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The Smackers Thread


PowerButchi

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4 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I presume Tony Chimmell has retired now? I used to like his ring announcing. Penzer still does it in impact, and he does it well. Maybe Tripper/Vince should see whether Jeremy Borash is good to do their ring anouncing.

Yeah Chimel retired about 10 years ago I think. 

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On 4/22/2023 at 3:25 PM, jazzygeofferz said:

I presume Tony Chimmell has retired now? I used to like his ring announcing. Penzer still does it in impact, and he does it well. Maybe Tripper/Vince should see whether Jeremy Borash is good to do their ring anouncing.

Chimmel has been working at the aew/roh Florida tapings helping backstage 

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👍 KO/Zayn vs Usos - Not quite up to their Wrestlemania standard but that wasn’t the requirement for this TV main event. Still an excellent match and the right result which adds further intrigue as to the future of Jimmy and Jey. It would have been easy to do a cop out and switch the belts back onto them - now there are more questions to answer and that makes for better television. 

👍 LA Knight/Butch - Made shorter due to the commercial break, but what we got was still decent. LA Knight continues to be over like rover. Yeah. 

👍 Triple threat tag match - Love how they played up to Brawn accidentally chucking Ricochet the week before. Lots of fun here as a showcase for all three teams. 

👎 The Draft - The biggest issue for me is that a combination of the draft segments and ad breaks killed the flow of the matches tonight, which collectively had less time allocated to fit in all of the announcement bollocks. The spokesperson theme was a fun addition admittedly, but Teddy Long picking for Raw?! Come on, player. I left separate thoughts on the actual picks, but as a plot device in general this did nothing for me I’m afraid and it's beginning to show its age. Also, for all the crowing they do about the possibility of teams getting broken up, they keep getting drafted together! A farce. 

👎 Zelina Vega vs Sonya Deville - A short heater for the PLE - Match itself too short to rate favourably, but a nice little bit of business with Rhea Ripley at the end just to plant a tiny seed of doubt ahead of the PLE and a much-needed heater for Zelina. 

👎 OC return - Seems a bit of a waste to continue with the group at this point and it seemed like an underwhelming way to have AJ return as part of the package deal. You could potentially turn them heel and have them set up against the likes of the LWO potentially, but they do nothing for me as a collective presently. 

Draft thoughts 

SD - Roman/Solo/Heyman - No shock. 

Raw - Cody - Fingers crossed he wins MITB and still challenges Roman, or he wins the Rumble and challenges Roman again at Wrestlemania. It does make sense to keep him separate from Roman for now and it makes sense that after Roman he would be the next pick. 

- SD - Bianca - Interestingly she kept referring to herself as the Smackdown women’s champion in her phone promo. Hopefully they don’t just do a shitty belt swap with Rhea. 

- Raw - Becky - Surprisingly high up the pecking order. 

- SD - Street Profits - Still expect them to split at some point…also they just so happened to be completely ready to compete in blue? Come on, player. 

- Raw - Imperium - Gunther for future World Heavyweight champion. 

- SD - Edge - Ambivalent about this one. 

- Raw - Riddle - Interesting to see him kept seperate from Roman/Solo.

- SD - Bobby Lashley - A future Roman challenger in the interim. 

- Raw - Drew McIntyre - Another World Heavyweight title contender. 

- SD - The OC - It was surprising seeing them selected as a package deal. Again though, an underwhelming Styles return. 

- Raw - Miz - Proved recently he can still go against Rollins, hopefully Seth gets selected for Raw and they can run this back. 

- SD - Damage Control - At least Bayley’s feud with Michael Cole will continue. 

- Raw - Shinsuke - Pair him up with Walter and have him get battered. 

- SD - Alba Frye/Isla Dawn - Strange first NXT call-up when the pairing is still fairly new on NXT's screens. 

- Raw - Indi Hartwell - Amazing considering she’s only just won the strap and after she got injured last week. I wouldn’t have given any of the triple threat title match contenders a call up following the match earlier this week. 

 

 

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I genuinely felt somewhat excited or invested about the idea of bringing this shit up again because they could have done some interesting moves to shake things up and make it at least seem fresh for 2 weeks before everyone shows up on both shows anyway.

I fucking hate the fact that teams or factions are put in there as a collective.....one of the fun things about this brand split is the splitting of teams to go it alone. 

Things like Roman staying on smackdown, Cody staying on raw, the miz staying on raw felt pointless and those could have been announced like there doing online for the rest and give the big reveals to those actually moving.

I really enjoyed the main event with the absolute right team going over and retaining the belts which continues the impending end of the bloodline, I really hate the million superkick spots though 

Also I discovered yesterday bray Wyatt isn't appearing on either of the brand lists for trade interesting 

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I know people have joked about it in the past, but I’m wondering whether Austin Theory is actually the long term plan in terms of dethroning Roman.

Gunther moving to Raw means Theory will probably shift to Smackdown, and the introduction of a Raw only title probably means Roman is holding his titles for a while yet.

They’ve dropped a couple of Roman/Theory or Theory wanting to be champion breadcrumbs over the last 12 months, he’s coming off beating Cena at Mania and big past stars regularly talk about him as the future.

I think he’s shite but I think his odds of being the guy have improved considerably over the last few weeks.

Edited by d-d-d-dAz
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Having Shawn Michaels act pissed off at the NXT call-ups was kind of odd. It's very much back to being presented as a developmental brand again, surely the person in charge of developmental should be chuffed when their proteges make the big leagues?

Plus, it's two more titles he can vacate and fill with multi-person ladder matches, so it ought to be his dream scenario.

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2 minutes ago, Statto said:

Having Shawn Michaels act pissed off at the NXT call-ups was kind of odd. It's very much back to being presented as a developmental brand again, surely the person in charge of developmental should be chuffed when their proteges make the big leagues?

Plus, it's two more titles he can vacate and fill with multi-person ladder matches, so it ought to be his dream scenario.

Shawn Michaels being irrationally pissed off. Most realistic booking in wrestling in 2023 

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1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

Gunther moving to Raw means Theory will probably shift to Smackdown

Lashley could win the title in the triple threat at Backlash and take the US title to Smackdown that way and keep Theory on Raw and push him up the card towards the World Heavyweight Championship ranks (not that I think he'll be winning it any time soon)

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1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

I know people have joked about it in the past, but I’m wondering whether Austin Theory is actually the long term plan in terms of dethroning Roman.

Gunther moving to Raw means Theory will probably shift to Smackdown, and the introduction of a Raw only title probably means Roman is holding his titles for a while yet.

They’ve dropped a couple of Roman/Theory or Theory wanting to be champion breadcrumbs over the last 12 months, he’s coming off beating Cena at Mania and big past stars regularly talk about him as the future.

I think he’s shite but I think his odds of being the guy have improved considerably over the last few weeks.

For a while now the word has been that they want Theory to be their 'Next John Cena'.  Whilst Cena's main event push felt forced at the time, at least his initial rise in popularity had been pretty organic. With Theory, it's felt like they've been forcing it from the get-go. If 'Next John Cena' really is the plan for him, they need to figure out how to move him from his current Ruthless Aggression phase into whatever his equivalent of Cena's Doctor of Thuganomics might look like. Anything to help him connect with the people. 

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Found it funny SmackDown just kept picking teams and factions to get multiple guys/girls while RAW, outside Imperium, stuck to singles acts.

Also amusing that Bianca is sending videos from Belfast where it is the middle of the night and it’s broad daylight.

Thought the draft really highlighted how thin the roster is in terms of stars.

Not much else happened except Solo looking gutted because he knows what he is going to have to do on Monday.

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