okay went out and took another for the team and poison-tested SD...
There's one GLARING negative towards the show, and it's the same one Impact had... Look what was advertised for this. "Smackdown! New channel! New time (I think)! New start! Check out our sweet ads! John Cena's showing up! Two title matches! Big grudge matches, too! The spoilers show Kalisto vs ADR, too! Check it out!"... and what did people actually give a shit about? "Dude, we've gotta check out Smackdown for Mauro Ranallo! Man, Mauro's joining? Yo Jim, do you think Mauro can save SD?" Yep, promote all that stuff in advance and everyone was excited about A COMMENTATOR.
That says something. Fans. Want. Something. New.
That's the issue both shows that changed networks this week had, because whatever you thought of them as standalone shows, they offered NOTHING to make you think anything was changing. Smackdown will still be Smackdown (personally I'm OK with that, because being able to say "lolSmackdown" at pointless stuff makes is why I started watching).
So, how was the new commentary team? Well... better and worse. Mauro called moves! Lots of them! After almost every move he was there to yell what it was which was nice, and meshed really well with Lawler's simple reactions to stuff. The problem was they made the massive downgrade from Booker T's entertaining incoherence to Byron Saxton, who now is on every single WWE show. Why? He's Black Mike Tenay. And to nitpick (since this was likely over the headset) Mauro yelling "This is how much the Intercontinental Championship means to these men!" after a double countout? Nice try, but come on son!
Line of the Night: "Your name is too hard to pronounce, tell you what: I had an old partner named J.R, can I just call you M.R.?.. I guess Byron that makes you B.S."
As a show on it's own, this was a quality 7/10 episode that's worth going out of your way to see that the spoilers tell you absolutely nothing about. "WTF 4 MATCHES? Y U DO DIS" because you'd rather have 4 matches with time than 7 5-minute snoozefests, shut it marks.
Good stuff: First of all, Becky had a backstage interview where she was PISSED about how she was screwed over by her friend during a friendly fight and wanted to kill Charlotte. THANK YOU. Then Charlotte and Becky had the best women's match - at least that I've seen - since the NXT girls were called up. They had a match with some much-needed intensity, as you'd expect Becky to as she's trying to in her first title opportunity against the chick who stabbed her in the back. Not as much as you'd like maybe, but thank you for some freaking effort here! BUT, lets have things PROGRESS from here. WWE struggles with followups sometimes, and after being screwed over by Flair AGAIN, at Royal Rumble Becky needs to find an equalizer. Tease us - or just announce - that someone will be in HER corner to guarantee a fair match. Becky managed by Sting? Sign me up.
Also good: Owens trolling Renee and her watch
Probably even better was the main event. The wrestling purist in you will be plenty satsified at a 15 minute Ambrose/Owens match that was a lot better than the triple threat on Super Smackdown, probably their best match yet. They had one of those matches where they started with a few rest holds and relatively smart-all-things-considered brawling on the outside before eventually getting to trading big moves and massive counters until Ambrose slung KO into the crowd and said "Screw this" and went flying off the barricade for the countout, which didn't halt the brawl at all... This was good stuff, and as someone smarter than I pointed out, they still left the door open for a better rematch given how great both guys are + an actual finish.
Kalisto vs ADR mostly took place during a commercial - go figure - and while the Long Boring 12 Minute Promo was the most pointless pandering shit ever (Maybe I won't miss you John), Cena should stick around as a manager, haha. He really cared about getting the crowd into this and into Kalisto... Sad that the story they told was that ADR was distracted by Cena even though there was no way in hell that should count as a distraction finish lol, but it came across like a big win for the lil' dude. What we saw of the match was actually pretty nice and... Oh my goodness, I got through a whole Smackdown without Del Rio pissing me off once! Yay! (Although they should get him a T-shirt or something lol)
Bad stuff was just that middle portion between Miz TV (no matter how much I love Miz getting interrupted over and over), but they really are running the R-Truth joke into the ground. One too many times this time, but Goldust munching on Xavier's popcorn was entertaining. Match was filler, Dolph attacking everyone doesn't matter.
AND I TRIED TO MAKE IT SHORT THIS TIME :downer:
