GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR THE 8/31 SMACKDOWN
By Revin Samuel on 9/1/2012 1:17 PM
SMACKDOWN - 31/08/2012 E: revinsamuel@rogers.com
What this show needs to accomplish?
•Pay Per View promotion. The streak of subpar pay per view promoting continued with this past week’s Raw. AJ announced the Punk-Cena match for NOC, but other than that WWE decided they couldn’t focus on promoting something that could generate them a ton of revenue. Pay Per View isn’t dead unless you’re a company obsessed with being a nonsensical variety show
•Establish lower tier characters. The upcoming pay per view concept involves every title being defended so that means people like Kaitlyn and whoever the tag team or teams chosen to make the card need some character and storyline development so the audience cares about them. I was baffled, but not surprised that WWE didn’t have any of the tag teams or Kaitlyn on Raw, because they just don’t think like I and probably most of you think about this industry. I want them to make money, I want a healthy industry. They are concerned with their image and the everlasting obsession of how to get all the fans in unison to cheer John Cena
•Cody Rhodes and Dolph Ziggler. I continue to be disgusted with the handling of these two characters. Dolph is being setup for failure with his continual losing streak before he Jack Swagger’s into MITB and Cody should just ask for his release now, because the company clearly has no respect for him. My hope for tonight’s show is that both men are given a little protection and respect from WWE creative
•Booker T-Eve-Teddy. I thought last week was a solid first chapter to a potential, compelling storyline and I hope we get chapter two tonight
•Santino Marella. End this debacle of the puppet having a mind of his own. I get that The Bubble wants to believe their audience is all children and they are doing this storyline because the company is targeting kids, but The Bubble must remember that a majority of their audience is still adults. Its okay to do kids storylines, but not at the expense of alienating the rest of your audience.
Show Breakdown
- Its official Sheamus is a terrible babyface. He’s John Cena junior. The Triple H pandering was also not a smart card to play. I heard someone else say it in regards to why Triple H is not revered amongst the WWE fan base like those before him in Flair, Shawn and Edge and that is because in the end alot of people see Triple H and they see the guy that married the boss’s daughter. Is it fair? Maybe not, but it might be reality.
- I’m still not sold on Sandow and this intellectual savior gimmick, but he’s okay on the mic. Sandow and Sheamus setup for later, standard WWE, we don’t know how to do a television show any other way opening.
- Looks like its Wrestlemania 27 unadvertised rematch week. We got John Cena vs The Miz on Raw and Cody Rhodes-Rey Mysterio on Smackdown. Naturally this isn’t acknowledged on commentary at all.
- I question how Slotted Rhodes continues to challenge himself and grow by being in these continual mid card feuds.
- Rey of course wins, Rhodes learns no lessons like a good heel, Sin Cara makes the save post match. I guess it’s something for everyone to do.
- It looks like WWE is really proud of their anger management skits and will therefore show them to us again in their entirety.
- Kaitlyn vs Natalya and Natalya, the most talented women’s wrestler in WWE gets to serve as the setup girl yet again.
- Kaitlyn of course beats Natalya, but at least they announced Kaitlyn vs Layla for NOC. No emphasis put on it, but it was announced none the less.
- WWE shows us the footage of AJ attacking Vickie and Cole asks the question “When was the last time you saw a General Manager attack one of their employees?” – First of all if WWE is so hell bent on making sure we know all talents are independent contractors they should ram it into the announcer’s heads to say contracted talents as oppose to employees. Second of all the last time we saw a GM attack a wrestler was when John Laurinaitis was attacking John Cena, which was pretty recent!
- Another interesting storyline with Booker who is the babyface GM of Smackdown not supporting AJ who I assume is a babyface GM on Raw. I like Booker acknowledging how illogical it was for AJ to book Chris Jericho into a match where he is fired if he loses. I don’t know if starting a GM war is the smartest move and I question whether AJ would be more over than Booker in these scenarios unless Booker is aligned with Vickie.
- Vickie’s promo was interesting as she notes if the board doesn’t take actions he will and the first thought that popped into my head was this would be a great spot to bring Kharma back in managed by Vickie, but since we know that won’t happen, my second thought was Sara Del Ray enters the picture as Vickie’s hired assassin. Either way, my interest is peaked in the potential, potential being the key word of this storyline
- Raw Flashback and I must once again say how awesome the mic work was between Punk and Lawler.
- Lots of replays on Smackdown tonight and that is fine, but it should be better paced out. I shouldn’t have to see a recap of AJ and Vickie followed by a recap of Punk and Lawler followed by a recap of anger management. Space it out so this doesn’t look completely like the B show.
- I might not be on board with either Sheamus or Sandow, but it’s amazing how much better the commentary is when they are invested in protecting both talents involved in the match.
- Sheamus beats Sandow by count out in the predictable heel runs away move. Sandow remains protected, but WWE needs to modernize how they do their cop out finishes. For all the talk about how they aren’t a wrestling company when they do wrestling they are relying on predictable finishes and formulas that have been done to death.
- More hype for what happened on Raw as will get to relive the Triple H experience
- WWE gives us a random Gabriel and Kidd vs PTP match and neither team gets entrances yet WWE expects us to care about these teams? It’s a self fulfilling prophecy when it all fails. Perhaps they could not show us every little detail from Raw and maybe spend a little more time investing in other characters and storylines developing on Smackdown.
- I do like the usage of Tout on the split screen where the other tag teams are telling us why they should be the number one contenders.
- Darren Young pins his former Nexus buddy, Justin Gabriel. I’m not sure why WWE continues to have the PTP get victories yet doesn’t let them win the big one. I guess it at least justifies giving them another tag title shot if they are beating other teams. That’s some sort of sports logic, which I can accept.
- Instead of getting entrances for Gabriel and Kidd and the PTP, we get more ego stroking from the inner circle of WWE with more replays from the anger management skits.
- I like the in ring interview style where the announcer conducts an interview with the superstar as we are seeing hear with Josh and Alberto.
- Alberto makes Orton tap last week and beats Kane this week? Is WWE learning how to properly build heels? Or is this an isolated incident of Triple H making sure Del Rio looks good before he loses to Sheamus for the third straight pay per view?
- Kane randomly attacks Josh again and one wonders where this story is going, if anywhere and I mean that from the Josh side of things.
- Kane’s a bully, perhaps Stephanie needs to come out and emasculate him with her condescending tone of voice.
- Michael Cole trying to play babyface following the Josh attack. He’s alone at the booth and speaks with sincerity noting that commentators can’t be attacked for doing their job. This annoys me to know means and shows the lack of respect The Bubble and especially Vince has for his audience that he actually had Michael Cole do this segment. What a bunch of garbage.
- Ah yes, more footage from Raw as we relive the Triple H speech from Raw where he really said nothing of importance.
- Strong match with Orton and Ziggler and of course Ziggler loses.
- Smackdown ends with Orton standing on the ring ropes posing, which builds too...absolutely nothing.
What this show accomplished?
The Good
•Tension between Booker and AJ. WWE went away from the Eve-Teddy-Booker dynamic this week and instead went to a potential Booker-AJ storyline. I like these first chapters; it’s just a question of where they take it
•Orton-Ziggler. Quality wrestling match
•Del Rio beats Kane. Alberto the hell is getting some solid booking behind him as he heads into NOC for his third straight title shot
The Bad
•The Sheamus character. He’s John Cena junior and that isn’t a good thing
•Smackdown becomes a magazine show. Smackdown felt like half the show was dedicated to being some sort of wrap up show for what happens on Raw and WWE doesn’t want that to become a regular feeling for the viewers
•Lack of NOC hype. WWE announced Kaitlyn vs Layla, but the promotion and advertising for the show was minimal and once again WWE so far isn’t making the pay per view feel like it is an attraction
•Rhodes and Ziggler. Just astounding
•Tag Team division. WWE is telling us the tag teams mean something, but they are doing what I’d consider a C+ job in building the characters and teams involved
•Michael Cole tries to play the sincere babyface. Talk about insulting our intelligence as a viewer
Overall Thoughts
This show comes in at about a 2 out of 10.
What needs to happen next week?
•Less Raw footage and more pay per view promotion
•Kaitlyn and Layla. I’d like to see a story here other than them beating the same girl and clapping for each other. It’s very formulaic
•Put some EFFORT into the program. If a heel is going to lose and you want to protect him, think of a new way for him to lose and not the standard low blow, outside interference or running away. You have sixteen writers and god knows how many producers, figure it out! How about character development for lower card guys? How about entrances for people you want us to care about?
•Storyline follow up. This week WWE did nothing to follow up the Eve-Teddy-Booker thing, but instead went to a Booker-AJ potential storyline and that’s fine, but let there be follow up to one or both of these stories next week
•Antonio Cesaro. He won the US title at NOC and hopefully he’s back on the show next week and I am begging for them to revisit Cesaro-Christian since Christian beat him a few weeks back
Feedback: revinsamuel@rogers.com
