WWE Friday Night SmackDown hit the SyFy airwaves last night (Nov. 29, 2013) from Uncasville, Connecticut, with a taped show featuring the fallout edition from the Survivor Series pay-per-view (PPV) that went down this past Sunday night at the TD Garden Arena in Boston, Massachusetts.
Let's get right to reactions:
- Really underwhelmed with Mark Henry and Big E. Langston feuding with Ryback and Curtis Axel right now. The good news is that rumors are out that say we could be getting this as a gateway to Henry-Langston, which sounds wonderful to me.
- Okay, I popped a little for Hornswoggle shoveling food into Great Khali's mouth during the food eating contest and Khali getting increasingly more pissed off at him for doing it. Kofi Kingston's disappointment at Khali's just dying made no sense to me but felt good and Damien Sandow's disgust in the background may have been the best of all of it.
- Brodus Clay called himself a main event player. I'm not sure he's ever worked a main event on Superstars. That being said, some mid-card guys no one really cares about are getting a legitimate storyline. That's something. If there's one thing to miss about the Attitude Era, and there really isn't much, it's the fact that the entire card had storylines written for it, even if those stories were awful. It's way too often these days that wrestlers are just left in limbo. Jury obviously still out on Xavier Woods, but he's okay for now.
- I love that 3MB is somehow STILL working matches against Los Matadores. I don't love El Torito's push as a credible offensive threat in a wrestling match. I'll buy it against jobbers when it's clearly just a gimmick for fun but if it grows beyond that, I'll jump off the bandwagon quick.
- Antonio Cesaro vs. Titus O'Neil was great because it had a real story attached to it. Titus actually did a great job of making himself look fatter because of how full he was. And how do you not pop for the set up of the Giant Swing? Loved JBL's freakout over O'Neil puking in his hat and subsequently throwing it at Michael Cole.
- This hasn't come up in a while but the tag team championship belts, aesthetically speaking, are absolutely ugly as all get out. When watching the show with my brother, a true mark who believes it's better to watch that way, described them thusly: "That belt looks like a big penny." He's right. It's awful. They're awful. Me thinks it's a testament to the rebirth of the tag team division that no one notices how awful they are, or rather, no one cares.
- Dean Ambrose on commentary should happen every SmackDown he's not scheduled to work. "Let me ask you a question: Where do you think Undertaker is these days? He's probably still in London where we left him laying." So, so good.
- Really good to see The Shield vs. Rhodes Bros getting a ton of time at the top of the second hour. Really, I think I would prefer if SmackDown was a wrestling exclusive show. Make it different from Raw that way. Raw is where you'll get promos and skits and other assorted segments, mixed in with wrestling, and SmackDown is all wrestling. They could build towards bigger bouts or showcase younger guys while getting creative with the old war horses on the roster. I also think they should start making a bigger deal about win/loss records, and not just when someone is on a long streak. SmackDown is where they could be more sport than entertainment.
- Super impressed with Cody Rhodes hot tag house of fire run last night. Really underrated aspect of a wrestler's game, how intense they are when they get the hot tag.
- Normally, to hell with smoz finishes. But sometimes they just make too much sense to ignore. Ambrose is on commentary and his stablemates had been overwhelmed and were about to lose so he had to jump in and defend his guys. What else would he do, sit there and let them lose? Also like CM Punk coming out with chair in hand. That's just using simple logic: "There are three of them and one of me, I should probably bring a chair with me when I run out."
- I love the insanity that always surrounds The Shield and now the Wyatt Family. There are so many different wrestlers who have had run ins with both at some point or another, they can actually book an entire hours worth of time on SmackDown for everyone who has been involved at some point or another over the past few months. Props to Cody Rhodes, Goldust, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns, though. They held up from the very beginning before the various run-ins and match restarts with more and more people. For the record, that's usually a lame gimmick but it worked well here.
- Is CM Punk the most unnatural runner in pro wrestling history?
- The more I see, the less I like Erick Rowan and the more I appreciate Luke Harper. The former is a big man who has a great look for the gimmick he's within but it's hard to imagine he can get far once he breaks from it, especially considering his workrate. The latter should be fine either which way. We need to see more from Bray before making a judgement on him, at least as far as the main roster.
I enjoyed this if only because the last hour was awesome. More of that, please.
Grade: B
That's it from me, Cagesiders. Now it's your turn to sound off in the comments section below with all your thoughts on last night's show. How did you like it?