bigfoote Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Yup, was invested in Kofi going on after the gauntlet...then Vince. I'm burnt out on the overbooking. Stopping myself from doing any sort of analysis, cos it doesn't matter. Basically Vince giving a big fuck you to everyone. No one comes out of this looking good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted March 20, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2019 I say this most weeks but how is this the same company from Monday to Tuesday? Smackdown is simple, enhances every story they are telling and doesn't waste a segment. It's crazy that since they early days of the first brand split in 2002 the fucking Women's Tag Team titles are the ones they book most brilliantly in the parameters of the split. It's insane that they have two World Champions when they are showing here how to book one effectively. Now the Iconics are the most embarrassing workers in the company at (most) points but that doesn't take away from this. Great promo from The Miz. Liked that he never broke from his mood to acknowledge the crowd or play smiley babyface. Top work from KO as mock talk show host and chief shit-stirrer and then a good brawl. Becky and Charlotte chucking around security because Rondy does is great. Fuck the "jump the shark" crowd, this is still the best thing they have going. Much better from AJ Styles this week. Laser focussed. Simple stuff from Rey too. Dominic is back! Eddie will be proud. The gauntlet was terrific. I was waiting for the interference but that's not their bag these days and this told the story well. The backstage scene growing as the match went on was a lovely little touch. It is a bit overbookamania but this whole story has been dragged out to this point so it really doesn't matter. This just added more fuel to Kofi's fire. As long as the pay-off isn't completely lame then this is just creating anticipation from week to week which they have time for. It is a rip off of the Bryan WM30 story somewhat which is a nice irony. Great stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sym Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 I enjoyed Smackdown and quite liked the end. It beat the obvious: Kofi Wins scenario hands down.  The only issue I have with it is what Vince McMahonâs motivation is to keep screwing Kofi? As far as I remember he hasnât stated anything yet, which takes away from the story a little in my eyes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted March 20, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2019 48 minutes ago, Sym said: The only issue I have with it is what Vince McMahonâs motivation is to keep screwing Kofi? As far as I remember he hasnât stated anything yet, which takes away from the story a little in my eyes. This is what bothers me. Vince had a reason to dislike Austin, Triple H and Stephanie had a reason to dislike Daniel Bryan, this is just "boss denying babyface an opportunity" for no reason other than that it's their default storyline. Even at the last PPV, the announcers were admitting they had no idea why Vince was doing it. Which is fine if it's the storyline, but I don't think that it is. It's not hard to cobble a motivation together - Kofi's the consummate company man, so have Vince just see him as someone who "never grasped the brass ring", and not deserving enough of the spot, while Big E and Xavier try and convince him that this is Kofi grasping the brass ring. Still doesn't explain why Vince would hate him so much that he'd put him through all this shit, but it's a start.  What's worse is that we've been through this story with Becky/Charlotte, there's a half-decent chance we'll see Baron Corbin swapped out of the Kurt Angle match, and probably other chops and changes I'm forgetting, and we're only a week of TV away from Wrestlemania. Not only does there seem to be no effort to connect the dots to at least explain why they've run the same angle on both shows (some consistency to Vince's motivation would be nice), when was the last time we were this close to Wrestlemania and didn't even know what the WWE Title match was?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollthedice Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 So do we think this will now result in a multi man match at Mania for the WWE title? Theres still Ali, Andrade and KO without a match then the possibilities of Cena, Sami Zayn, Bray and Luke Harper. Im a bit gutted we're not getting Andrade/Rey on the big stage but im glad Joe finally gets a pretty high profile singles match. Speaking of which, alot of singles matches this year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted March 20, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2019 15 minutes ago, BomberPat said: It's not hard to cobble a motivation together - Kofi's the consummate company man, so have Vince just see him as someone who "never grasped the brass ring", and not deserving enough of the spot, while Big E and Xavier try and convince him that this is Kofi grasping the brass ring. Still doesn't explain why Vince would hate him so much that he'd put him through all this shit, but it's a start. That's what Vince said last week. Kofi's not that guy. It's a rehash of the Bryan stuff but they have been down that road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted March 20, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, tiger_rick said: That's what Vince said last week. Kofi's not that guy. It's a rehash of the Bryan stuff but they have been down that road. Ah, fair enough - must have missed that part. I still have problems with the angle, though, mostly around the timing of it. I think the absolute pinnacle of the "heel promoter vs. face champion" trope was Austin vs. Dude Love at Over The Edge '98 - they made a point of explaining everything. Vince couldn't just fire Austin because he made him money, so he was resigned to having to work with him, and spent his time trying to break him down into becoming a model employee. He wasn't just fucking with him because he was the baddy. The big question for me is, if not Kofi, then who? Apologies if I've missed this, but Vince isn't presenting an alternative, the way he chose Charlotte over Becky, is he? So why is Vince McMahon prepared, with only one episode of Smackdown between now and Wrestlemania, to not even have a WWE Title match signed for the biggest show of the year? And why is Daniel Bryan content to go along with it when, if Vince gives the spot to someone other than Kofi, it just means Bryan has less time to prepare for the match? It might sound like nitpicking, but this is all stuff that can be explained with one line of dialogue, or embedded into the angle in such a way that it makes it all feel more complete and well-rounded. Rather than just "the boss is evil and doesn't want the fans to have what they want" being their only story, like every babyface in the company is playing story mode in the video game and there's only one career path. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Butternut Squash Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Shit. Got to feel for those poor 205 guys. Already busting their arse in an akward spot now theyâve got to follow that. Iâm still not convinced babyface Miz has legs to it but good god that promo! Thatâs just the perfect starting point for him and the character. Hell yeah. He earned his respect, and itâs great to see it recognised after every clueless fucker spent years shitting on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJM Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: with only one episode of Smackdown between now and Wrestlemania, to not even have a WWE Title match signed for the biggest show of the year? Not that it makes much difference because Vince changes his mind on matches daily it seems, but there are two episodes of Smackdown left before Mania. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CL Punk Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: I think the absolute pinnacle of the "heel promoter vs. face champion" trope was Austin vs. Dude Love at Over The Edge '98 - they made a point of explaining everything. Vince couldn't just fire Austin because he made him money, so he was resigned to having to work with him, and spent his time trying to break him down into becoming a model employee. He wasn't just fucking with him because he was the baddy. The big question for me is, if not Kofi, then who? Apologies if I've missed this, but Vince isn't presenting an alternative, the way he chose Charlotte over Becky, is he? So why is Vince McMahon prepared, with only one episode of Smackdown between now and Wrestlemania, to not even have a WWE Title match signed for the biggest show of the year? And why is Daniel Bryan content to go along with it when, if Vince gives the spot to someone other than Kofi, it just means Bryan has less time to prepare for the match? Kevin Owens was that alternative at Fastlane but yeah, I can't shake the feeling that Ol' Vinny Mac is being...kinda...racist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Showtime Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 More nit-picking to go with what has already been said, but they should announce some sort of back-up main event for SmackDown in case the gauntlet doesn't go the whole way - as in, Kofi fails quite early on like the commentators kept telling us he would until the very end. Orton v Owens or something. Anything. People in creative MUST be thinking of these sorts of minor things when planning the show, what becomes of them?! Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Orton's shoulder was up anyway, so Kofi got robbed of nothing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrasslin Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, Mr.Showtime said: More nit-picking to go with what has already been said, but they should announce some sort of back-up main event for SmackDown in case the gauntlet doesn't go the whole way - as in, Kofi fails quite early on like the commentators kept telling us he would until the very end. Orton v Owens or something. Anything. People in creative MUST be thinking of these sorts of minor things when planning the show, what becomes of them?! Â Another thing NXT nailed with that Sami Zayn vs Samoa Joe episode. I think they announced two further matches on the run down at the beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted March 20, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2019 Fittingly, after Kofi got the pin on Randy Orton this morning my son made me turn over to Postman Pat, so in my mind this was still a brilliant storyline that I loved. Now I'm reading that they completely Becky Lynch'd it right afterwards! No way! So disappointing. I might just skip Smackdown until Wreslemania now and  pretend they got there in a simple, logical way. I honestly don't know what else they can do. Have Vince sectioned? Or fired for being a bad racist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted March 20, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2019 Sorry, anyone who thinks this isn't still great is a muppet. đ  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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