We already discussed one WWE General Manager beef from Tuesday, Feb. 21, and why SmackDown got off the hook for something which, had they done it, Raw would have gotten a lot of criticism.
Here’s the other inter-brand issue that was raised by Blue Brand GM Daniel Bryan - and is another reason fans cut SmackDown a lot of slack:
Women’s wrestling, and angles related to it, was on our screens A LOT last night.
We’ll drill into the numbers in a moment, but just taking a high-level view, the episode started with an in-ring interview addressing Naomi’s injury, which set up a title match between Alexa Bliss & Becky Lynch and later featured a commercial break-spanning match between Nikki Bella & Natalya.
Which led to DB throwing it in the face of his Monday night “competition” on Talking Smack:
Do you know what? I just right now want to tell Mick Foley he can suck it. Right? He can suck it.
Because listen to this: the SmackDown women were in the first three segments of SmackDown Live, then there was a tag match, then the SmackDown women were in another two segments. The SmackDown women were in over half the show! Let's see the Raw women do an hour and a half of TV, they're not gonna do it.
How accurate are The Beard’s numbers? We went to our own official timekeeper, the one and only Cain A. Knight, for a ruling.
While we can debate whether DB’s entrance & opening remarks should count from the segment where Naomi forfeited her title, and whether Maryse standing by her husband & whispering in his ear during Miz’s pre-battle royal promo deems inclusion, Cain came up with roughly 40 minutes of air time for women in an 84 minute (commercials removed) broadcast, or 47.6%.
So, Bryan’s “over half the show” is not correct. But still!
Even better, the nearly 50% of airtime given to women was not confined to a single feud, or one “historic” match. A new champ was crowned - one who’s now an even bigger heel than she was before, which gives the injured former titleholder a ready-made story when she comes back for the belt she never lost - the Lynch/Mickie James issue was continued, and the Falls Count Anywhere match wrapped one feud for Nikki while starting her next one.
His words were a little harsh, and Bryan even confessed he doesn’t know what it means - it’s just something they say in wrestling - but he’s allowed to celebrate this.
So, yeah, sorry Mick. “Suck it”.