WWE Smackdown Review
November 2, 2016
By: Adam Martin of Wrestleview.com
While the collective internet wrestling community spent the last 24 to 48 hours arguing over whether or not Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair main eventing Hell in a Cell on Sunday was a good match, team blue presented another live show with only weeks until Survivor Series.
A lot is going on with Smackdown these days.
James Ellsworth is sorry, Dean Ambrose wants another title shot, Randy Orton has seemingly aligned himself with The Wyatt Family, Alexa Bliss wants to dethrone Becky Lynch, Carmella still hates Nikki Bella, Natalya wants attention and everyone wants to represent Team Smackdown Live at the upcoming Survivor Series.
Let’s explore how this week went.
The solid main events continue on team blue
The great in-ring chemistry between AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose continued this week in a rematch from last week’s show. I may still be in the minority in saying this, but I’ve loved the involvement of James Ellsworth in this Styles/Ambrose saga. He’s been very entertaining and has a clear connection with the WWE audience right now, whether people like it or not. WWE did a great job of setting things up early in the night with Ellsworth constantly trying to apologize to Ambrose who wanted no part of Ellsworth at ringside during the main event. The knocked out/smiling Ellsworth being dragged away by security was very entertaining with Ambrose’s character having no other choice but to embrace it. Toss in angry JBL on commentary every time Ellsworth comes on screen and you have the makings for some very entertaining television. We will get a little bit of a cool down between Styles and Ambrose as they will be part of Team Smackdown Live in the men’s 5-on-5 Traditional Survivor Series Elimination match and then get back to business headlining the upcoming TLC PPV on December 4 in a TLC match.
Revisiting Miz vs. Bryan feud
It’s been a little over two months since the awesome “Talking Smack” confrontation between The Miz and Daniel Bryan back in August. While WWE made the call to cool down on that angle, it never really went away and was still a constant during Miz’s ongoing feud with Dolph Ziggler going into No Mercy. While both guys got a little ahead of themselves on the mic at times, I thought both Miz and Bryan did another really good job of revisiting the issues between the two and hyping the teams for Survivor Series. What a great call to have Bryan reveal the teams on Miz’s show and to put over why they left Miz off the main Smackdown team. I’m also very intrigued by the possibility of more open challenge segments with Dolph Ziggler and his WWE Intercontinental Championship including a very interesting open challenge to anyone on RAW at Survivor Series. That one in particular sets up a multitude of questions. Would a RAW star holding a Smackdown title travel between both shows to defend? I guess we’ll find out if they try it.
Quick Thoughts
* This Randy Orton angle aligning with The Wyatt Family has a lot of potential.
* The new Smackdown interviewer had a rough night (“James Ellis” comes to mind).
* The overly scripted promos for Carmella and Alexa Bliss stunk. Just give them outlines.
* The Spirit Squad lives to fight another day in 2016.
* I was kind of hoping Curt Hawkins wouldn’t wrestle all year on TV just to annoy everyone.
Overall Impression
WWE continues to deliver on Tuesday night with Smackdown Live. Styles and Ambrose presented a really solid main event and the show has a ton of interesting angles going on. The pacing is just really good and you get just enough every week to remain interested. It’s safe to say the three hour RAW experiment isn’t working out (even with the addition of the Draft) and team blue is benefiting greatly from this.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know your Smackdown thoughts below.
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