Shelton Benjamin makes his in-ring WWE return!
Randy Orton turns on Shinsuke Nakamura!
And Fashion Files still doesn’t star Chuck Norris.
I’m Oli Davis, and this is the 29th August 2017 edition of Smackdown Live...in about
4 minutes.
Main Event Set Up Jinder Mahal opened Smackdown by huskily declaring
himself WWE Champion about 18 times.
It was up to the Singh Brothers to compensate for Jinder’s lack of vocal passion, apologising
in tears for letting their Maharaja down last week.
They were about to kiss Jinder’s boots when Nakamura interrupted.
Scuffles ensued with Randy Orton and Rusev quickly joining, because - holla, holla, they’re
all going one-on-one with The Undertaker.
No, wait, that’s not right.
They’re in a tag team main event, playas!
Chad Gable & Shelton Benjamin beat The Ascension Shelton Benjamin made his in-ring WWE return,
teaming with Chad Gable as American Beta, or Chablemin, or whatever name they end up
with.
Shelton looked great coming in off the hot tag, and picked up a decisive win for the
new team.
AJ Styles beat Tye Dillinger Finally free of his neverending Kevin Owens
feud, AJ Styles restarted John Cena’s old US Title Open Challenge gimmick.
Rather than elevate new talent, though, it was more use to demote Baron Corbin.
Tye Dillinger answered AJ’s challenge, but had to fight Baron on the entrance ramp for
the honour.
Tye overcame him, but - already slightly beaten down - quickly lost to Styles.
Afterwards, AJ took out Baron for good measure.
Corbin does seem to be taking events from the last few weeks as an opportunity, though,
showing a lot more emotion and aggression in his character.
Bobby Roode beat Mike Kanellis Mike Kanellis, however, appears to have been
completely given up on - Smackdown not even playing his brilliant entrance music for his
losing effort against Bobby Roode.
I don’t like Bobby smiling so much.
It’s weird.
Even if he is a babyface, grinning all the time feels outdated - like how Apollo Crews
is facially incapable of frowning.
Hopefully it’s all building to a heel reveal, because two weeks in, Roode’s character
is incredibly superficial.
Aiden English beat Sami Zayn Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon had a verbal
confrontation about last week’s main event, leading KO to finally take refereeing matters
into his own hands - taking over the officiating for Sami Zayn vs Aiden English.
One Pop-Up Powerbomb to Zayn later, and Owens was raising Aiden’s hand.
It was a cute angle, and I greatly appreciated McMahon stripping Sami’s loss from the record
afterwards - like WWE actually keeps track of that stuff.
The Usos beat New Day It’s a tag team match against the tag team
champions to pick the tag team stipulation for a tag team championship rematch.
If that sentence sounded repetitive and poorly written, then its meta purpose was a success.
The Usos beat the New Day by hooking the tights in a two minute TV match.
Paws Out Natalya and Carmella clashed backstage, setting
up a match between them next week, while Naomi booked herself a title shot the week after.
But the real newsworthy part of this segment was NATALYA’S NEW T-SHIRT!
PAWS OUT, CLAWS OUT, IT’S MEOW TIME!
Tamina beats Tina Stock The new act of Tamina and Lana made their
in-ring debut - with Tamina completely squashing local competitor Tina Stock, while Lana yelled
tactical insights from the outside such as ‘Get Her!’ and ‘Crush!’
The photographers afterwards were a nice touch.
Tamina accidentally throwing her opponent’s head into the bottom rope, though, not so
much.
Fashion Files: Season 2 Now with an awesome new intro sequence, including
the title card ‘And Still Not Starring Chuck Norris’, Fashion Files returned with Season
2.
A fantastic gag about Vince McMahon not letting people call Championship Titles ‘belts’
aside, the long-teased mystery reveal still hasn’t come, which is starting to get frustrating.
After finding a new clue, Aiden English is now their prime suspect.
Shinsuke Nakamura & Randy Orton beat Rusev & Jinder Mahal
The main event saw the long-awaited reunion of Rusev and Jinder Mahal from their memorable
Raw faction at the start of 2017.
Yes, I forgot that was a thing too.
But despite their prior experience together, Orton and Nakamura dispatched them with relative
ease.
Shinsuke and Randy will face off next week to become Jinder’s No. 1 contender, but
that didn’t play into the match until the end - where Orton hit Nakamura with an RKO
FROM OUTTA...the post-match celebration’s false sense of security.
This was no ‘heel turn’, though.
Orton is a tweener, and can RKO whoever he damn well likes.
So that was this week’s Smackdown Live in about 4 minutes, here’s the usual ratings
recap from top to bottom: SmackDamn, Smacktastic, Smack Bang In The Middle, Ellsworthy and 19
hour Summerslam.
I’ll reveal my score very shortly, but first, vote in the poll above my head to give it
your own rating.
I’ll announce the results in tomorrow’s WrestleTalk News.
After seemingly starting a new chapter on last week’s post-Summerslam episode, Smackdown
was in full autopilot here - with barely 15 minutes of actual wrestling on the show.
It has been stuck with an awkward 7 week build between pay-per-views, but that’s no excuse
for completely missable programming.
This week’s Smackdown is Poor.
John Cena burying Roman Reigns on Raw was much more fun!
And Samoa Joe has been injured.
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I’ve been Oli Davis and that was wrestling.