After one of the best Raw’s of 2016, WWE once again delivered with a very good episode of SmackDown. WWE have been putting a lot more emphasis on SmackDown since the show’s move back to the USA Network.
This week’s SmackDown produced some great wrestling and quite a bit of story progression. Baron Corbin continued his journey on the main roster while Enzo & Cass made their main roster in-ring debut. The show also included a great main-event between Sami Zayn and Chris Jericho amongst other things. Here are 5 things to take away from this week’s SmackDown:
5: Paige is a jobber now?
Something’s been off with Paige in recently. From her appearance on the WrestleMania pre-show divas match as part of team Total Divas, to her recent demeanor to the way Emma dominated her before beating her easily, it all screams jobber. Paige is in a position that someone as talented as her shouldn’t be. She belongs with Charlotte, Sasha and Becky at the forefront of the Women’s Wrestling revolution.
At 23 years of age, she’s already accomplished more than many wrestlers do in their entire career. She was the inaugural NXT Women’s Champion and holds the record for longest NXT Women’s Championship title reign at 308 days. She’s also a former 2 time Divas champion and at one time held both the NXT Women’s Championship and the Divas Championship at the same time.
Hopefully, Paige will overcome her recent woes and get pushed back into the title picture soon. She’s too talented to be wasted.
4: Enzo & Cass cut a terrible promo
I want to begin by clarifying that I’m a huge fan of Enzo & Cass and I think they’re incredibly talented, both on the mic and in the ring and have a great dynamic. With that being said, Enzo & Cass’ promo on SmackDown wasn’t very good. Firstly, will Enzo introduce himself and Big Cass during their entrance every week? Even though its very good and sets them apart from other tag teams in the division, I see that getting tiresome within a couple of months.
The promo that followed the introduction was long, winding and confusing at parts. They had the crowd with them for a while, but as the promo went on, their interest waned. Apart from that a part of their promo was exactly the same as promos they cut on NXT last December.
By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, Enzo’s pants had an emoticon for poop on the back. Yes, you read that right, his pants had an emoticon for poop on them. Why Enzo why?
3: AJ Styles & Alberto Del Rio have a great match
As the weeks go by, AJ Styles is looking like a bigger and bigger star. He’s having great matches on a weekly basis and crowd reactions are getting even louder. He carries himself like the main event star that he is and fans treat him like one.
Following his brilliant match with Sami Zayn on Raw, AJ faces Alberto Del Rio on Smackdown. Del Rio is so much more interesting when his League of Nations brothers aren’t with him. The League of Nations is a faction that just isn’t working.
Styles and Del Rio started the match with a series of back and forth and they matched each other move for move. Del Rio’s kicks in the match looked and sounded absolutely devastating. WWE really dropped the ball on Del Rio since his return last year. He’s one of the best wrestlers on that roster today.
There was a scary moment later in the match when Del Rio gave AJ a reverse top rope inverted superplex and AJ’s foot got stuck in the corner and he ended up landing on his neck. Thankfully he wasn’t seriously injured. The match ended when AJ reversed Del Rio’s cross armbreaker into a roll up and got the pin.
2: The Vaudevillans are the next Ascension
The Vaudevillians have had two matches since their promotion to the main roster last week. They’ve failed to impress on both occasions. They’re both good wrestlers, their gimmick is truly unique, but its just isn’t working for them so far. Their offense doesn’t look very devastating and their double-team finisher ‘The Whirling Dervish’ doesn’t look impressive at all. Both endings to both their matches have been anti-climatic.
Even though Aiden English and Simon showed a lot more personality this week, their victory over Fandango and Goldust was met by silence from the SmackDown crowd. If they don’t turn things around soon they will soon find themselves in the position that The Ascension are in now. I shudder to say that my favorite part of this match was Goldust dancing with Fandango. That was bloody brilliant. Goldust deserves his own show on the WWE Network. He’s comedy gold.
1: A great main event / Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose on commentary
Sami Zayn took on Chris Jericho for the first time ever on the main event of SmackDown. Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose soon interrupted and they both made their way to the commentary table. The main event told two stories, Ambrose vs Jericho and the continuation of the Zayn and Owens rivalry.
Zayn and Jericho told the story in the ring while Owens and Ambrose furthered it on commentary. Owens and Ambrose were commentary gold. They played off each other brilliantly, and were engaging and entertaining. I can’t stress how highly I recommend that you go to YouTube and check out the match. Jericho and Zayn went back and forth for a while before Owens interrupted Zayn as he was about to finish Jericho of with his Helluva Kick. The match ended in DQ and Ambrose and Zayn came out on top in the following melee.
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