Naomi's back as a face in order to fill out the face side of a six-woman tag at 'Slam, teaming with Becky and Carmella against Natalya/Alexa/Eva Marie.
Heath Slater earned his Smackdown contract by virtue of getting beat up so badly by Randy Orton that he won by DQ. Shane may have been a dick, pulling the contract away after a dazed Slater accidentally called him "Stephanie".
Curt Hawkins got a returning-soon vignette.
Cena beat Del Rio in the main event. Styles took him out with the springboard forearm, but then he spent too much time trash-talking and took two F-Us, the second through the broadcast table.
Loved Naomi's entrance. Glow-in-the-dark plus dance moves? I'm in. Also enjoyed the continuation of the Eva Marie tease, and curious how that will work out on Sunday.
Thought they did a good job of the Lesnar-Orton hype package - the OVW footage was good.
I've enjoyed SDL more than RAW the last couple of weeks. I wonder if it's the two hours versus the three hours, but the show seems tighter and more focused. Not as much filler.
Dolph Ziggler having the best promo of his life wasn't newsworthy? After that promo I really hope he wins the title because that was far better than any Ambrose promo. I also loved Miz and Maryse's shit-eating grins in the background during that segment.
Styles brags to Del Rio that he has a main event match at Summerslam with Cena. Lol. Did nobody tell Styles that Summerslam has two title matches and Lesnar-Orton? They're not main eventing.
Bray Wyatt stares down Orton on the way to the ring and abandons Rowan after his match. The best thing Smackdown is doing better than Raw is everybody is interacting with multiple people rather than just splitting off into pairs.
It's bad enough that the 12-person tag team match showed how bad Smackdown's tag teams are but it REALLY magnified how bad their group of heel tag teams are. Ascension, Vaudevillians and Breezedango? Ouch.
AJ winning at SummerSlam is great news. It would only make sense since I think Cena is not on the next PPV because he's filming that show again. It also ex post facto explains having Cena pin Styles instead of Gallows or Anderson in the six-man, even if the idea of Cena having to actually chase a 1-2-3 on Styles for a long time is, you know, antiquated thinking.
Then they could go to Ambrose/Styles next and that'd be great. (Orton/Bray, which has genuinely never happened in three years, is clearly your SD semi-main for the next long while.) But Ziggler and Ambrose has been so strong that it'd be nice if they did multiple matches. Dolph has the perfect setup to turn embittered heel and go back to playing Mr. Perfect's Actual Son after three years as "not as successful as Daniel Bryan, more successful than Zack Ryder" underdog man. But based on precedent ... well, I continue to wish him well.
Zayn and Neville are not on SummerSlam but Eva Marie and Carmella are: The Draft Was Smart.
I also enjoyed the opening segment, with Slater delivering the fruit basket, tossing the apple perfectly into Orton's arm fold, then Orton saying, "I have an idea" without needing to spell it out before the credits started.
Cena hasn't won a SummerSlam match since 2010. I thought he was due this year, but maybe not. Hoping AJ goes over, clean this time, to launch us into an AJ/Ambrose feud, which will completely make me forget Raw even existed.
While neither show has been a home run, it's really cool what Smackdown has done with Ziggler, although they shouldn't let it go to their heads because Curt Hawkins and Jinder Mahal aren't exactly going to do it for me.
The one thing that sucks is that WWE is waaayyy overcompensating with Raw and Smackdown. Smackdown far less matches than Raw and it feels like all of the build, save Ambrose-Ziggler and AJ-Cena, has happened on Raw. Like, Raw sucks and shut up about it already, WWE.
Also, I hope Vince doesn't get bored with Heath Slater, because there's so much potential here. I want to see Slater bring back Ellsworth as his personal jobber to ensure a contract one week, only to also lose that match.
I was right when I said that Reigns should have beaten Rusev to end his streak at WrestleMania 31 and we're only just now getting that match, but I was also right when I called for the coronation of Heath Slater back then.
Originally posted by Me in June 2014Slater should have won. We'll look back at this ten years from now as the biggest mistake in company history. I know, they have a plan to build Rusev up as undefeated until he finally loses to Cena or maaaaaaybe Sheamus, but everybody knows that's what they're doing. They should have called an audible last night and had the American Rock Band pull out a surprise win over Rusev. The crowd would have bought it, losing now and having to move into competitive matches instead of doing the same thing every week would have done wonders for Rusev, and Lana leading a charge against decadent American rock stars (shows picture of Mike Reno from Loverboy from 33 years ago on the Titantron) leading to Lana/Rusev-led ban on dancing and rock music that would be challenged by a coalition of Heath Slater, Adam Rose and R-Truth testifying before the Board of Directors would have saved the company's midcard.
Originally posted by The GoonI also enjoyed the opening segment, with Slater delivering the fruit basket, tossing the apple perfectly into Orton's arm fold, then Orton saying, "I have an idea" without needing to spell it out before the credits started.
Didn't watch. Carlito's returning, right?
You wanted the best, you got... the Out of Context Quote of the Week.
"And this has been your Comfortable with his Sexuality Update." (Stefonics)