I think I complained about SmackDown only having three matches on the show a week or two ago. Well, this show had three fun ones.
Firstly, our new SmackDown Live Women’s Champion Bayley had a match against Lacey Evans with Charlotte Flair on commentary at ringside. It’s the sort of situation that generally gets the better of a babyface, right? Or at the very least it requires another good guy/gal to come out and even the playing field.
Nah. Not Bayley.
Bayley and Evans put on a solid match that earned some chants and cheers from the crowd, but the finish to the match and what happened after is what sealed the deal for me. Charlotte stood up from the commentary table to loom over Bayley, but Bayley turned the tables by striking first. Incensed, Charlotte tried to storm the ring to get revenge, but the referee stopped her. At the same time, Evans rolled Bayley up, but it took the ref several seconds to get to the pin count.
In that time, Bayley reversed it and bridged into a stronger pin. 1-2-3, the champ wins.
Bayley got the hell out of there as soon as she could, which proved to be another smart decision when Evans attacked Charlotte for costing her the match. I’d imagine this was a way to burn the bridge and get Evans back on Raw full-time, but I’d enjoy that match as well if WWE would consider paying it off in the near future.
Soften him up
Unlike Raw, we didn’t have to wade through an hour of talking and brawling to get to a legitimate match. Instead, we only had to sit through a few recaps of Kevin Owens’ brief stint in New Day as well as the recap of Dolph Ziggler’s delve into madness. I’d argue that that’s still too much, but I just don’t have the energy.
Now, we did get one intriguing tidbit before Kofi Kingston and Owens fought; Owens claimed that he never injured Big E last week. That’s interesting! So if it wasn’t Owens and it wasn’t Ziggler...whodunnit?
Kingston’s been brutalized pretty badly the past week or so, and that was sort of the story of the match here. He kept taking big shots from Owens, but was able to avoid all the finishing moves by the skin of his teeth. And finally, he was able to reverse Owens into a Trouble in Paradise to earn the victory.
We got a shot of Ziggler in the back, broodily watching a television at a severely awkward angle, but Ziggler made no move to come out and fight Kingston once more. I assume he’s said his piece, at this point?
How to melt my grumpy heart
Let’s just skip all the Shane McMahon stuff, yeah? It sucked on Raw, it sucked again on SmackDown. He was talking and bragging and being a general annoyance when R-Truth sprinted into the ring trying to avoid the lower-card horde hot on his 24/7 trails. Shane was insulted that anyone would ever breathe his air or whatever and had his two goons beat up our poor champion and take his title.
As an added insult to the injury, Shane booked Truth in a match with Roman Reigns against the new 24/7 Champ Elias and Drew McIntyre in the main event. And guess what?
The good guys won! Yay!
I say that a bit sarcastically because Shane vs. Roman is still a Super Show Down feud and it’s still not fun. But then something happened that was actually really awesome and left me with a dopey smile on my face.
Shane had suspended the 24/7 rules until the main event was over, arguing that it’d give Elias time to prepare. And as soon as Reigns pinned Elias for the victory, he paused and looked to the referee to affirm that the 24/7 title was back in action. Then, he hit Elias with another Spear and urged R-Truth to crawl into a pin attempt.
Call him the 2-time 24/7 Champion, baby! Reigns grinned like an idiot and hugged R-Truth as the newly-crowned champ staggered to his feet. More sappy stuff like this, please.
The Rest
The Tag Team Champions ain’t about to mix wrestling with fracking - Pour one out for Wiggles the Pig and Wilbur the Cow, man. Gone but not forgotten.
Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan called the tag team division a joke – true – before saying that they’re here to save it just like they’ll save the planet. That brought out Heavy Machinery and I swear to god Tucker uttered the following phrase: “...as much as we love having fun, it’s time to get down to serious business.” ...How many times have we lamented how every babyface is just out there to have fun?
/headdesk
Anyway, the champs said they’d fight em except Oklahoma is gross so they’ll take a rain check.
Get you a Sonya Deville – After handing out dozens of magazines with her face on it, Mandy Rose had to rely on some help from Deville to defeat Carmella. It’s officially a trend; Deville is carrying Rose to all of her success. How long until this dynamic duo blow up?
Silence speaks volumes – These Aleister Black promos are still fantastic, in my opinion. We’ve gotten a bit of Black’s perspective of the world with these as well as how he approaches fights. But we got perhaps his most poignant statement of all on this show. With that eerie silence as his only companion, Black finally talked directly to the crowd. We’re all waiting for him to say a name, right? To pick a fight with someone. Anyone.
Well that goes both ways, doesn’t it? He must be awfully intimidating, because everyone else sure as hell is steering clear of him. And that silence speaks volumes.
Triple H vs. Randy Orton video package – May I direct your attention to a tweet from Stella who is holding down the Cageside Seats Twitter account?
It’s cute how they are trying to get us excited for Randy vs Orton. It really is. #SDLive
— Cageside Seats (@cagesideseats) May 29, 2019
Stunning Stella? More like Stunning Tella...of Truths.
…
Look no one ever said I was funny, okay?
Finn Watch 2019
Show: SmackDown Live in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Question: Did Finn Balor appear?
Answer: Yes! But only in a promo recorded last week. Andrade talked trash to prolong the feud.
See you at the next show!
Three fun matches and some decent character work. All the Saudi crap is awful still, but this was at least a much better effort than Raw.
Grade: B-
Your turn.