This Juice Tastes Like Sh*t! Someone's Looking 4 a SmackDown...

How Goes It, Enthusiasts?

Well, last night was…like RAW can be at times, a bit of a mess with shining glimmers of hope here and there.  Last night’s saving grace came in the form of the opener, surprise-surprise.  Jeff Hardy finished out the “impromptu” Battle Royal with quite the flourish and is now in the Intercontinental Title hunt with The Miz.  That could actually be a fun back and forth and that goes down next RAW.  Looking forward to it. 

Besides that, we had the inevitable showdown between John Cena and Roman Reigns and Cena definitely displayed his veteran status in this exchange where the bane of Reigns’ existence, promos, continue to plague him.  Now, since We know Reigns isn’t a natural on the mic, I can forgive this but it’s the tone I’m not feeling.  As much as there is a sense of tension and rivalry, there’s nothing story-wise to base it on.  It’s just what it is, the New Kid vs. the Old Hand.  The tone they’re utilizing to get us amped requires more head-to-head bouts, actual contests where drama was had.  Unless this is the lead up, I’m not sure why they’re acting like this is the some big rivalry where there’s something outside of street-cred at stake, especially when they’re arbitrarily served up Anderson & Gallows in a tag-team match.  And the match was sloppy to boot.  I’ll just say this.  If I were trying to sell these encounters, I’d make them either funnier or dicey-er.  Either have their exchanges be lighter and more tongue in cheek or have more on the line.  Like if Reigns loses at No Mercy, he loses a title shot or can’t perform at WrestleMania or some other consequence perceived as a “heavy stipulation”.  As is, We the Audience are just seeing if this works or not.  I’m not sure we care if it crashes and burns.  I’m sure the lot of us expects it to.

Anyway, that leaves SmackDown, to do its usual job of maintaining hope and credibility for this uncertain profession/genre.  The potential points of interest are the debut of Shelton Benjamin with Chad Gable but, with Hurricane Harvey having made landfall and Benjamin with relations in Texas, his debut may get postponed to a later date.  Also, this Bobby Roode is strutting around making things “GLORIOUS!”  The gimmick is a little too old school for my blood but I respect the response he gets.  In addition, Dolph Ziggler finally starts getting some TV time again and we’ll see what he’s gonna do with it.  I’ve noticed he’s been going back to the salon to get those touch-ups so it’s back to being the quintessential douche but, will he do it so well we’ll love it anyway?  Could be what ends up happening.  He continues to impress.  Let’s see what we get.  Funny tweets get retweeted and Likes/Favorites will do what they do.  They can’t really be harnessed as so much allowed an “open door” policy.

See You in a Bit

-Nicole Alexis (^_~)

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