RammerJammer
#RollTide #TSC #RiseUp #BullsNation #RIPKobe
Let's take it back one year ago to Battleground 2016.
This image was met with chuckles as the SmackDown roster came out and celebrated Dean Ambrose's WWE Championship victory of Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. To most, it showed the size of the SmackDown roster, how small it was but quickly that would be swept under the rug to great shows and a great head writer.
The SmackDown Live era started out a bit slow in the first couple of weeks as Dean Ambrose vs Dolph Ziggler was the top feud on SmackDown heading into SummerSlam but that would quickly change the next month.
Here's Talking Smack, a weekly SmackDown post show on the WWE Network that was based on a worked shoot promo environment. A show that got a lot of fans on The Miz bandwagon again, a show that helped a large number of wrestlers get their characters over. SmackDown helped The Miz have the best run of his career and possibly a WWE Championship reign was in his sights.
We look at the fall of 2016 and you see arguably a top 3 wrestler in the world winning the WWE Championship, and Dean Ambrose actually being tolerable and holding his own in a feud with John Cena and AJ Styles.
sidenote: The No Mercy 2016 promo was great. AJ vs Cena vs Dean was great.
The Women's Division was small and featured new talent but also somehow worked with women like Becky Lynch, Natalya, Nikki Bella, and newcomers such as Carmella and Alexa Bliss.
There was a no chin jobber known as James Ellsworth that got 3 victories over AJ Styles and AJ Styles, being the wrestler he is, managed to make James Ellsworth look decent without damaging his status as a wrestler (because they were never clean victories anyway).
The tag team division was iffy but featured a lot of tag teams and reinvented the Usos and featured an interesting story with the Wyatt family.
Now let's move towards 2017 when Road Dogg was brought in as head of creative.
It's the Royal Rumble, Cena defeats AJ Styles to win his 16th World Title, and Randy Orton wins the Royal Rumble, a move that was met with lots of eyebrows. Cena's WWE title reigns would only last 14 days as Bray Wyatt won the title at Elimination Chamber, making Randy Orton vs Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania. Bray Wyatt did everything he could to make the feud interesting and the only memorable thing Orton did was burn down a house, the match was mediocre and even LED insects couldn't get the match over.
Now we get to the Superstar Shakeup, this in my opinion, did SmackDown more harm than good and the results would eventually rear their ugly head a few months later. Here you have The Miz, as I said earlier, was in the midst of the best run of his career, seemingly headed for his 2nd WWE Championship reign, and he's moved to RAW which didn't do any favors for the Miz, as he's stuck in a never ending feud with Dean Ambrose (even though Miz still is one of the best parts of RAW) and no way he's getting a Universal Title shot anytime soon.
You have Alexa Bliss, who was the hot and up and coming female superstar within WWE, already a two time SmackDown Women's Champion, she seemed like she would cook in the division for a while but she was traded to RAW, and as AJ Styles mentioned on Talking Smack, "SmackDown builds them and RAW steals them", more evidence of the possible sabotage of SmackDown.
Additions to the SmackDown roster included Charlotte, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Jinder Mahal, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Tye Dillinger. On paper those look like great additions but SmackDown creative has failed to deliver. Jinder Mahal became the #1 contender for Randy Orton's WWE Championship and pulled off the upset at Backlash, it was met with shock but also praise as it ended Orton's boring and lazy reign but also was a fresh decision to make him champion but his reign has been less than stellar, only racking up singles wins against Tye Dillinger and Luke Harper, and of course wins over Randy Orton at Money In The Bank and Battleground. His promos have been damn near the exact same since becoming champion along with Orton's who gets more boring by the day.
Japanese and NXT Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura was brought in and instead of having his first feud being with someone like The Miz, he's put into a feud with someone similar to Orton in Dolph Ziggler, another late 30s wrestler phoning it in. His Backlash debut was average and the match had no business going longer than it did. Also, he's now in a never ending feud with Mr Money In The Bank, Baron Corbin. I know people are going to bring up the fact that he was just called up and shouldn't be pushed so quick but he didn't come out of FCW, he came out of NXT which is treated at WWE's third brand and consistently sells out arena and tour internationally, also seen every week on the WWE Network.
The decision to build up the United States Championship is fine, but when creative sacrifices the Main Title's importance, it's a problem, people like AJ Styles, John Cena, Kevin Owens and Shinsuke Nakamura should be in the WWE Title picture, while guys like Tye Dillinger, Chad Gable, Dolph Ziggler, and Baron Corbin should be competing for the US Title.
Another issue I took was the fact that Xenophobia that has taken place on SmackDown this month, 2 (or 3) matches took place that featured some kind of international conflict, one in particular that I had an issue with was John Cena vs Rusev, Bulgaria is an ally to the US so there was no need for a feud like this, Cena came with his lame tired promo about the USA and how great is (when you see who this country elected, uhh it's far from great), and managed to bring up 9/11 in just an awkward and awful promo, almost as bad as the match it's self, that along with the Jinder/Orton feud and this totally seems like a Road Dogg move.
Lastly, Talking Smack getting canceled was a bad move, and with that, opinions of Vince sabotaging SmackDown turn more to fact every day. But this is getting too long so I'll end with where we are right now.
#SDSet
This image was met with chuckles as the SmackDown roster came out and celebrated Dean Ambrose's WWE Championship victory of Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. To most, it showed the size of the SmackDown roster, how small it was but quickly that would be swept under the rug to great shows and a great head writer.
The SmackDown Live era started out a bit slow in the first couple of weeks as Dean Ambrose vs Dolph Ziggler was the top feud on SmackDown heading into SummerSlam but that would quickly change the next month.
Here's Talking Smack, a weekly SmackDown post show on the WWE Network that was based on a worked shoot promo environment. A show that got a lot of fans on The Miz bandwagon again, a show that helped a large number of wrestlers get their characters over. SmackDown helped The Miz have the best run of his career and possibly a WWE Championship reign was in his sights.
We look at the fall of 2016 and you see arguably a top 3 wrestler in the world winning the WWE Championship, and Dean Ambrose actually being tolerable and holding his own in a feud with John Cena and AJ Styles.
sidenote: The No Mercy 2016 promo was great. AJ vs Cena vs Dean was great.
The Women's Division was small and featured new talent but also somehow worked with women like Becky Lynch, Natalya, Nikki Bella, and newcomers such as Carmella and Alexa Bliss.
There was a no chin jobber known as James Ellsworth that got 3 victories over AJ Styles and AJ Styles, being the wrestler he is, managed to make James Ellsworth look decent without damaging his status as a wrestler (because they were never clean victories anyway).
The tag team division was iffy but featured a lot of tag teams and reinvented the Usos and featured an interesting story with the Wyatt family.
Now let's move towards 2017 when Road Dogg was brought in as head of creative.
It's the Royal Rumble, Cena defeats AJ Styles to win his 16th World Title, and Randy Orton wins the Royal Rumble, a move that was met with lots of eyebrows. Cena's WWE title reigns would only last 14 days as Bray Wyatt won the title at Elimination Chamber, making Randy Orton vs Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania. Bray Wyatt did everything he could to make the feud interesting and the only memorable thing Orton did was burn down a house, the match was mediocre and even LED insects couldn't get the match over.
Now we get to the Superstar Shakeup, this in my opinion, did SmackDown more harm than good and the results would eventually rear their ugly head a few months later. Here you have The Miz, as I said earlier, was in the midst of the best run of his career, seemingly headed for his 2nd WWE Championship reign, and he's moved to RAW which didn't do any favors for the Miz, as he's stuck in a never ending feud with Dean Ambrose (even though Miz still is one of the best parts of RAW) and no way he's getting a Universal Title shot anytime soon.
You have Alexa Bliss, who was the hot and up and coming female superstar within WWE, already a two time SmackDown Women's Champion, she seemed like she would cook in the division for a while but she was traded to RAW, and as AJ Styles mentioned on Talking Smack, "SmackDown builds them and RAW steals them", more evidence of the possible sabotage of SmackDown.
Additions to the SmackDown roster included Charlotte, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Jinder Mahal, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Tye Dillinger. On paper those look like great additions but SmackDown creative has failed to deliver. Jinder Mahal became the #1 contender for Randy Orton's WWE Championship and pulled off the upset at Backlash, it was met with shock but also praise as it ended Orton's boring and lazy reign but also was a fresh decision to make him champion but his reign has been less than stellar, only racking up singles wins against Tye Dillinger and Luke Harper, and of course wins over Randy Orton at Money In The Bank and Battleground. His promos have been damn near the exact same since becoming champion along with Orton's who gets more boring by the day.
Japanese and NXT Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura was brought in and instead of having his first feud being with someone like The Miz, he's put into a feud with someone similar to Orton in Dolph Ziggler, another late 30s wrestler phoning it in. His Backlash debut was average and the match had no business going longer than it did. Also, he's now in a never ending feud with Mr Money In The Bank, Baron Corbin. I know people are going to bring up the fact that he was just called up and shouldn't be pushed so quick but he didn't come out of FCW, he came out of NXT which is treated at WWE's third brand and consistently sells out arena and tour internationally, also seen every week on the WWE Network.
The decision to build up the United States Championship is fine, but when creative sacrifices the Main Title's importance, it's a problem, people like AJ Styles, John Cena, Kevin Owens and Shinsuke Nakamura should be in the WWE Title picture, while guys like Tye Dillinger, Chad Gable, Dolph Ziggler, and Baron Corbin should be competing for the US Title.
Another issue I took was the fact that Xenophobia that has taken place on SmackDown this month, 2 (or 3) matches took place that featured some kind of international conflict, one in particular that I had an issue with was John Cena vs Rusev, Bulgaria is an ally to the US so there was no need for a feud like this, Cena came with his lame tired promo about the USA and how great is (when you see who this country elected, uhh it's far from great), and managed to bring up 9/11 in just an awkward and awful promo, almost as bad as the match it's self, that along with the Jinder/Orton feud and this totally seems like a Road Dogg move.
Lastly, Talking Smack getting canceled was a bad move, and with that, opinions of Vince sabotaging SmackDown turn more to fact every day. But this is getting too long so I'll end with where we are right now.
#SDSet
