The same Payback vid from Raw opened SD. Bryan's out with his YES
shirt, doing the whole YES bit again. I'm glad, because the no stuff
seemed forced for the past few months. His acting offended for the match
stoppage was great and tied nicely into the weak link bit. Loved him
being offended by the head pat thing, and doing the yes bit even more
with the Orton match announcement. Digging the RKOver It sign. "YOU GOT
IT ALL WRONG, DAN!" was hilarious...and then he said "you just kept
coming and coming!" And then he spoke in a way no one ever would with
"You, Daniel Bryan, are way out of line.". Barrett, fresh off his loss
on Raw, gets his title rematch tonight. That poor fucker. Sheamus faces
'ONE OF THE MEMBERS OF TEAM RHODES SCHOLARS" next. Why the hell they
couldn't specify it for that team, I have no idea.
SD WAS 7 TIMES MORE ACTIVE THAN ANY SHOW, and Cody's the opponent because he drew a short straw ON THE APP.
Cole rattled off Sheamus being a former WWE Champion, World champion,
KOTR, and Rumble winner...and wow does he not seem like someone who
deserves those many high accolades so early. Cody and Sheamus are just
exchanging moves. More moves. Random arm work to kill some time. There's
a fan in the crowd with a Wu Tang shirt on in 2013. SOMETHING EXCITING
OCCURRED when Cody countered the outside-in shoulder block into a
Fujiwara armbar. Well now the random arm work makes sense - good stuff.
Cole called the Finlay roll a senton, which it isn't at all. White Noise
was countered into a sunset flip, then into a cloverleaf for the win.
Then Sandow just attacked Sheamus afterwards. I'm all for this feud
continuing - it's been great for Sandow. JBL called him a future world
champ, and Cole said that SOCIAL MEDIA IS CALLING THE WYATT FAMILY
DISTURBING. Just play the videos and stop having Cole talk about them
right now. Shockingly, that didn't lead to an ad break as they went to
Axel's intro. There's no good reason he shouldn't at least be a top of
the hour guy on SD given the push they've giving him. Love Heyman's
"after you, my champion". This led to an ad break.
Barrett
got a jobber intro, but did get a formal intro by Lilian mid-ring since
it's a title match, which at least makes these seem important. Seeing
Axel hold the belt up reminded me that his gear actually looks more like
his dad's AWA gear than just working the singlet design into trunks.
Miz has somehow watched the finish of the PPV match over and over and
still has no idea what happened. Crisp clubbing elbows and punches from
Axel, including the flying second rope elbow. He seems way more
comfortable as IC champ than he did as sort-of-a-main-eventer. According to Miz, Vickie gave Barrett more time for the IC Title match "here on SmackBown".
Please end this match so Miz will stop saying words. Barrett missed the
flying elbow, and has some sort of bone visible through his skin under
his arm. Ouch. Wacky neckbreaker won. They should just call it the Axe
Cutter so it will have SOMETHING of a name beyond "the swinging
neckbreaker.". After talking shit, Miz got in the ring to fight the guy
who just had a title defense. Barrett came off as just a dude here.
Recap of Henry's whooping of Cena is up next.
Sadly,
they didn't do a dramatic highlight vid and instead just showed the
last few minutes or so of it, which was still pretty great stuff. And
then they aired two replays of it right from Raw too. I guess they
figured there was no way to improve on perfection so why bother, but the
replays made it seem like they shot nothing for SD and needed to fill
time. AJ's booty shorts skipped down the aisle with the belt, which
looks way too big for her to prepare for a match against someone. I like
that AJ's shirt and the color scheme of the title kind of match. JBL
likened the Kaitlyn deal to Teo in a recap vid, which also had Kaitlyn
acting badly. According to JBL, Kaitlyn lost the title "because she did
something very very dumb.". Well, that's true. Nattie's WHATAMANEUVER
submission ruled. Kaitlyn and Layla, in a Mickie James starter kit,
watched this backstage. Sleeper led to an ad breaker - second one total
for the divas match segment. I loved AJ sticking her tongue out crazily
throughout the sleeper.
They came back and Nattie
went for an airplane spin version of Bulldog's powerslam, but got
bitten, locked in the Black Widow, and sadly lost via shoe tap instead
of ass tap. Aksana met with Kaitlyn and Layla in a wacky red, green, and
purple dress. Aksana called her trash, a brawl broke out and then trash
spilled all over. That was something. Jericho's out for his match with
Alberto as the hour 1 main event. Jericho vs. THE WORLD CHAMPION should
not only feel like a big deal, but also be built up in some way before
it happens. Instead of that, we get a recap of Bryan-Orton from earlier tonight.
Lilian still did the big intro for Ricardo, who is still in his
Mexico-heavy gear with the tie and the bucket. Alberto's still got his
made in America shirt on, but no car. Scarf's back. JBL made great
points for why Alberto was right to do what he did on the PPV, so...is
he a face or a heel? Jericho's on a roll early on, and here is where
they set up the match - with Cole saying a win could get Jericho in the
world title mix. Alberto is a four-time world champion and doesn't feel
anywhere near good or over enough to deserve that accolade. JBL implied
that Jericho and Alberto had a bunch of matches in Mexico when both guys
were down there. Nice superkick from Alberto when Jericho stepped
between the ropes after a brief distraction from Ricardo. TO THE BREAK!
They
came back and Jericho took an awesome over the top bump to the floor.
It's amaizng to see Jericho take such needless risks on a TV match at
his age.Double axe handle off the top. Jericho is largely dominating
this match, which is surprising since it isn't likely he'll be in the
world title mix. I like them trying to kill the Si chants by having
Ricardo do it to gain support for the armbar. Armbar got countered into
the walls. Liontamer on Ricardo, called that by Cole and then Dolph
unloaded on Alberto. Alberto got busted up a bit over his right eye, but
got a win. And then Jericho hit Dolph with the Codebreaker for costing
him a possible win OVER THE WORLD CHAMP. I wouldn't mind a 3 way at the
PPV. Ricardo held up the prone Dolph for the basement superkick, which
had damn well better be in WWE's next game. And then Cole that Dolph
lost the world title without defending it. Yup, Dolph's best five weeks
were definitely the ones where he was out with an injury.
Nice recap of the pre-break happenings between the world
title guys. Drew got a jobber intro, but Christian thankfully didn't.
Christian still has that shitty element shirt. He's been cursed with bad
shirts for years - his first one back in WWE with the shattered web
look was tremendous. Drew's swinging uranage ruled, and I'm pretty sure a
fan did the SU-PER DRA-GON bit after it. Jinder tried to hinder
Christian, but couldn't and he won with the Killswitch. I liked
Christian's promo because it was meant to draw upon his time as world
champ and it seems like they'll have him in the MITB match and maybe
even win it. He had pretty good chemistry with Alberto two years ago, so
I don't really see a reason to not do that. Nice Shield beating on him
too. Maybe they'll do Christian-Ambrose on TV or at the PPV - should be a
pretty good match, and they can tell the story that Christian could add
a new title to his collection.
RVD's "One of a Kind" theme is outstanding. So is the
commercial for the Last of Us, which I loved a lot. A really epic
Jericho-Punk video set up Punk-Jericho as a classic and Punk as a
megastar. And then Brock unleashed DOOM on Raw. Heyman talked about the
girls in the mani-pedi circuit gossiping about Punk, which was
hilarious. Heyman scolded her for talking about private issues, and then
talked about her prom date being dragged out of a limo and her breaking
up with a fiance two montsh ago which was tremendous. His delivery here
was gold, and Heyman came off as a psycho ex-lover talking about Punk
saying "we're just best friends...". Orton came out for his match with
Bryan.
Bryan started with a RUNNING FLYING KNEE and then elbows to the face
and body shots in the corner, which ruled. Orton countered with mounted
punches in the corner and a sick European uppercut. This may be the
best Orton has looked all year. Flying knee from Orton missed and led to
the kick combo and a kneebar. Headlock countered into a kneebreaker,
then into a Yes lock attempt. This is the most realistic, logical match
on WWE TV all year. Nice zero-fucks-given gut-first suplex on the ropes
from Orton - he just flung him on the ropes. Missed dive gets an ad
break. They came back with Bryan laying in some punches, so Orton just
dropkicked him in the face and looked insulted that Bryan would dare
punch him. This match is incredible. Superplex is avoided by Bryan, who
hits a missile dropkick. I love how everything is logically leading into
something else. Bryan doesn't usually do a knee breaker, but did one
here because the opening was given to him, so he locked in a knee bar.
Corner kick combo led to the delayed basement dropkick in the corner.
Bryan's backflip combo was countered into the super-fast snap powerslam.
Euro uppercut hits, but a second attempt leads to a backslide, a 2
count, and then a buzzsaw kick combo out of that. This is so much better
than their Raw match was even looking like it was going to be before it
ended early. Bryan went up top but got crotched, which should lead to a
superplex now since he's weakened. Nice measured punch from Orton to
ensure it and it hits perfectly. Draping DDT hits after that. Orton
slinked into the RKO, but Bryan left. Backdrop on the railing again, but
Bryan comes back and hits the flying knee off the apron. SUICIDE DIVE
HITS! And it directly led to a countout win for Bryan. I'm fine with
that since it's still a definitive move that won the match. Bryan,
however, isn't happy with that. He won't take a count and demands a
restart. Ref says no, Bryan and the crowd say yes. And then it just
ended. YAY FOR RAW REMATCH! Everything about this deal was awesome.
Screens -
http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/fug6k13z46yvgtkrm384vlttru35aynq
No comments:
Post a Comment