PUTTIN’ THAT SMACKDOWN…What Actually Happened Last Night (Dec. 16th, 2014)

With RAW producing one of its better, though lower rated, installments it was up to Smackdown to continue the job of saving WWE face.  Rumors are circulating that there may be a “silent protest” in the WWE locker room seeing how Triple H actually knows what he’s doing.  He should but the Old Guard is an established one and it provides the means to fill the coffers that both the Main Roster and NXT rely upon.  Yet, no coffers will be filled if we the audience are not happy and we’ve been making our opinions known.  The first act of the Revolution continues, my fellow enthusiasts. Where will it all lead?

Conjectures aside, Smackdown got to work in swift fashion this past Tuesday night.  To open, we have Fandango and Rosa Mendes doing their slightly more embellished intro to no one’s real attention and it really doesn’t matter because our view is redirected to the back of the house when Roman Reigns’ music comes on.  It appears that Reigns will be eased back into the full-time pool by obliterating Fandango to start.  I have no problem with this.  Fandango is quite disposable, as a character, and can easily be portrayed as serving the greater good in the WWE backstory annals for providing an entertaining means to get Reigns’ sea legs back.  As for Reigns, he is very much improved.   As I said in my first real post, the key is execution.  It doesn’t matter if he wins or losses, though we may have a while to wait for a loss, it all comes down to whether it looks good i.e. that he sells it.  Fandango’s destruction was definitely sold now all he has to do is keep it up against whomever he faces.  The second he falters, you know we’ll be all over it.  Yet, understand that I don’t expect the man to be perfect.  I expect him to be clean and professional.   There will always be haters but, if this guy’s “The Guy”, he better sell it like a boss, especially when he’s televised.  Live shows, experiment but when it comes to the TVs nothing below being “on point” will be tolerated. Watch.

To keep on the wave of SHIELD nostalgia, we have Dean Ambrose come out to the ring, mic in hand.  He spits his side of the Ambrose/Wyatt feud debate.  Then Bray Wyatt appears on the big screen to spit his.  I don’t mind it when they talk but I didn’t really sign up to go to a concert.  In any case, we should be able to see the actual battle tonight for Tribute to the Troops via a Boot Camp match.

Following that, The Usos and Erick Rowan have a go at The Miz, Damien Mizdow and Luke Harper.  This was a fun match with a lot of interesting back and forth.  Harper and Rowan are just towering slabs of men and they stick mostly to the straight wrestling, which is fine by me.  The Usos provide high-flying entertainment and hijinks as The Miz and Mizdow play for whatever attention is left.  It looks like some dissension may be arising between The Miz and Mizdow as there was some in-fighting and The Miz made sure to be a dick when it came to tags.  But, I get the feeling that Rowan doing a “splash” from the ropes was the most intriguing moment.  Such a big dude!  Yet, he pulls it off and I think it’s cute how The Usos help him enjoy being a Face. I really think a lot of fun can be had with Rowan and Harper but I think a good way to keep them popular with the masses is to have their stories have an endearing subtext.  Like Rowan learning to be “good”, maybe Harper could get similar encouragement from other heels in being “bad”. The whole sentiment of them supposedly not knowing any better makes them likable either way the WWE decides to go with them.

According to the docket, next up is Ryback vs. Seth Rollins.  Ryback makes it out to the stage but before he can get to the ring, he’s blitzed by Rusev in what I thought was an excellent surprise attack.  Shit, I didn’t see that coming.  With a kick off-stage, Rusev makes it clear what he thinks of Ryback and he and Lana, very proud of themselves, egg on the crowd and escort themselves out.  Seeing how he doesn’t have to make his usual getaway, Rollins takes the now available time slot to continue to make his case for reinstating The Authority.  Nothing but chaos ensues when they’re not around, I mean, look at what just happened… We all know this is BS because the same kinda shit happened when they were around.  This is life in the WWE.  I know Rollins is a heel but he shouldn’t come off naïve or at least not too much so.  The beauty of a Paul Heyman, for instance, is that in his being an “advocate” he can certainly tell quite the tale to illustrate his point.  Rollins is just straight talking nonsense here, but no matter.  Dolph Ziggler feels he should probably come out and set him right.  Like it or not, Ziggler has been en fuego of late and actually has the chops to make a play like this.  I know, who would have thunk.  I certainly wouldn’t but that is why these are very interesting times.  After some back and forth, Ziggler challenges Rollins to a match.  If he’s all that and a bag of chips, them going for a round shouldn’t hurt, right?  Rollins' ego requires that he accepts and so, we have our main event for the night.

Up next, we have the Divas Championship match between Nikki Bella and Naomi.  Well, The Bellas have been kinda quiet of late but the Naomi drama has been well circulated and we all expected it to play out.  The match itself was actually fairly solid.  The ladies of WWE are showing that they can in fact wrestle, Naomi definitely has the athletic prowess to go far.  Yet, as things started to get a little tough for our underdog heroine, The Miz appears at ringside to offer support.  Interesting, our tame Heel seems to have his heart in the right place.  That doesn’t deter Jimmy Uso though, who does come out and offer The Miz up another 5-finger sandwich and another warning to stay away from his wife.  With Naomi distracted, Nikki simply does the smart thing and rolls her up to retain the title.  And so, there you have it.  With the title lost due to Jimmy Uso’s involvement, where does that leave their relationship? Drama sold.

After that, Dad (Kane) comes out to squash Adam Rose and The Bunny again.  I love Dad but I can see that these matches serve little to no point other than giving these guys screen time.  I say, have Dad squash a few other similarly booked guys. Build the fear again.  Maybe he can move on and use Fandango as a mop too, or Heath Slater, you know…whoever.

Anyway, we then arrive at our main event, Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler.  They put on a fine match.  These 2 do know what they’re doing and I’m sure the WWE is thankful for that because they need all the pluses they can get at the moment. Regardless of good wrestling, Rollins always has his buddies in J & J Security at his side and they do their best to mess Ziggler up and take dirty shots, so much so that they get ejected by the referee to Rollins' ultimate dismay.  Everyone knows he feels naked without 2 other men flanking him and he desperately argues with the ref to rescind his declaration.  Well, this is the perfect opening for Ziggler and he pulls off a ZigZag for the win.  You can’t say Ziggler isn’t pulling his weight. So, who isn't?

See You Tonight,

-Nicole Alexis (^_~)