Smack Down Review (2021-12-10)

We start the show with Sami Zayn, he comes out in a wheelchair leg and neck brace, he also has 2 of the buffest “nurses” I’ve ever seen with him Pat Mcafee said the same!

We get a video package of last week’s happenings, Sami comes to the ring and claims he’s the toughest man in WWE as it took the 2 most dominant wrestlers in WWE history to put him in this state, He claims it was a conspiracy that they worked together and he was betrayed, he goes on to claim that he is going to sue everyone involved in robbing him of his Universal championship chance. As he’s saying this we get a new voice over the mic, and it's Paul Heyman he says he’s sorry that the audience have had to put up with Sami Zayn so far.

Sami and Paul have a bit of back and forth over the microphone, Sami says he knows that Roman isn’t here tonight, then starts making threats towards Paul.

BROCKS LESNARS MUSIC HITS

He goes and gets a chair before making his way into the ring, he opens the chair in the middle of the ring takes Paul Heymans microphone and sits down. Brock and Sami have some back in forth on the microphone, he says he apologises for last week.. Brock asks Sami if he really thinks he was going to beat Roman and says he did him a favour last week because he was never going to win, invites Sami to go hunting with him, Brock starts intimidating Sami into doing as he’s said, Sami doesn’t want to as he’s vegan so Brock starts wheeling him away, Paul Heyman takes the mic back from Brock and asks Brock what he’s doing, and says Brocks gone soft. Brock attacks Sami’s nurses then kicks Sami out of his wheelchair, before delivering a F5.

Brock is so much better on the microphone than he’s ever been!

This was a nice little segment to start the show, it was nice to see something that wasn’t your usual down the line promo!

Kayla catches up with Brock backstage, and says what was the purpose of you coming to the stage, he says “why don’t you ask my advocate, Paul Heyman”

Next up

Los Lotharios vs Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs

Boogs and Humberto start in the ring, Boogs has both of Los Lotharios in the ring and shows his strength by lifting them both above his head one at a time, he tags in Shinsuke who hits a very badly delivered Kinshasa… 123

Winners: Nakamura and Boogs

The less said about this match the better, pointless, didn’t flow, didn’t look like a worthy finisher to put someone down for a 3 count. One of the most Pointless matches I’ve watched in a long time, just feels like they tried to shoehorn Boogs and Nakamura in because of the entertainment value.

We go backstage and there is something under a purple sheet that a bunch of the Smackdown roster are surrounding, Kofi isn’t letting anyone look at what it is…

We have a small promo about the main event before Kofi starts talking in a bad British accent and unveils a new crown for King Woods, Woods does a promo about the main event also in a British accent in his “king” speech, and gets everyone to chant Huzzah, including Pat Mcafee, made me laugh at least.

We have a video package of the last 2 weeks of Drew McIntyre’s happenings over the last couple of weeks.

Firstly him being left out of the battle royal, then him asking where Adam Pierce was last week.

Next we have Adam sitting at his desk on his phone, he looks up to see Drew at his office with Angela, he tells Drew that the battle royal was chosen by a “higher authority” and also that he’s not allowed to take Angela the Claymore to the ring with him tonight, Drew stabs the sword into Adams desk.

Sheamus is out next for his match with Drew, Cesaro is watching backstage on a screen!

Sheamus vs Drew McIntyre

He does indeed come out without his trusty claymore, he comes down to the ring and squares off with

Sheamus and slaps his strange little cane out of his hand, Sheamus tells the Ref to ring the bell and they start brawling in the middle of the ring. They have some typical heavyweight back and forth, Sheamus goes for the 10 beats and only gets one before Drew reverses and gets 4 beats of the bell, before Sheamus reverses and gets all 10 before hitting some moves on the outside,

We go to break, when we come back Sheamus hits the Irish curse for a 2 count and goes for white noise, Drew reverses into the future shock DDT and goes for a Claymore, Sheamus jumps up and hits Drew with a running knee for a 2 count. Sheamus starts doing Drew’s taunts before going for the Brogue kick, Drew dodges and gets a roll up for a 2 count, Sheamus gets a kick in the stomach and up onto his shoulders, Drew hits a Glasgow kiss, Sheamus also hits a head-butt of his own, he Irish whips Drew into a corner, Drew bounces off the corner and uses the momentum to hit the Claymore for the 3 count.

Winner: Drew McIntyre

The quality of these 2 always shines through, they will always have good matches, hard-hitting heavyweight action that flows better than usual heavyweight matches. It’s better than some other things that WWE put on a Midcard, Hornswoggle comes to mind, but did we really need to see this match again? It feels like we’ve seen it so many times before!

We go backstage and Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss steal Adam Pearce’s desk that still has Angela the Claymore in it.

Next is a nice video package for Jack Lanza the WWE hall of famer who sadly passed away this Wednesday

Next up

BRING IT TO THE FLOOR.

Naomi comes out and she feels the glow

First Kayla catches up with Paul to ask about Brocks earlier comments, he tries to avoid the question before Kayla asks Paul how he thinks Roman will react to that. He walks away, genuinely think it’s one of the best feuds right now.

Naomi vs Sonya Deville

We have a video package of their feud this far..

Naomi has the microphone in the ring and calls Sonya out, Sonya’s music hits and she’s actually wearing ring gear!

Sonya asks for a microphone and says she has a couple of surprises, guest announcer Natalya, and Guest timekeeper; Shayna Baszler, Naomi goes and attacks Nattie and Shayna before getting back in the ring, Sonya runs away and regroups the 3 of them to coordinate an attack on Naomi.

Music Hits

The protector is here, Xia Li finally debuts! Xia Li and Naomi take out Nattie and Baszler, Sonya gets a slap from Naomi and a Kick from Xia before being dragged to the corner by Naomi but Shayna pulls Sonya out the ring!

I think this was pretty predictable that’s what was going to happen with Xia Li, it was a pretty predictable segment, but it’s nice to see Xia finally debut, she’s already done more than Aaliyah!

Next, we go backstage with RKBRO, and Matt wants to introduce Randy to some of his friends, it’s the Jackass crew!

He asks Knoxville for some advice and he says he has a move for them called the hook and ladder before grabbing Dave England by the crotch.

He asks Randy if he has anything to say,

Randy replies with a blunt “no” once again

Next up

Charlotte flair vs Toni Storm

Champions contender match!

Charlotte starts fast and throws Toni to the floor, Toni reverses goes to bounce of the ropes by changes direction before hitting a basement dropkick, looked really cool, she then drives Charlotte face first off the corner, Charlotte gets a reversal before Toni again gets a very nice looking cross body off the

ropes, Toni continues to attack but Charlotte gets a reversal and goes for her moonsault, Toni moves and Charlotte flips again and tries to get a pin fall, but Toni is laying on her front… whoops, she flips her over and gets a 1 count

She attacks Toni’s legs next then goes for the figure 4, Toni reverses into a roll up for a 2 count before getting up and hitting a German suplex, Charlotte gets stacked for a 2 count, she then rolls to the apron and attacks Toni on the apron, she stamps on Toni on the apron and gets disqualified… she puts Toni back in the ring and hits a big boot she taunts and disrespects Toni.

Winner: Toni storm

By

Disqualification

I thought Toni looked really good in that match, their chemistry together isn’t great if I’m honest, there was a boot in the corner that Charlotte “sells” far too early and the Moonsault bit looked horrendous.

It seems like they don’t really know what to do with this feud, it seems like a very flimsy storyline and that they want Toni involved in the title picture and in a feud with Charlotte but they don’t have any story and don’t want Charlotte to lose at all along the way so they have to have her get disqualified by beating on Toni. Hope I’m wrong and this storyline picks up but at the minute it’s not great.

Next up

THE

MAIN EVENT

UUUUSSOOO

The USOs are out for their main event match!

First Brock is backstage with Adam Pearce, Adam looks terrified and Brock is intimidating him, asks him if he remembers the suspension and million dollar fine, and says he never got to thank Adam for it.

Pulls out a Motorola flip phone to show Adam a picture of a moose he caught hunting while suspended, he then proceeds to explain in vivid detail about how he killed the moose and carries on intimidating Pearce saying the Moose was named after Adam.

Bit of a strange promo, both did okay in it and I get what they’re going for in the sense that they’re trying to push Brocks gimmick as a sort of redneck Canadian hunter and still keep him an intimidating brute. Wasn’t a bad segment, I’ve seen much much worse, but like I said just a bit strange.

The Usos get microphones, they say they don’t care about Woods new crowns and they don’t care about RKBro, they just care about getting the W tonight then again at Day 1 and that “we the ones” they go to continue with more typical Uso stuff.

IT’S A NEW DAY YES IT IS

Kofi and Woods come down and Woods has got his new crown on!

Lastly

I HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD BROOOO

RKBro are out last!

The USOs vs The New Day vs RKBro

Who is the best tag team in WWE?

Riddle and Kofi begin, takes Kofi down early looking for the arm bar, Kofi gets out of the hold, they lock up before Kofi hits a second rope dropkick, Kofi gets a tag, and New Day hit a tag team move,

Xavier and Riddle trade blows in the middle of the ring, Woods hits a running kick for a 2 count, Riddle starts to fight back before they hit an elbow each on each other, Jey tags himself in and the Usos take out Riddle, Kofi and Woods and the Usos hit a suicide dive, Kofi hits a cross body on Jey off the top rope, he then has Jey in an arm submission before Riddle tags himself in for Kofi, he gets a power slam and Riddle gets a 2 count on Jey, Jimmy tags himself in and the USOs tag team riddle before Randy comes to Riddles rescue, the USOs take advantage of the ref not looking and then continue to dominate Riddle in their corner hitting a few double team moves.

Jey mocks riddle and Orton before getting Riddle in a cross face, Jeys main concern is not letting Randy tag in, Riddle gets driven back into the Uso corner another tag and Jimmy tries to continue the domination, Riddle gets a reversal and attempts to get the hot tag but Jey drags Orton off the apron, Riddle manages to get some reversals on the USOs, Kofi tags in off Jimmy and takes out Orton, Xavier gets tagged in and they continue the attack on Riddle, Xavier attempts a few pinfalls in between generally beating on Riddle, none successful. Woods takes Riddle to the floor and the New Day hit another double tag team move, but Riddle gets a couple of reversals again and this time Riddle does get the hot tag, Randy gets in and hits his snap powerbomb, the USOs try to attack Orton by dragging out the ring when he attempts the draping DDT, he bounces the USOs and the New day off the announce table before getting back in the ring and hitting the draping DDT on Jey, he then coils to strike with a RKO but it gets reversed into a roll up attempt for a 2 count…. And breathe,

Jey then hits a superkick and goes up for a frogsplash, Randy moves into the corner Xavier tags in off Randy, Randy attempts a RKO on Jey gets pushed off and hits the RKO on Jimmy instead, Jey hits a superkick on Randy again and he rolls out the ring, Jey is focused on Randy, he gets a superkick from Xavier before the New day tag team finisher and Kofi gets the 3 count… and the only team without a tag belt are now the best tag team in wwe..

Winners: The New Day

Wow! What a match!

The match flowed amazingly all the way through there was constant action and consistency with tags in and out, RKBro really got shown up as far as a tag team work goes in this match.

They both did amazingly separately but they aren’t on the level as a tag team yet,

But a great triple threat tag team match!

And as I always like to see a couple of finishers and a clean pin!

My Rating for this show

5.5/10

Another average show helped massively by a fantastic match to finish off.

The show felt like it lacked some direction with Roman missing if I’m honest, it really is the Bloodline show!

The Shinsuke match was utterly pointless I don’t understand what they’ve achieved by putting that in and not just making the other matches longer.

The Naomi and Sonya segment was good but I think I would have preferred to see some of a match before it broke down into what it did, but it was good nonetheless. Nice to see Xia Li debut finally I hope they have a decent long or even medium-term plan for her.

This was marginally better matches wise than last week

But not nearly as good for story. Other than whoever has creative control of Roman the Raw creative seems to be much better for overall stories right now. The Brock and Sami stuff is a bit strange, might be a decent way to keep Brock away from Roman for a while but I think they’re waiting to pull the trigger on Roman Vs Drew which is what I think we’re all waiting to see in all honesty!

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