I enjoyed the show and thought the ending was pretty cool. Glad Luke is back. Miz vs. Dolph was the best of the night. The bad part of the show? NIKKI vs CARMELLA. Holy crap. That has to be the worst match of the year. Just straight up awful. I couldn't stop watching just because it was so terrible. Not even passable for a pre show.
Meet me at the waterfront after the social.
I'm gonna have to catch a replay, due to the time difference I was half a sleep duringbthe entire event. Really wanted to watch the triple threat match.
shareI watched the debate instead and read the recap instead. Overall it looked like an average Smackdown show. I'm glad Dolph Ziggler is getting at least some push after being a joke for so long. And I'm disappointed that Luke Harper is once again hitched to Bray Wyatt instead of getting a fresh run on his own. The Wyatt Family deal is just a joke now.
KICK OFF:
Zack Ryder winning is always a good thing!
WWE Championship:
It was decent. I did enjoy the spot where Styles jump over the rope to deliver his Flying Forearm.
Carmella Vs. Nikki
Ms. Fabulous tried hard to get heel heat from the crowd, but Sacramento didn't care.
Tag Team Championship:
I'm surprised The Usos didn't win the tag titles back to capitalize on their heel turn. I figured Heath & Rhyno were going to have a cup of coffee title reign.
Corbin Vs. Swagger
I enjoyed this match. Should've been 5 - 10 minutes longer really.
Alexa Vs. Noami
I get why they had Alexa lose since she was going to lose to Becky anyway, but it was a dumb move since you've essentially built up the new Diva in vain.
Dolph Vs. Miz
Good match with a bad ending. Ziggler being Intercontinental Championship doesn't help anybody. Miz did such a great job with this reign and it was all for nothing.
Orton Vs. Wyatt
Still shocked Orton lost. I figured he was going over to make up for the loss to Lesnar. Hopefully, it will be Styles Vs. Wyatt at Survivor Series now.
Ziggler being Intercontinental Championship doesn't help anybody. Miz did such a great job with this reign and it was all for nothing.
Corbin Vs Swagger I thought was boring as watching paint dry...
5-10 longer?? It was 5-10 minutes to long.
Decent? The WWE title match was great.
"For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius."
I liked the kick off match too. Not bad at all. Thought the heels played their roles well, Rawley was entertaining, Ryder was over as hell, English's little tribute to Eddie was lovely. Good stuff.
I thought the title match was definitely better than decent. I guess the pressure was a little bit off of them given they were opening rather than closing, but it was entertaining. I thought they blew the tap out bit to some degree, I'm sure people in the arena will have been confused, but it was good. Love that Styles just used the chair, and then went for the pin. Didn't feel the need to do some move after.
Carmella vs. Nikki I'd agree with you on. I think Carmella is a really effective heel, and their little feud has been pretty well played out. She certainly played the villain role pretty well here, and it's a shame they couldn't amount to more. But then when Nikki Bella is the experienced one how much more can you expect?
Loved the tag team match. I don't know that I was surprised that The Uso's didn't win, but given how brilliantly rejuvenated they have been by their heel turn it's kind of a shame that they didn't. Rhyno and Slater are still wonderfully over right now (and Rhyno moved really great considering the shape he's in) but I hope they get the titles off of them before they get stale.
Corbin and Swagger was definitely not bad, but then to this day I am a big Swagger fan. Dude is one of the best guys that they have, and it's a shame more has not been made of him.
Alexa vs. Naomi was a disaster. The only good stuff about it was Alexa's verbals, which were brilliant. They were botching stuff, the conclusion in particular was disastrously executed, and Naomi winning? Considering they announced a date for Alexa's title match with Becky there's no excuse for it. It's only a month away, and they should have taken every opportunity to get her as over as possible between now and then.
Dolph vs. Miz you're being super hard on! That was easily match of the night, I think it's one of the best matches we've seen from WWE this year. I think the feud has generally been really well executed, and it's great to see them stick the finish. I agree that the title win will probably not do much for Ziggler, but he's a decent worker, and it gives him another chance to amount to something. He definitely had the people behind him, so that's what really matters. Miz is having the year of his life, this was the match of his life, and though I wouldn't have minded seeing the title run go on a little longer I feel like the guy is moving up the card, not down, so they needed to get the 'mid card' title off of him so he can get on to bigger things.
The Orton-Wyatt match was a chore The decision to have this one close the show instead of Miz and Ziggler was baffling. The build up to this, unlike the build up to that, has been terrible, the big surprise finish was really not worthy of a PPV finale, and just generally... Who cares? The spark went totally out of this feud when they called off their previous match. This was a slow, limp affair that felt like it was building to something but never went anywhere. Glad they at least got the result right. Would be amazing to see Styles vs. Wyatt, but I feel like that's too good to be true
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I liked the kick off match too. Not bad at all. Thought the heels played their roles well, Rawley was entertaining, Ryder was over as hell, English's little tribute to Eddie was lovely. Good stuff.
I thought the title match was definitely better than decent. I guess the pressure was a little bit off of them given they were opening rather than closing, but it was entertaining. I thought they blew the tap out bit to some degree, I'm sure people in the arena will have been confused, but it was good. Love that Styles just used the chair, and then went for the pin. Didn't feel the need to do some move after.
Styles crawled toward the bottom rope. Cena came in and applied an STF on Styles even as Ambrose held the leglock on Styles’s other leg. Styles tapped out. The crowd booed. The ref waved off the finish, though, and said only one man can win. He told them to keep fighting.
I think Carmella is a really effective heel, and their little feud has been pretty well played out. She certainly played the villain role pretty well here, and it's a shame they couldn't amount to more. But then when Nikki Bella is the experienced one how much more can you expect?
Loved the tag team match. I don't know that I was surprised that The Uso's didn't win, but given how brilliantly rejuvenated they have been by their heel turn it's kind of a shame that they didn't. Rhyno and Slater are still wonderfully over right now (and Rhyno moved really great considering the shape he's in) but I hope they get the titles off of them before they get stale.
Corbin and Swagger was definitely not bad, but then to this day I am a big Swagger fan. Dude is one of the best guys that they have, and it's a shame more has not been made of him.
Alexa vs. Naomi was a disaster. The only good stuff about it was Alexa's verbals, which were brilliant. They were botching stuff, the conclusion in particular was disastrously executed, and Naomi winning? Considering they announced a date for Alexa's title match with Becky there's no excuse for it. It's only a month away, and they should have taken every opportunity to get her as over as possible between now and then.
Dolph vs. Miz you're being super hard on! That was easily match of the night, I think it's one of the best matches we've seen from WWE this year. I think the feud has generally been really well executed, and it's great to see them stick the finish. I agree that the title win will probably not do much for Ziggler, but he's a decent worker, and it gives him another chance to amount to something. He definitely had the people behind him, so that's what really matters. Miz is having the year of his life, this was the match of his life, and though I wouldn't have minded seeing the title run go on a little longer I feel like the guy is moving up the card, not down, so they needed to get the 'mid card' title off of him so he can get on to bigger things.
The Orton-Wyatt match was a chore The decision to have this one close the show instead of Miz and Ziggler was baffling. The build up to this, unlike the build up to that, has been terrible, the big surprise finish was really not worthy of a PPV finale, and just generally... Who cares? The spark went totally out of this feud when they called off their previous match. This was a slow, limp affair that felt like it was building to something but never went anywhere. Glad they at least got the result right. Would be amazing to see Styles vs. Wyatt, but I feel like that's too good to be true.
The double tap out was definitely a good way to help things move forward, it was just the way they handled it in the arena where the time keeper rang the bell when he probably shouldn't have, and they didn't make any kind of announcement so the crowd knew what the hell was going on.
Becky will defend against Alexa on Smackdown in early November when they're in Glasgow. I think it's the 8th or something like that. Yes, they could add Naomi into the match, and yes they could just be starting a program where Alexa will eventually come out on top heading into the Becky match. I'm just a Bliss fan, so I hated seeing her job to an entrance Everything good that happened in that match was thanks to her.
The Bray and Randy thing is probably not over, so maybe Orton will get a win at some point, but based on this match it's not something I'd want to see I'd say getting Bray Wyatt over is more important than Randy Orton working on becoming a legend, so I was happy with the result.
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I thought Bliss and Naomi was worse. Alexa (like Carmella to be fair) did a great job of playing the heel, but the sloppiness of some of what they were doing was just embarrassing.
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Don't like the Smackdown camerawork at all
again we get a more sporty style announcer in Mauro Ranallo ..yet we pull out of the sports feel and look with these Drama class camera angles.
I don't know who would pay for wwe ppv's these days....they look so bland and basically just extensions of the show.
AJ V Cena V Ambrose - 6.5 / 10 - good in parts but also a little sloppy..... that double submission tap kinda ruined it a little also.
Uso's v Rhyno/Slater - 6/10 - Heath shined a little , Uso's looking good as heels...not a bad match.
Miz vs Dolph - 8/10 - probably Miz's best match ever .....i still hate him and he's sh*t ( one of the worst in ring performers of all time ) and i dont care how good ppl think he's mic skills are, i wish he would *beep* off.
credit though for putting on the match of the night.
and thats all, I didnt watch the rest of the card.
I forgot it was a shorter single brand PPV. After the Orton/Wyatt match I kept listening to Renee and them recapping the matches for awhile before I realized the PPV was over already. 😅
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