wrestling / Columns
Wrestling’s 4Rs: The Right, Wrong and Ridiculous of WWE Smackdown
How the 4Rs of wRestling Work!
Here is a quick explanation of the 4R’s. The column will run TWO-THREE 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.
SMACKDOWN 2.28.17
– 2 Out Of 3 Falls Match- Becky Lynch d. Mickie James [**]
– #1 Contender’s Match- AJ Styles d. Luke Harper [***]
– Dean Ambrose vs. Curt Hawkins Never Started [NR]
– Chairs Match- Dolph Ziggler d. Apollo Crews [**]
THE Right:
Miz TV with John Cena: Miz called out John Cena but immediately ordered Cena’s microphone to be cut off as he was going to release ten years of frustration. Miz claimed Cena was a master politician behind the scenes while Miz worked his ass off and was pushed aside, making him the other guy. He claimed Cena was jealous of him and is a hypocrite who ran The Rock down for going Hollywood only to do the exact same thing. Miz said Cena went from Super Cena to just barely decent Cena and now Miz is doing what he used to do, doing the media appearances and trying to make Smackdown the must see show. Miz claimed Cena took away Ric Flair’s milestone like he took Miz’s chance to main event WrestleMania. He jumped Cena after his elimination from the battle royal so Cena could feel his pain and frustration that he has felt for years. Cena said Miz was saying the same damn thing everyone else had been saying about him for years because it was easy to do. Cena said Miz stole from the likes of The Rock, Chris Jericho, Ric Flair & Daniel Bryan in order to make his name. Cena said while Miz blames others, Cena stands up and keeps fighting. Cena warns Miz not to press him again; otherwise he’s a dead man. Maryse told him that he can’t walk away unless they tell him he could. Maryse slapped Cena but Cena said she made a big mistake, bringing out Nikki Bella so Miz & Maryse quickly bailed into the crowd. Nikki promised to break Maryse. This segment probably went a bit too long but overall I thought it was a very strong segment. Miz killed it here, cutting an excellent promo that did a great job conveying his reasoning, right or wrong, for costing Cena the battle royal last week. The verbal back and forth between the two was great and the ending of the segment was perfect for bringing Maryse and Nikki into the fold without going overboard. We are off to a great start for this mixed tag team program.
puRgatoRy:
2 Out of 3 Falls- Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James: Lynch caught James with a baseball slide and they went right into a commercial break. They came back and Micke worked over the head and neck of Lynch. Lynch cleaned house but James cut her off with a flatliner into the corner. MickieDT got the 3 count and James went up 1-0. James cut off another Lynch comeback with a flapjack and she went up top. She leaped but Lynch moved and she rolled James up for 3, tying it at 1-1. Lynch hit an exploder suplex which brought out Alexa Bliss. She distracted the ref while James charged at Lynch but she missed and knocked Bliss off the apron. James rolled through an O’Connor roll attempt for 2 and Lynch used that opening to lock in the Disarmer for the tap out. The match was fine and at times they seemed to be on the cusp of something good, but the layout of the match was awful. Each fall was way too short and the positioning of the commercial breaks killed the flow of the match, as we got essential only short bits and pieces of a full match. I wished they saved this match for another show so they could get more time to have this match, as I was left hungry for more.
Chairs Match- Dolph Ziggler vs. Apollo Crews: Crews attacked Ziggler as he was making his entrance and he hits an overhead belly to belly suplex forcing Ziggler to bail. Back in, Ziggler hit a neck breaker on Crews but Crews answered with a dropkick. He hit a moonsault off the apron and when they came back from break, Crews cut off Ziggler’s attempted to use a chair. Enzuigiri by Crews and he hit both a standing moonsault and an Olympic Slam onto a chair for a near fall. Ziggler drop toe holded Crews throat first onto the head of the chair and he then hit an atomic drop onto the top of the chair for 3. I liked the early portion of the match with Crews attacking during Ziggler’s entrance and being very aggressive with his assault on Ziggler but unfortunately the match lacked any heat and the big chair spots left a lot to be desired. Ziggler’s character, heel or face, is just dead right now so giving him a win in what was likely the blowoff to this mediocre feud ended up doing nothing for him. The effort was there, but in recent weeks they gave the audience little reason to care about these two and it clearly showed in how they reacted to the match.
Bray Wyatt Invocation: Bray Wyatt came out and claimed that it didn’t matter if he faced AJ Styles now at WrestleMania because Styles’ is a mortal while he’s a deity. He talks about coming from a dark and evil place which is where Randy Orton is right now. Orton appeared in the Wyatt Compound and said this place has the stench of evil. It’s Wyatt’s world, but not his own. Orton once said if you can’t beat them, join them. But now that it’s the right time, screw him. Randy said he was standing on top of where Sister Abigail was buried and he promised to burn the spirit of Sister Abigail, causing Wyatt to lose his powers. Orton said he was now the master and Wyatt is the servant as he pours gasoline all over the compound. He officially declares he is coming for Bray at WrestleMania. Bray begged Orton to stop but Orton sets the compound on fire, posing in front of it to end the show as Wyatt lost his mind. OK, first off, despite the dialogue and the “Sister Abigail” crap that Orton & Wyatt were forced to buy into, they did a phenomenal job. Orton’s delivery was excellent and Wyatt’s reactions to Orton destroy the compound were great, giving off the idea that he has reached a breaking point and might snap on Orton in their first interactions. The visuals were great and the presentation was good. Having said that, there are still some major issues coming out this segment. First off, I’m annoyed they only dragged this out for one week. They could have prolonged the Orton turn to build to a big RKO spot during a post-match segment that would have gotten an enormous reaction and then you could have done this compound burning segment to add more heat, no pun intended, to their program. They jumped the gun a bit too early. Going off of this, I’m concerned now they are going back to the spooky imagines and random santanic dialogues and promos that are just incredibly cheesy and made their initial feud back in the fall almost unwatchable. They got the Wyatt/Orton stuff to a point where I was actually into seeing them work with each other again but now they’re at risk at going back to the same old tricks that didn’t work the first time. I came out of this segment really concerned about the direction this feud is going to go now but I have to give credit where it’s due in that Orton and Wyatt made a segment that seemed destined for failure work.
THE wRong:
#1 Contender’s Match- Luke Harper vs. AJ Styles: Harper caught Styles with a dropkick to start, forcing him to bail. Harper worked him over on the floor but Styles caught him with a Pele to take control. Harper came back with a big boot for a near fall and he caught Styles with a suicide dive, driving him across the announce table. Back in, Styles caught Haprer with a hurricanrana but Harper answered back with a release half nelson suplex for a close near fall. Enzuigiri from the apron by Styles and he hit the Phenomenal Forearm for 3 but Harper’s foot was on the ropes. This brought out Shane McMahon who decided to restart the match due to the importance of the match. Harper dumped Styles to the floor and Styles got in Shane’s face. Harper went for a super kick but Styles moved and he nailed Shane. Styles shoved Harper into the post and back in, he hit the Springboard 450 for 3 to become the new #1 contender for WrestleMania. I despise the restart the match troupe with a passion so naturally this one pissed me off. The match itself was fun as it was going along, but it seemed we came to a sudden finish before the restart. For as much as I hate restarts, it at least could have been a device to have Styles’ lose and roll right into the program with Shane, but it meant nothing outside of one spot since Styles won the match anyway. The finish made Harper look incredibly weak, losing twice in the same match and it really soured what should have a big-time, competitive match based on the nature of what was on the line at the time. These two worked hard and saved this from being a total disaster, but my god was the booking of this match atrocious.
Dean Ambrose vs. Curt Hawkins: Ambrose hit Hawkins with the Dirty Deeds before the match began and he grabbed a microphone. Ambrose said that one of the lessons he learned in life is that when you’re pushed, you have to push back. He warns Baron Corbin that messing with him is a bad idea and he called out Corbin for a fight. Corbin appeared on the screen and refused to fight Ambrose. Corbin promised to run Ambrose over but Ambrose tells him they are far from finished. This was a nothing segment for the most part. Ambrose was walking the line between telling bad jokes and cutting an intense promo against his rival, so at times he was great and at other times he was taking away from what is supposed to be an extremely heated feud. Corbin didn’t exactly light the world on fire either, his promo seemed forced and it clearly came across like someone just reading off some lines without giving off the feeling he would live up to his threats. It was a mess of a segment that didn’t do anything to take this feud to another level.
THE Ridiculous:
NOTHING
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