Mike Tedesco’s Smackdown Review
February 5, 2015
By: Mike Tedesco of Wrestleview.com
The opening segment was just ok. It didn’t really do much for me. Roman Reigns had his chance to shine by immediately taking The Miz out with a Superman Punch. After that, there wasn’t much to this segment. Daniel Bryan didn’t even get to speak. Reigns did the talking, which is an awful idea. Reigns recited his scripted lines, but he wasn’t very convincing. His facial expressions just don’t match the words he’s saying. His face is always contorted in some expression of shock that he’s actually delivering the lines without messing them up, but there’s not much conviction behind them. The promos need a lot of help. The bright side is at least it wasn’t Jack and the Beanstalk. Seth Rollins then came out and hyped up himself well before saying what the main event was. Rollins basically said the same things he always says about himself and that’s about it. Reigns was kind of positioned as a subtle heel here where he seemed pleased that Bryan was getting a raw deal. Still, this was a segment you could miss and not have missed anything.
I enjoyed the tag team match with Gold and Stardust taking on Dolph Ziggler and Ryback. I guess they’re out of ideas for Ziggler and Ryback, so they’re putting them in a tag team until they can think of something better. Ziggler had a weightlifting belt that said “Lil’ Guy” on it. You don’t get a branded weightlifting belt if you’re not going with something for a little bit. Everyone knows that… The match was fine. I like some of the double-team maneuvers Ziggler and Ryback came up with. In the end, Gold and Stardust continued to have their problems. It looks like they’re finally getting ready to do this feud now that Goldust’s full time in-ring career is winding down. Goldust called him “Cody” again, so Stardust walked out on him to cost them the match.
At least you didn’t have JBL stupidly telling people to change the channel when Curtis Axel was talking tonight. Dean Ambrose made relatively quick work of him before being taunted by Bad News Barrett on the titantron. This match is a lock for WWE Fast Lane. Given the track record of how Intercontinental Champions have been treated lately, I don’t know why Ambrose would even want it. Hopefully he’ll bring some stability and prestige back to this prop.
Fandango and Adam Rose had a quick match that had a little bit of fire to it. I guess Fandango is a face now. He was posing and trying to get the fans to cheer for him. Rose is back to beating up his Rosebuds now that it looks like the relationship with Tyson Kidd and Cesaro is over. Rose is on life support in my opinion.
Roman Reigns beat The Miz in a decent match. It was really more about getting some shine back on Reigns after he got beat by the Big Show in a largely forgettable match on RAW. Reigns looked good here, but there wasn’t much to it. Miz attacked him for a good portion of the match, then Reigns shook it all off and beat him. It was like any John Cena match you’ve ever seen, and that’s not a good thing. Shouldn’t there be some differences between the last top guy and the supposed next top guy? They shouldn’t be carbon copies with some physical differences.
Rusev beat Erick Rowan in very quick fashion. Not much to that one at all. Another match that was a waste of time with Paige and Alicia Fox followed that. This second hour is really starting to drag here.
The main event was very good despite the fact that I generally despise handicap matches. Bryan’s neck must really be 100% because he’s back to doing high impact stuff, including that missile dropkick with the flat back bump that I was sure he was going to get rid of. Bryan had a lot of energy, and it wound up being a fun match. J&J Security stooging around and Rollins also made it enjoyable. I had to groan after the match, though. Kane attacked Daniel Bryan even though they repeatedly said that their Casket Match last week was their final battle. I’m so over seeing this match-up. Kane hit him with two Chokeslams, and Rollins finished him off with a nasty looking Curb Stomp. The heel stood tall as the show ended. I just wish one of them wasn’t Kane.
My final impression of this show was they’re over the Thursday Night Smackdown re-launch and are back to doing things exactly as they were done on Friday Night Smackdown. We saw a bunch of stuff that wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t overly memorable. Other than the Kane attack, I doubt very little of this episode will carry over to this Monday’s RAW.
Bump of the Night: Seth Rollins’ Curb Stomp on Daniel Bryan
Match of the Night: The handicap match ** 1/4
Final Rating: ** 1/2
E-Mail – MikeyT817@gmail.com
Twitter – @MikeTedescoWV
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Thanks for reading!
Mike Tedesco is the official recapper of WWE RAW and Smackdown for Wrestleview.com.