Csonka’s WWE Smackdown Review 5.28.15

Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.

Thursday Night Smackdown 5.28.15

OFFICIAL RESULTS
~ Lumber Jack Match: Sin Cara and Kalisto defeated Cesaro and Tyson Kidd @ 11:50 via pin [***½]
~ R-Truth defeated King Barrett @ 2:25 via pin [NR]
~ Ryback defeated Rusev @ 10:20 via DQ [**]
~ Paige defeated Naomi @ 3:16 via pin [*]
~ Reigns and Ambrose defeated Kane and Rollins @ 9:20 via DQ [**½]

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Opening Talking Segment: Story time with Dean Ambrose to kick off the show. He HAD JOKES and made Justin Bieber mentions for Rollins and then recapped the events of Raw and his arrest. He mentioned how he called Reigns, who bought him time so that he could make it to the arena. He promised to end Rollins’ reign of terror on Sunday, and then went all Teddy Long to make the same fucking match as we saw on Raw…

What are we going to do tonight Brain? The same thing we do every night Pinky, try and take over the world. In other words, the same old shit. Truly revolutionary writing here.

Sin Cara and Kalisto vs. Cesaro and Tyson Kidd: If you had to do a regular tag match these were the teams to put in there. Kidd & Cesaro are great, they are the perfect team to work with the Dragons, the match is fresh and we got really quality action. Kidd is the right size to work the style and keep up with the speed, while Cesaro is the ultimate base. They got the time, had a good match, a great pace and minimal interaction from the lumberjacks. Woods distracted Kidd, which led to Kalisto hitting Salida del Sol for the win. I think it could have been booked a bit better to maximize interest and to keep all the teams stronger, but the match was really good. I talked about this on Raw, but here it is again. More matches with the guys in the chamber match on Sunday. The more matches that they do makes me less and less interested in the match Sunday. I wish that they would have done like, a six-on-six match here and then had it break down (like the way they did on Raw) but not waste the time on Raw and just do it here. Run a good match, have some tensions and then it all break down. That way you don’t piss with the bullshit from Raw, which was set up poorly, and give them a feature here. Hell, I would have main evented this show with it to make the tag titles look important.

* Kane and Rollins talk about having to face Reigns and Ambrose again this week and Rollins isn’t thrilled. I agree. Kane says he has a plan to soften up Ambrose and to take out Reigns.

R-Truth vs. King Barrett: After R-Truth being a goof and worrying about spiders and ladders and such, they had him cut a promo an in box, completely serious promo about fear and the chamber. Maybe if I hadn’t seen him get humbled on Raw in under a minute I could care, it feels like damage control and it is too little too late. Barrett controlled 99% of the match, missed his finish and then walked into the lie detector and the loss. Commentary sold shock and surprise; apparently they forgot that Truth beat Barrett on the road to WrestleMania. Sheamus then hit the ring and brogue kicked them both, because he hates losers. So after R-Truth loses in under a minute on Raw, he comes back and beats Barrett here. Why? Because everyone beats King Barrett, that’s why. This is the second time he lost this week, so he’ll likely win the title Sunday, because WWE booking would think that makes sense. They have done an excellent job of making me not care about the IC Title chamber match on Sunday with their lazy and completely uninspired booking. I love Ron Killings, but Truth in this match makes NO SESNE. You should have had Neville in there to give him a chance to shine, or I would have had Orton in here. Orton accepts that he has to work from the bottom to get a world title shot and says the IC Title was his path to the title the first time and will do it again. It adds star power to the match and importance to the title.

* Lana talks to Renee about her separation from Rusev. She thought he changed, but she was wrong. She is no man’s property. When Renee asked about Dolph, she says she has no relationship with him. Rusev appears and says he already had his way with Ziggler, and was spectacular as he mocked him for not being here. They totally did the couple that broke up and tries to act completely fine in front of each other, but inside they still have the feels. This was good.

Rusev vs. Ryback: This was a bog old hoss battle, and there is nothing wrong with that. These guys have worked together in the past and done well. Rusev got injured when he went to the floor, not Ryback’s fault as some reports claimed. He was noticeable hobbled the rest of the match, but they still put together a solid outing. Rusev was really limping badly so they went to the floor and did a DQ finish (Rusev posting Ryback twice) to get out of the match. We saw that Rusev was in a walking boot and in a wheelchair at the airport and WWE.com has acknowledged the injury and he may not go at the PPV. They tried, but the injury really hampered them. Also, more matches where guys facing at the PPV face off again making the Chamber show not feel as important as it should.

Paige vs. Naomi: Naomi got the advantage by posting Paige’s arm and then actually followed up and worked the arm. Paige then made her comeback and didn’t sell the arm. She took out Tamina and then hit the Ram-Paige for the win. Well they got half of the arm work correct, but this was way too rushed to try and effectively work a body part, so poor layout by the agent here. So lets play catch up shall we? On Monday Paige lost to Tamina (in a horrible match) for no reason, because why make someone in the title match look good as a contender. And now to balance the scales, we have Naomi lose here. So now both ladies that are challenging for the title lose the week of the show. Please explain to me how this booking helps anyone. I’ll wait…

Kevin Owens Talks: Michael Cole interviewed Kevin Owens. Owens was really good here, noting that he had been in wrestling for 15-years, that he’d dominate Cena. He ran down Cena’s accolades and mocked his bad shirts. Owens said that Cena was the one that had something to prove at Elimination Chamber. He came off completely confident here, and then showed what he did to Sami Zayn to prove that he knows how to end a fight. He added that if he would do this to his best friend, what would he do to Cena? This was good work by Owens.

Reigns and Ambrose vs. Kane and Rollins: As always, J&J got involved and that allowed Kane and Rollins to control most of the match. Rollins and Ambrose worked the majority, they got a good hot tag to Reigns and Reigns looked to have it won when J&J ran in for the DQ. Yup. We had a big brawl, a dive by Ambrose and then Kane called out New Day. They attacked Ambrose, and then Reigns hit his wacky dive to wipe out a pile of bodies. Ambrose laid out Woods and Bog E, and the Reigns took out Kofi and Big E, making the tag champions look like shit heading into their big match Sunday. Kane and Rollins returned and took out Reigns and that led to Rollins hitting the pedigree on Ambrose to stand tall.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”

5.5

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

The Owens promo and tag opener is all you have to see here, the rest of the show felt lazily booked and was not that good wrestling wise. They had put together a few good weeks of Raw, and had some decent ideas here, but the show did nothing for me overall. It felt lazy, like they ran out of ideas and did next to nothing to sell Sunday’s show. It was an uninspired effort to head into a big show.