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As I said in yesterday’s article, I really hate beach balls. Who pays hundreds of dollars to attend a WWE show and cheer a beach ball? If you don’t like wrestling, don’t go to wrestling.
After four straight days of WWE shows in Brooklyn, I guess I cannot blame fans for being just a little tired. That being said, the post-Summerslam shows usually provide some nice moments and fun surprises that wrestling fans should enjoy.
While Raw’s biggest surprise was Cena showing up, Smackdown did a much better job of providing fun surprises and exciting new directions for the blue brand. While the beach balls were annoying, when the loud crowd was truly interested in last night’s show, it made the bigger moments of Smackdown seem all that more special.
With all of this in my thoughts, I present my list of the top five most surprising moments of the Smackdown After Summerslam 2017:
#5 Lack of Summerslam wrestlers
One of the blessings and curses of Smackdown is the length of the show. It certainly isn’t a drag to watch a two-hour show. However, it leads to vast portions of the Smackdown roster vanishing from the show for weeks at a time. That has to be frustrating for those talents to do nothing on a weekly basis. Poor Luke Harper.
However, this week made even less sense in the excluding of talent who wrestled at Summerslam itself. Rusev, Randy Orton and The New Day were all absent from Smackdown last night.
The New Day had an excellent match and are among the most popular talents on the blue brand. Why would they not be out demanding their rematch on the very next show?
Randy Orton vanishing for no logical reason seemed very surprising; to see the WWE ignore wrestlers who provided matches at one of your biggest pay-per-views with no logical reason given, was disappointing.
Hopefully, this will be addressed in the next Smackdown.
#4 Dolph Ziggler returns
Dolph likes to complain to Dasha
One of the superstars that had vanished for months without any logical explanation was Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler had been twisting in the wind with no real direction and maybe that was a good thing. His surprise appearance last night could lead to a unique potential direction for his character going forward.
He spent a lot of his backstage interview last night venting his frustration. He was frustrated about being brought back to just a backstage interview; he was angry his wrestling talent was put on the back burner for other non-wrestling gimmicks.
He insulted Elias, Naomi and Aiden English as he vented his frustration for his lack of push. They started with his frustrated character a few months ago but it got stalled in his mini-feud with Shinsuke Nakamura and then he simply vanished.
I don’t know what this new frustrated Ziggler character truly means but it was a fun surprise to think of the possibilities going forward. The show is better with this talented wrestler.
#3 Shelton Benjamin
So I guess Chad Gable likes forming tag teams with former amateur wrestlers?
One of the better moments of Smackdown was seeing Shelton Benjamin return to the blue brand after a seven-year absence from the WWE. He is a great worker who fits in really well into the wrestling heavy show. It was a nice surprise to see Benjamin formed into an immediate tag team with Chad Gable.
The Smackdown tag division is in desperate need of fresh teams and both wrestlers have shown the ability over the years to provide some great tag team wrestling. It should be a fun few months to come for Benjamin.
#2 Shane screws Kevin Owens
You know Kevin Owens has a point. He really has had Shane McMahon treat him in ways other talents have not been treated on a weekly basis. I guess the only thing really making Owens a heel at this point is that he is really whiny.
One of the bigger shocks of the night was seeing Shane getting directly involved in the WWE match. How often do authority figures get directly involved in matches as they occur? In reality, Baron Corbin was doing nothing wrong when he was doing the count for the Owens-Styles match when Shane McMahon.
Having Shane pull Corbin out of the ring and becoming the ref himself certainly adds a lot of justification to Owens' anger going forward. I am ready for an Owens-McMahon feud.
#1 A Glorious debut
If there is one major benefit to a loud, post-Summerslam crowd is it makes debuts more special. Bobby Roode’s debut seemed like the big deal it should have been because of that loud crowd.
We have seen many NXT stars fail with lesser crowds so it was great to see a loud crowd singing “Glorious” as Bobby Roode had his debut match.
It was great to see the WWE put Roode on Smackdown. Judging by his reaction, he could actually be a face for the blue brand. With the smaller roster, he will have a chance to be 'Glorious' on Tuesdays for years to come.
