Previously on the Best and Worst of Friday Night Smackdown: We celebrated The Holidays™ with Mandy Rose giving Otis a ham and a kiss on the cheek and getting covered in sweat for it. Also, Daniel Bryan and The Miz became a tag team. But can they co-exist? Yes.
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How To Fill Two Hours When You’ve Only Announced Two Matches
So, this week’s announced main event was a number one contender triple threat involving Daniel Bryan, The Miz, and King Constable to see who’ll be the next to get no-sold and throttled under The Fiend’s red light of doom. The only other thing they’d announced was Lacey Evans in a talk show segment, so they turned one match into three. You can’t really call it a “bait and switch” since they eventually did the match as announced, but they certainly dragged it out.
The show opened (beyond a passing appearance from Elias) with Daniel Bryan walking to the ring to have the match, only to be interrupted by King Corbin. Corbin knows how Smackdown’s supposed to work: you’re supposed to start the episodes with a boring recap of the past few weeks and some low-effort crowd work until someone shows up and briefly fights you. Then you go to commercial while Michael Cole screams about how exciting it is, and then you announce a main event for later, then you do an entire episode of Smackdown, and then you wrestle. Where did you learn how WWE works, Daniel?
Later, with King Corbin refusing to compete due to the presence of a big dog, they do about two minutes of Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz. It ends in a no contest when Corbin’s “security” team attacks both guys and gets the match thrown out. It turns out Corbin actually DOES want to compete, and somehow manages to reinsert himself into a match he’d previously bailed on that’s already over. Can you do that? Is Corbin still an authority figure, somehow? Didn’t he lose those powers? Furthermore, is anybody in charge paying attention to this phalanx of random civilians Baron Corbin’s using to attack people? Could Daniel Bryan have organized all those people who got in the ring to “Occupy Raw” into a fighting force and had them do run-ins on people he doesn’t like? And while we’re on that topic, couldn’t Baron Corbin have a posse of, you know, actual WWE Superstars who need exposure and TV and in-ring time to do this stuff? If not, could we cut one or two of these 15 Baron Corbin segments to give those dudes a match?
Anyway, the main event finally happens (in the main event spot, funny enough) and Corbin isn’t even involved in the finish. Bryan taps out Miz, which we could’ve done at the top of the show or in the middle. It’s all good, though, as Daniel Bryan’s the only guy who really made sense as Wyatt’s next opponent. Bryan faces The Fiend because of the whole Ripping Out His “Entire Hair” thing like they’d originally scheduled at TLC, King Corbin gets stuck facing Roman Reigns in a TLC rematch, and The Miz continues his role as the guy who is really good at this but is stuck hosting talk show segments and doing fuck-all. I hope Bryan does better this time, even though I know he’s just gonna eat glove until he’s (once again) saved by … the BIG dog!
P.S. shout-out to WWE for setting up another scenario where people are mad that Reigns won the Royal Rumble instead of Bryan, because Bryan was busy fighting Bray Wyatt.
Worst:
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Worst: Must Be Something In The Water Or That I’m A Mother’s Daughter
Lacey Evans wants you to know that “the last thing you do is, mess, with, a, chi-yald.” Exspecially the “child of a mother.” So … everybody? The worst thing you can do is mess with anybody? Can I yell things at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s kid from Junior?
You know, I’ve written a lot about how funny slash concerning it is that Lacey Evans suddenly became a babyface when Smackdown moved to Fox, and how they positioned the blonde, white, “can I speak to your manager” lady as the hero against the Hispanic champ and her black best friend, but I think the saddest any of this has made me is watching Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross (who are doing absolutely nothing right now) nodding along in approval to Evans’ shtick.
This leads directly into a tag team match with Lacey teaming up with fellow Fox News correspondent Dana Brooke to take on Bayley and Banks. Banks takes it with a Bank Statement on Brooke, and I think everyone’s read of this is that the feud should probably be Evans vs. Banks if they’re doing it at all. Bayley feels like a total sidekick again, possibly due to everyone on the show calling her an ugly man-mom all the time, and Banks has better chemistry with both of the … uh, faces. I’m trying, guys. There’s gotta be some “expert analysis” for the lady who can barely wrestle getting her sixth push because she represents Traditional American Values. They should just go full Hulk Hogan with her and have her playing the guitar in front of Mt. Rushmore while fireworks go off.
He’s Going The Distance
♫ Smackdown Live is wilting, it’s on Fox All the Dolph Ziggler segments get me down Mandy left the cake out while backstage I don’t think Otis can take it ‘Cause his mom was nice to bake it And she’ll never have that recipe again Oh, no ♫
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Note: I assume Mandy Rose vs. Carmella was Graves’ Christmas gift. “Mella continues to build momentum.” Momentum toward what, we’ll never know.
Ali Looks To Build Momentum In 2020
Finally, here’s a promo from Mustafa Ali recapping his emotional roller coaster of a 2019 and setting his sights on a brighter 2020. I have to say, though, when he said, “I refuse to stay in the dark, I stand in the light!” and literally took a step forward from the darkness into some light while the music dramatically swelled, I might have laughed out loud. Really nailed that one, Smackdown Art Director.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
Harry Longabaugh
My theory is that Bryan’s NXT rookie has been off, training with the league of assassins. And the man that he thought was Steve Blackman was actually an imposter. And now that he has conquered that enemy, he can return to Smackdown to reclaim his legacy. Why do we fall, Master Carter? So we can get back up for chicks and America.
Bateman Begins. Coming in 2020.
Either that or he gets released and goes to NWA to tag with Eli Drake. One of those two.
AddMayne
Mandy’s “you will never look like me” taunt would work better if most of the women Smackdown babyfaces didn’t look like her
troi
that is exactly how i imagined Braun Strowman dancing
Mr. Bliss
“Miz has looked great for a couple of minutes” – Michael Cole summarizing Vince’s feelings about Miz’s entire career
The Real Birdman
Feel like you just could’ve thrown it and not messed up your shoe, but that’s why you’re Dolph Ziggler and why I hate you so
So we started with a triple threat, got cancelled, moved to Miz v Bryan, then that’s cancelled after interference, rebooked to the triple threat, which was lost to interference, bringing us back to Miz v Bryan
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Spitty
Expectations: Otis and Mandy go on a date. Unbeknownst to Mandy, Tucker and Sonya dress up as servers and whisper conflicting advice to Otis as they serve them. Otis cannot pick who to listen to, and hilarity ensues.
WWE Expectations: Mandy Yokos Heavy Machinery
Baron Von Raschke
Sees Sami in wrestling gear for this match….”Oh, well….At least Cesaro won’t take the pin tonight.”
/cries softly over my plate of sushi
Otis only pawn in game of life
FreewayKnight
Is this Vince’s way of saying ‘let them eat cake’
“If it’s good enough for Richard Jewell, it’s good enough for me!” — Boomers
That’s it for this week’s Smackdown, the final Smackdown of the year. The final Smackdown of the decade! I’ve been doing this too long. Anyway, drop down into our comments section below to let us know what you thought of the show, give us a share on social media to help us end the year strong, and join us again next week when my New Year’s resolution is, “try to be more positive and constructive about the shows.” Let’s see how long I can last*!
Sophia Michaels
