Hello again everyone! Let’s be honest folks, SmackDown has an insanely tough show to follow. Last night’s RAW started and ended with shocking segments, and it’s just a tough show to follow. On top of that, if you are in Boston or Los Angeles (or a baseball fan), the blue brand is going up against the first game of the World Series. SmackDown just can’t catch a break, can it? But, none of that matters. After the red brand had about as crazy a show as we could get, SmackDown looks to get back to normalcy. After all, it’s next stop, Evolution. The all women’s PPV is Sunday, and hopefully this show gives the women a bit more of a rub than they got last night-where, frankly, they were lost in the chaos. So without further delay, let’s crack open this Nutshell!
Best Match of the night:
Orton and Hardy…but it was mostly by default because there wasn’t so much as a speck of a good match on the rest of the show.
Worst match of the night:
Too many choices really.
Wasn’t fun watching Big Show versus Kofi, though I guess it furthers the storyline.
The Usos versus Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles was an oddball.
English and Rusev was just a squash.
The women’s tag match broke down into basically a preview of the battle royal on Sunday. Hyping the battle royal makes sense, don’t get me wrong…but why couldn’t they do that and still give the women a decent match?
Folks, take your pick.
Crowd Chants of the Night:
Truth TV
Yes! Yes! Yes!
No!
CM Punk
delete
Star of the Night
Is it wrong of me to say that there wasn’t one? I really don’t think so…and there wasn’t one. I know SmackDown wasn’t going to be able to match RAW from the night before….but they could have given us a show that felt more like 95% of the roster wasn’t mailing it in, don’t you think?
Spot of the Night:
Nothing of note. Unless I am supposed to be wowed by Big Show delivering a plethora of choke slams? But….I am not.
Jobber of the Night:
I nominate Aiden English for this one. For what it’s worth, putting English against Rusev feels an awful lot like when WWE did Enzo versus Big Cass. No one ever thought the smaller guy had a chance in either feud.
Upset of the Night:
Nothing
Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:
A night after we had a few, tonight there wasn’t a single one to be had.
Botch of the night:
Nothing.
Commentary of the night:
Lately I do tweets, tonight not so much. What I can say though is, for the first time in a while, Graves had a number of good zingers. Seems like those don’t happen so frequently anymore.
LOL Moment of the night:
Shane talks about “who will be the best in the world” relative to the should-be-moved WWE World Cup. And the crowd chanted CM Punk. And he answered “I don’t think he’s in the tournament”.
But…what if he’s a surprise? Surely they’ve made enough Saudi money that they could even sway Punk to show?
Noteworthy Moment:
I suppose we can point out that a week after returning for SmackDown 1000, Shane McMahon was on television yet again. Reports after the show last week indicated that Shane was back for more than a cameo, and tonight’s appearance-primarily to hype Evolution and Crown Jewel-seems to support that news.
Overall lowlights:
I tried to keep my expectations low, if only because RAW was so memorable for so many different reasons. I knew there was no way we’d get two such shows out of WWE on consecutive nights-I have a better shot of winning the Mega Millions jackpot.
That being said, I did think that the show would be better than we got. Honestly, I found very little to like about it.
One of my biggest issues? You show us a taped segment between the SmackDown Women’s Champion and her challenger on Sunday. Yes, we know it happened-over the weekend. With this being the first ever women’s PPV…have two of the biggest women on the show be live and in person in the ring for final hype, no?
Overall highlights:
Hate sounding like a broken record, but I found nothing really worth this distinction. I felt it was a largely forgettable show.
After the final bell:
Well, last night we kind of know why everything on the show was overshadowed. Once the air was sucked out of the building, it was tough for anyone to recover…but the contract signing for Evolution was decent. Tonight, I guess the women’s brawl was OK, but I feel like both shows could have and should have done more to push the women. Like, at least have SmackDown end the show with women in the main event, maybe?
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