Samoa Joe pays a visit to AJ Style’s house! What happened in Milwaukee? And Truth TV gets
cancelled. I am “The Other One” Luke Owen, vote in the poll above my head to let me know
what you thought of this show - where you can choose from SmackDamn, SmackTastic, Smack
Bang in the Middle, Ellsworthy or A Smack in the Face. This is the 25th of 2018 edition
of Smackdown Live… in about 4 minutes.
Despite kicking off the show with The Miz’s music, R-Truth and Carmella were in the ring
to introduce the latest segment on Smackdown Live: TruthTV! Truth brought out Daniel Bryan,
and then put on his reading glasses to ask him the serious questions. But not before
a seven second dance break! Trying his best to not just fully break down in laughter,
Daniel Bryan quickly cut a promo on The Miz - saying he’ll beat him at Super Show Down
and go on to face the WWE Champion. This brought out The Miz, who was very upset at Truth stealing
his show format. Truth explained that he beat Miz two weeks ago, and because Miz doesn’t
have a title he just took his show. Makes more sense than most of WWE’s storylines.
He challenged Miz to win back his show, which Paige made official backstage...
And Miz beat Truth in a fun match, officially cancelling TruthTV. First Talking Smack and
now this?! This was a fun match, but more importantly it played into Miz’s promo on
Bryan. He explained that he can beat Bryan because Daniel refuses to cheat and tarnish
his reputation. And the reason Miz has been able to beat Bryan at Summerslam and Hell
in a Cell is because he doesn’t care about what people think of him. And in this match
he thumbed Truth in the eye to hit the Skull Crushing Finale - before adding insult to
injury by beating Truth with Bryan’s own running knee.
We then got clips from earlier in the day, where Becky Lynch beat up Charlotte Flair
during one of her photoshoots - with Tom Phillips revealing that Flair had been sent home due
to the beatdown...
...And then Sheamus of The Bar beat Big E of New Day in a big man match, cementing that
The Bar won’t be winning the tag titles at Super Show Down.
Rusev and Lana then came down to the ring to demand answers from Aiden English following
his attack last week. English responded with Oli Davis’ favourite WWE plot mechanic - playing
pre-made videos! The first video focused on how English and Rusev were a great team, with
the second video showing how that all fell apart once Lana showed up. And then he dropped
a soap opera bombshell - there was one night she never told Rusev about - in Milwaukee.
This may be a corny direction to take this storyline, but I had a massive smile across
my face during the segment. English was great, Rusev was great, Lana was great - and the
crowd chanting holy s**t and Milwaukee made it even better. A few people have sent me
the clip of The Rock and Lana from a show in Wisconsin in 2016 - where Rock essentially
told Rusev that he slept with Lana - and I’ve got to be honest, I’ll be devastated if
that’s the reveal.
If you thought Boss N Hug Connection was the worst tag team name, WWE have got a beer they
want you to hold - as Tom Phillips revealed that Asuka and Naomi now call themselves The
Empress And The Glow. I mean, you’re not even trying anymore. They beat Sonya Deville
and Mandy Rose in a nothing match with IIconics on commentary.
Tye Dillinger took most of his nothing match against Shinsuke Nakamura - who is still without
a storyline since winning the United States Championship two months ago. Randy Orton ran
out from nowhere and beat down Dillinger for the DQ - laying him out with a DDT off the
apron. Nakamura hit the Kinshasa for good measure, but this segment was all about Randy.
He later told - Mike Rome, is that his name? - that Dillinger’s Perfect 10 gimmick pisses
him off.
And if Lana’s night couldn’t get any worse, she was beaten by Becky Lynch in another nothing
match where Lana got far too much offence. More excitingly though Aiden English told
- Kayla is that her name? - that he has proof about that night in Milwaukee and he’ll
show it next week. Please don’t the The Rock thing, please don’t be The Rock thing,
please don’t be--
The main event segment saw AJ Styles come out to sign a contract for Super Show Down
- but there was no Samoa Joe. Instead, Joe appeared on the big screen - revealing he
was actually outside Joey Styles’s house! You bastard! No he was actually outside the
home of AJ Styles and said that Styles stole the title from him at Hell in a Cell and that
has consequences. He then closed the show by ringing the doorbell and revealing his
new favourite Mark Whalberg comedy: Daddy’s Home. And then Smackdown Live went off the
air. Cut to black. That was it. I thought something had gone wrong. I didn’t expect
following the finish of Hell in a Cell or the angle last week they’d return to the
family stuff, but this was really well done and Joe’s promo was ace.
Overall I really enjoyed the R-Truth, Randy Orton and Samoa Joe segments this week - and
I loved the Rusev Day love triangle soap opera stuff even more. With that said, the wrestling
on the show left a lot to desire - with three back-to-back matches which were essentially
pointless. Overall, I’m giving rating this show a Smack Bang in the Middle. Maybe even
a high Smack Bang in the Middle.
Is Dean Ambrose set to turn heel on his Shield Brothers? Watch mine and Oli’s WrestleRamble
review of this week’s Raw by clicking the video on screen right now. And click the picture
of our faces to become one of our awesome Pledge Hammers to help us get weekly NXT reviews.
I’ve been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.