match. After an earlier backstage segment saw the New Day trick the Miz into putting his hand into a hat full of pancake mix, the trio teamed up to face Miz, Rusev and Samoa Joe. Later on in the match, Joe and Rusev abandoned Miz after he accidentally tossed a tray of pancakes over them. This left the Miz alone in the ring to take the Midnight Hour and the pin.
As mentioned in my preamble, there is still no word on which member of the New Day will be in the ladder match at Money in the Bank.