Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of Smackdown

How the 4Rs of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO times a week. We will group our feelings on the shows in various categories: The Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right is stuff that worked very well: a great promo, a great match and so on. PuRgatoRy is a section between the right and wrong. It shows equal traits from both sides that cannot be ignored and needs discussed. It is not a bad place per say, as things can get remedied or go the wrong way the very next week. The wRong is what it sounds like: bad matches, bad or boring promos and so on. The Ridiculous is stuff that had no right on TV: Stupid angles and so on. And there is always a possibility of a 5th R, which is as bad as they come. This column is supposed to be analytical, and at the right time very critical of the shows, it was the whole reason it was created. This is not a “mark” column, nor a “smark” column, our goal is to analyze the show from many different fronts, reward the good and call out the bad. We will not apologize for our opinions, they are as they are, whether positive or negative.

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By Daniel Clark
Smackdown 12.26.14
QUICK MATCH RESULTS:
* Ryback def. Kane at 2.10 by pinfall
* Naomi def. Alicia Fox at 3.17 by pinfall
* Adam Rose def. R Truth at 2.06 by pinfall
* Dean Ambrose def. Rusev at 12.46 by disqualification. Rusev retains the US Title
* Jimmy Uso def. The Miz at 3.07 by pinfall
* Roman Reigns and Dolph Ziggler def. Seth Rollins and the Big Show at 11.02 by pinfall

THE RIGHT:
Ryback vs. Kane: This was short and effective. If you trying to sell Ryback as a main event player, then having him run through Kane so quickly, despite their being a distraction from Rusev, is a good way to do it. Ryback and Kane have not shown that they have much chemistry in the ring and no-one really wants to see them wrestle a lengthy match, so just getting quickly to the point of a Ryback win works for everyone. Rusev and Kane then attack him afterwards and it allows Rusev to keep himself strong (and also set up his match with Ambrose later), and it adding to the heat between them so that eventually Ryback and Rusev will have an explosive match with both men trying to tear each other apart.

Adam Rose vs. R Truth: Following the brutal attack on the Bunny on Raw, Adam Rose seems to have a new attitude and is much more aggressive in his in-ring style, which fits the new-found change in him now that he has gotten rid of the Bunny. The result of this is that he gets a win quite quickly and gets his win back from Raw and for the first time, it looks as if he actually is getting some direction and some character development, particularly with him telling the Rosebuds to leave the ringside area before the match. He has turned from a pure party-animal to a brooding ass-kicker and this will mean that he is taken much more seriously as a threat. But, turning away from the comedy character means that if things do not work, then he will get lost in the shuffle totally. But, for the start of his ‘heel turn/attitude change’, this was a good way to kick it off.

Jimmy Uso vs. The Miz: Most of this match was taken up with angle advancement rather than actual wrestling, with the Miz trying his best to convince everyone and in particular Jimmy Uso that all that he is trying to do is help Naomi and advance her career rather than the motives that pretty much every thinks he has. And it was this that meant that the fact he lost cleanly in three minutes is not so a problem because he wasn’t trying to win the match. In the end Jimmy ignores his pleas and kicks him in the face and then hits the splash to get the win. The Miz continues to plead and act as if he is doing everything he can for Naomi and it is why the angle is working because on the face of things the Miz is right in all that he does and is doing his best to help Naomi. The next step is probably to have the Usos start to come around and think that the Miz is legitimate, which will only make the eventual betrayal and realize it is all a set up feel worse.

puRgatoRy:
Naomi vs. Alicia Fox: They had a match and Naomi won with a split-legged moonsault, but to be honest, there is not a lot else that can be said about it. The match was okay and perhaps went on a bit longer than you might have expected. Not a lot really happened in the match and Naomi continues to get wins and be positioned as a contender to the divas titles, but the fact that she hasn’t really been given a character/gimmick/reason for us to care about her is holding her back slightly.

Rusev vs. Dean Ambrose: Hulk Hogan setting up Dean Ambrose as the opponent for Rusev is the kind of thing that the face GM should be doing and it is got a good pop when he did come out, but as soon as he did you knew that there was no chance of the match having a clean ending and you knew that a DQ was coming, which did sort of hurt the match. The match was a pretty decent contest and Rusev and Ambrose both had their little touches that show that they know their characters so well, before the match spills out into a brawl on the outside, which leads to Bray Wyatt coming in and causes the DQ. Having lost a couple of matches, Ambrose thought got a little with of revenge by attacking him with the chair after the match, but given all the gimmick matches that they have already have, it is hard to see what kind of match fits next for them – I guess we are looking at a last man standing match, possibly at the Royal Rumble, as that is about the only thing that fits with these two just wanting to kill each other.

THE wRong:
Hulk Hogan starts the show: The opening segment with Hulk Hogan and Seth Rollins to open the show did give Rollins a bit of a rub as he managed to hold his own in the ring against Hogan and working with legends is never a bad thing. But the problem with this segment is that it went on for a long time without really heading anywhere, and was not particularly entertaining either. The way the show ended as well also made some of this segment seem fairly pointless as well. Rollins asks Hogan to endorse him as the future, but instead, he brings out someone else who he thinks is the future, that being Dolph Ziggler. And yet, at the end of the show, Rollins has lost another match and been pinned by Reigns instead of Ziggler. Nothing against Reigns, but if Hogan is going to endorse someone as the future, then it makes sense for them to win on that same show. Either Ziggler should have got the pin or Hogan should have said that Reigns is the future. All in all, this was a 15-minute opening promo that was okay without really saying anything and all it did was set up a tag team match which pretty much anyone could have seen coming.

Seth Rollins/The Big Show vs. Roman Reigns/Dolph Ziggler: The main event of the show never really got going until the last few minutes and was a long and slow match for the most part that given all the talent in the match, the crowd never were really interested in. It was not until Reigns got the hot tag that the match really picked up and became half-decent, but there was no reason for Seth Rollins to take another pinfall. He is the MITB holder and has been booked as the top heel in the company, yet since he beat John Cena last week on Raw, he has lost to Dolph Ziggler, John Cena and now Roman Reigns. I guess the reason he took the fall rather than the Big Show is because they are saving that for a later date when Reigns beats the Big Show in a match and the effect of that would be lost if he had already done it, but then, don’t book a match whereby Rollins has to lose again. It makes him out to be a constant loser which is not how the man who could at any stage become the next champion should look.

THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING

TOP 10 SMACKDOWN MATCHES OF THE YEAR:
1. The Shield vs. Daniel Bryan, Sheamus and Christian (14.02.14)
2. The Shield vs. Rey Mysterio, Sheamus and Daniel Bryan (31.01.14)
3. Dolph Ziggler vs. Cesaro vs. Tyson Kidd (14.11.14)
4. Cesaro vs. Sheamus (13.06.14)
5. Cesaro vs. Dean Ambrose (25.07.14)
6. Cesaro vs. Dolph Ziggler (24.10.14)
7. Cesaro vs. Randy Orton (14.02.14)
8. Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (17.10.14)
9. CM Punk and the Usos vs. The Shield (03.01.14)
10. Roman Reigns vs. Alberto Del Rio (25.07.14)

The 411:
A show that should have been better than it ended up being, partly because it was let down by a poor main event and a long segment that did not go anywhere to set it up. The tag team main event was a slow and ponderous match for the most part and although it picked up at the end, the fact that Seth Rollins ended up losing again leaves a slightly poor taste in the mouth and ostensibly he is the top heel on TV at the moment and yet cannot buy a win and is being made to look so weak that nobody’s victories over him are going to mean anything as everyone beats him. Roman Reigns and Dolph Ziggler are both in a position where they should not be losing random tag team matches so them winning the match is not a problem, but in reality, the Big Show, if anyone, should have taken the pinfall here. Except of course, he is kept strong for a match against Reigns that no-one really wants to see, so he cannot lose until then, so by booking this match, WWE have left themselves a position where no-one should lose and instead of booking the DQ finish (which for once would be the right move), they’ve given Rollins another defeat. Another match which was booked into a corner was the Rusev vs. Dean Ambrose match for the US title as there was absolutely no way that the match could possibly have any kind of ending which did make the end result of the DQ slightly predictable, and although the 12 minute match was fairly decent, perhaps given the obvious ending, could have been a little bit shorter. At least Ambrose though came out on top in the battle with Bray Wyatt after the match as he has suffered a lot of defeats to him in matches, but it is another ‘important’ match that Ambrose has failed to win. The rest of the show was fairly solid though. Ryback got a quick and dominant win over Kane, only to be attacked by Rusev afterwards, thus keeping a lot of attention of their feud (although again, when they do face off, neither man really can afford the loss). The Miz continues to try and convince the Usos that he is being genuine at that he is doing all he can to make Naomi a star, and essentially cost himself the match against Jimmy Uso by trying to talk to him instead of actually wrestling him, and it is the total committal from the Miz and Mizdow that is making the angle work. We also saw a new side to Adam Rose with him being a lot more aggressive since turning on the Bunny. All in all, this was a fairly decent show that did advance several angles, but the best parts of the show involved the least important angles, with the main event falling flat and not helping the people it needed to with Rollins, the current top heel, taking another pinfall.

Show Rating: 6.4

As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…

0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect

The 951st edition is over…

PILEDRIVER!