Botched!: Newark or New York, Missing Rusev, More

Hi, hello & welcome to the column that nobody in wrestling wants to be featured in, Botched! It was kind of a light week in the world of wrestling, but we still managed to find some things that weren’t quite right…

1. Booker T thinks he’s in New York

Sometimes when WWE is in New Jersey, they don’t like to advertise it. East Rutherford is in the shadows of New York City. They were in Newark on Monday night and kept talking about being at The Rock, which I assume was an attempt to make people think that The Rock was going to show up.

10 seconds into the video has Booker T declaring that they’re in New York. Newark sounds similar, and given WWE’s aversion to saying they’re in New Jersey, I can see how Booker went wrong on this one.

2. Two Brogue Kicks

Sheamus is usually pretty on point with his kicks. Just ask Jeff Hardy! Jeff was facing Sheamus on Monday night and a spot in the match came up where Matt was on the apron and needed to eat a Brogue kick…

1:55 into the video is where you’ll see Sheamus grazing Matt with the first kick before properly kicking him off the apron the second time. See, I’ve made this mistake before. I was working a boxing match for a middle school project, and my buddy threw a pretty doggone good looking working punch for the planned knockout that didn’t even touch me. Like a dummy, I forgot to go down off of it. Let’s just say the second take didn’t go as well on the “worked” aspect.

3. Not the Best Scissor Kick Ever

Sasha Banks lost to Alicia Fox.

No, that’s not the botch.

At 1:40 you’ll see Alicia hit her patented scissor kick for the victory. It was a little different than usual, as traditionally the receiver of the move’s body will be to the right of Alicia. Sasha was to the left, but it didn’t really matter. I will say it didn’t look terrible.

4. Rusev Doesn’t Show Up This Week

Rusev not appearing on SmackDown this week usually wouldn’t be huge news. He’s been recovering from injury and should be back sometime soon. And honestly, SmackDown had enough business to take care of with building the Backlash show and they can afford to wait on Rusev’s angle until he’s ready to go. The issue with SmackDown’s lack of Rusev comes back to a video from last week’s episode:

Whoops. Apparently WWE creative has not decided what exactly to do with Rusev when he returns…some want him to get a title shot, some want him to be in the Money in the Bank ladder match, and some want Lana to divorce him because they think they have a chance. (They don’t.)

Rusev stated on Twitter that he missed SmackDown in order to attend Game 3 of the NHL’s Western Conference Final in Nashville. Hey, if anybody can understand that decision, it’s me. Unfortunately we didn’t bump into each other at Bridgestone Arena on Tuesday night. I didn’t bump into Carrie Underwood either, which was a bit more disappointing. In any event, WWE Creative has until the end of the Nashville Predators’ playoff run to figure out what to do with Rusev. Here’s hoping it’ll be after the Stanley Cup Final!

5. Natalya raises Carmella’s bad arm

Carmella scored a big victory over SmackDown Women’s Champion Naomi on Tuesday night, but Naomi did quite the number on her shoulder during the match.

You’ll notice after the match at about 3:25 or so that Natalya, Carmella’s good friend, celebrates the win by raising Carmella’s sore arm. What gives, Nattie? It’s one thing when the referee does it, but when your own friend ignores your pain to raise your hand, that’s a whole different ball of wax.

(Hey, I said it was a light week, didn’t I?)

Thanks for reading! If you see (or hear) anything wrong in the world of wrestling, let me know via Twitter or e-mail at [email protected]. Have a good weekend!