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Jeff Hardy announces he’s injured and The Hardyz vacate the tag titles! Shane McMahon
is officially feuding with two stars across two shows - he really is the best in the world
- and Kevin Owens goes full Sid and attacks toys. And what the heckins is going on with
Dean Ambrose, I mean Jon Moxley? Click the timestamps to jump to any of those stories.
I am Luke Owen, have yourself a merry little Superclick Party by pressing subscribe and
the thumbs up, and leave a comment down below to answer our important question of the day:
And make sure you vote in the poll above my head to let me know what you thought of the
show, where you can choose from: SmackDamn, SmackTastic, Smack Bang in the Middle, SmackDowner,
and A Smack in the Face. This is the 30th of April 2019 edition of Smackdown Live.
Michael Cole was in the ring for the start of the show to interview WWE Champion Kofi
Kingston. Now you’ll remember that Kevin Owens attacked Kofi last week [6], and his
best friend Xavier Woods was powerbombed onto the apron. So you’d imagine he’ll be a
bit upset about all this. Nope, he’s throwing pancakes like nothing happened. Oddly this
then turned into a 10-minute recap of how Kofi got to the point of winning the WWE Championship.
Guys, there are more pressing matters at hand. Finally they started talking about Kevin Owens,
who came out on the stage to say that Kofi is drowning in the sea of pressure being the
Champion. Xavier Woods tried to attack Owens, but KO superkicked him and left him laying
once again.
In a series of backstage segments, the Smackdown Lady Folk in the Women’s Money in the Bank
match were revealed. Bayley was announced via graphic, Sonya Deville told Mandy Rose
she should be in the match because she’s earned this chance - weren’t you two breaking
up before Mania? - and Not Renee Young revealed that Ember Moon and Carmella will fill the
final two spots. With Asuka and Sane tied up with the Tag Team Championships, these
four were probably the best choice.
As a nice follow-up, Becky Lynch then took on Money in the Bank entrant Bayley in a decent
back and forth match, which Lynch won with the Disarmer - and was immediately attacked
by Charlotte Flair - you know, the exact same thing that happened last week when Becky beat
Alicia Fox and was then attacked by Lacey Evans.
But to WWE’s credit, this was done to put over the idea that even if Becky wins both
her matches at Money in the Bank, there will be a women with a lunchbox looking to cash
in and win her title - further stacking the odds against The Man - and because of that,
I’m going to say this segment was an up. Wait.
Aleister Black cut another spooky promo, and the The Hardy Boyz came out to announce that
Jeff was injured and they were vacating the championships. Turning a negative into a positive,
they credited Lars Sullivan for injuring Jeff to add some heat onto his character. Lurkin’
Lars then came out and laid out Matt Hardy. R-Truth tried to make the save with a chair,
but Lars is a Chair Type Pokemon and he punched it out his hand. He then laid out Truth with
the Freak Accident and Running Powerbomb. I’d like to see Lars do some different stuff
now.
Perhaps more concerning though is the state of the tag division on Smackdown. With The
Hardyz no longer the champs, the only feasible replacements are Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura.
New Day seem a bit tied up currently, which only leaves The B-Team, The Colons, Heavy
Machinery and - at a push - The Singh Brothers. That is a diabolically poor line-up of options.
Even if they put the belts on Rusev and Nakamura, they can feud with Heavy Machinery but then
what?
The Smackdown Bloke Folk for the Men’s Money in the Bank were announced next, and joining
Ricochet, Braun Strowman, Drew McIntyre and - sigh - Baron Corbin from Raw will be Finn
Balor, Ali, Andrade and Randy Orton. Let’s be honest, it could have been worse. Kinda
feels like this would have been a good time to debut and push Buddy Murphy, though, rather
than have Randy Orton in the match.
Murphy’s fellow countrywomen The IIconics were out for commentary next, as Kairi Sane
and Asuka - who are clearly a tag team now as they’ve merged their themes together
in the most aggressively pants way possible - quickly dispatched of two enhancement talents.
IIconics were great on commentary, and Sane and Asuka looked awesome in the ring. This
was fun.
What was less fun, however, was Roman Reigns coming out for a promo to continue his feud
with THE BEST IN THE WOOOOOOOOOOOORLD Shane McMahon. He truly is the best in the world.
Shane then booked Roman in a handicap match against one of those teams that could be the
next Smackdown Tag Champs, The B-Team. And boy, I have not missed this act at all. Shane
also made Elias the Special Guest Enforcer for the match, stacking the deck against The
Big Dog.
Okay, so let’s all play this one at home, how do you think this match played out? Will
Roman quickly dispatch of this jobber team despite being at the disadvantage? Will be
be on top all the time, but struggle because he’s at a two man disadvantage? Or will
be worked over for 90% of the match, do some Superman Punches OOOHAH hit the spear and
win? If you answered C, of course he did. I’ve got no problem with Roman being booked
in matches where he’s massivly at a disadvantage, and I’ve no problem with him winning those
matches either, but there is only so long you can look at Bo Dallas put Roman in an
ineffective and boring headlock before you tune out. This isn’t an exciting way to
book wrestling matches.
Sociopath is still the word of the day as the same Firefly Funhouse sketch from Raw
was shown again, and then Finn Balor teamed with Ali to take on Randy Orton and Andrade.
This was sadly mostly ad break, and Ali pinned Andrade with the 450 splash. Randy then laid
out Balor with the RKO, and Ali kicked Randy out the ring to stand tall. Simple stuff.
And the main event segment saw Kevin Owens host the KO Show with special guest Xavier
Woods. However Woods was too injured to come out, so he set up Woods and Big E action figures
to interview instead. This brought out the super serious Kofi Kingston we should have
seen at the start of the show, who charged the ring for an intense brawl against Owens
- and the show ended with both men starring each other down.
Coming off the back of some disastrous ratings last week, you’d have thought WWE would
come out all guns blazing to drum up some interest in Money in the Bank. Sadly Raw was
a very dull show and this was only slightly better. Nothing on it was terrible, but there
was almost nothing to talk about. This week’s Smackdown Live is a SmackDowner.
And now over to Oli Davis with the latest on Dean Ambrose leaving WWE which I’m sure
is all still just a work.
Great review, Luke - but before we get onto today’s massive news about Dean Ambrose.
It’s now one week to go until WrestleTalk’s Live In London screening of the classic WCW
movie Ready to Rumble! Me, Luke, Laurie, Chopper Pete, Housemate Simon and even Randy Andy
Datson will all be there doing a meet and greet before the film, and then a live WrestleRamble
podcast afterwards! Get your tickets by clicking the ‘i’ above my head or the link in the
video description below as they’re going fast!
And now… one of the biggest wrestling stories of the year.
Because last night, April 30th, at 12am - the exact time Dean Ambrose’s WWE contract expired
- the former Lunatic Fringe posted this video from his new Twitter account under the name
he made famous before joining WWE, Jon Moxley [03]:
The story appears to be that Dean is finally breaking out of WWE’s Ambrose Asylum to
become Jon Moxley again - a much more serious character after reportedly
being frustrated with WWE’s “hokey s***” He’s even being chased by a Big Dog Ooo-arrr.
The obvious speculation is that this is a video promoting Moxley to join WWE’s new
rival promotion All Elite Wrestling, as the production values for the promo appear to
be very high, and there are two possible AEW clues in the clip.
Firstly are the days counted marks on the prison wall that open the video, with the
lit up ones adding up to the number 25. AEW’s first official pay-per-view Double
or Nothing takes place on Saturday 25th May
And secondly the Viper Room’s dice sign that Ambrose walks past on the street.
With dice being a key part of Double or Nothing’s marketing material, which is set in Las Vegas.
Those dice also have the numbers 2 and 5 on them, again potentially referencing the 25th
May date for the event. And possibly the most telling sign… AEW
co-executive vice-president Cody Rhodes has liked Ambrose’s video on Twitter.
Dean Ambrose to AEW confirmed! It’s a hugely exciting time to be a wrestling
fan, just not a WWE one. And Dean isn’t the only guy who can do video
package teases, as we’ve got a new show starting on WrestleTalk this Sunday, ScreenGrapple!
- where El Fakidor Laurie Blake laughs at all the wacky and wild wrestling stuff on
the Internet with his housemate Simon. Here’s Housemate Simon, tell them to watch
the video and tune in this Sunday. Do it. Get your tickets for WrestleTalk’s Live
in London screening of Ready to Rumble by clicking the link on the right. And find out
how Marvel ruined Avengers Endgame for its fans this week by clicking the video below
that. I’ve been Housemate Simon, check me out on ScreenGrapple this Sunday, and that
was wrestling.