The Smackers Thread

[LaGoosh]

2 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

...but he's recently had spinal fusion surgery. That's how Cody explained it anyway.

Announce table bumps don't have any credibility as being dangerous due to wrestlers going through them all the time seemingly non stop for two decades. So having to buy the story that long term main event giant of a man Randy Orton being put through an announce table by a couple of short midcarders as a potentially career ending moment is laughable regardless of them trying to frame it within the spinal surgery angle.

[Arch Stanton]

53 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Announce table bumps don't have any credibility as being dangerous due to wrestlers going through them all the time seemingly non stop for two decades. So having to buy the story that long term main event giant of a man Randy Orton being put through an announce table by a couple of short midcarders as a potentially career ending moment is laughable regardless of them trying to frame it within the spinal surgery angle.

100% right. It's the rule of diminishing returns, I'm pretty sure someone goes through an announce table almost every week on TV. They'd have been able to sell a simple stamp to the lower back as being more heinous than the table bump.

[Supremo]

The UKFF going down, then coming back a few days later? That took less time than how long Austin Theory held that chair in front of his face for Cody to hit the Van Cody-nator.

 

[The Gaffer]

Grayson's decidedly unstaggered looking, "Check where Cody is over both  shoulders" thing looked awful as well there. 

The pair of them are the more cynical, uninspiring end of 'The WWE way' for me. 

They can't all be Logan Pauls, I guess.

[Supremo]

Wrecks my head that they’re already breaking up A-Town Down Under. They’ve only been a team for a handful of months, and it’s easily the best thing Austin Theory has done on the main roster. Why not ride that for a bit? See where it goes? They’re a good act. Every fucking team on your roster doesn’t have to be constantly displaying TENSION and ANIMOSITY, before splitting up long before it might actually matter.

Worse still, it means one of them is going to have to turn babyface. I can’t think of two men less ready for a mid-card babyface run. The inevitable match will likely suck, too.

You know those videos you sometimes see of couples at Disneyland, and they both propose to each other at the same time? If they must split, I want something like that for A-Town Down Under. They both try and turn heel on the other at the same time, it makes for a funny segment, and then they both go their separate ways.

Anyway, I’ll mostly remember this show for seemingly being written by a fourteen year old Power Slam reader. Bayley’s promo on Nia, explaining Nia didn’t injure her because she’s a good wrestler, no, she injured her because she’s, “big, clumsy and reckless.” And then closely followed by Logan Paul’s promo on LA Knight, going, “LOL, you just pretend to be The Rock!”

The absolute worst. What are we doing here? Pro-wrestling can be literally anything you want it to be. The very reason this industry boomed again was people getting lost in the fiction and characters. Keep this mid-2010 nonsense in the bin where it belongs. This show desperately needed CM Punk storming into the production meeting, screaming, “why do you insist on doing this dumb internet shit?”

Best thing on the show, once again, was the melodramatic closing angle. Cody screaming and crying like someone was dying, as Kevin Owens had some wrestling moves done on him. Never change, Cody. Ridiculous man.

I saw loads of complaints online that Smackdown keeps ending the same way every week, with Hollywood Bloodline standing tall. Anyone complaining about that; you’re wrong, and you’re a grotesquely ugly freak. If anything, I’m sad we only have a few weeks left of them finishing the show like that. I’d have taken months of it. The more we get it, the bigger the orgasm when Roman comes out at Summerslam. Can. Not. Fucking. Wait.

[DavidB6937]

Yeah I think the repetition and slow destruction of the main babyfaces is essential to the story. It gets to the point where there's only one answer, and that's the one we all want.

[RedTwoster]

While the impending return of Roman Reigns is very, very exciting; they’re being so blatant about saying he’ll be at Summerslam that they might be in danger of having Cody/Solo play out to crickets, with an audience anticipating that the match isn’t going to end until the big return happens. I hope not though, and heck, maybe it doesn’t even matter. It’s unlikely to be the match that people will be talking about once the weekend wraps up.

[Kfogg1991]

Firstly how batcrap crazy that everyone is desperate to see roman reigns.

Is he going to come back and help cody the person to beat him taking his titles after four years as champion pretty much turning him babyface immediately 

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

While the impending return of Roman Reigns is very, very exciting; they’re being so blatant about saying he’ll be at Summerslam that they might be in danger of having Cody/Solo play out to crickets, with an audience anticipating that the match isn’t going to end until the big return happens. I hope not though, and heck, maybe it doesn’t even matter. It’s unlikely to be the match that people will be talking about once the weekend wraps up.

It does feel strange to me that a Big 4 PPV is headlines by a match that only exists to prepare for a return, even if it is Roman. I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it hits weird.

 

I was also surprised that Solo explicitly, antagonistically, called out Roman like that. I thought there'd be some degree of figuring out the dynamic first, but apparently not.

[TheScarlettChad]

4 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said:

Firstly how batcrap crazy that everyone is desperate to see roman reigns.

Is he going to come back and help cody the person to beat him taking his titles after four years as champion pretty much turning him babyface immediately 

How is it crazy? He's awesome. Everyone loves the guy. Its not 2016 anymore.  

[Supremo]

It’s very WWE to bottle it and practically just announce Roman. Not a company of nuance or subtlety. That closing Solo promo, where they stuck up a photograph of Roman as he mentioned him? Really funny.

I think the match will be fine. They should make it Tribal Combat or Bloodline Rules, whatever they call it. Big schmozz, loads of interference, and then BOOM. Arena melts when his music hits. How long have they built to this moment, where Roman is earnestly received as a top babyface? A decade? More?

Roman returning a few days after Sami and Jey Uso team up again, too? I cannot handle it. My dawgs. We’re back!

[RedTwoster]

29 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said:

How is it crazy? He's awesome. Everyone loves the guy. It’s not 2016 anymore.  

I think what @Kfogg1991 is saying is fair enough - they’ve managed to turn the person who was the biggest heel in the company into its biggest babyface without him appearing on television even once. That’s good going. 

10 minutes ago, Supremo said:

It’s very WWE to bottle it and practically just announce Roman. Not a company of nuance or subtlety. That closing Solo promo, where they stuck up a photograph of Roman as he mentioned him? Really funny.

It’s so blatant that I’m almost wondering if there’s more to it - like, if it’ll be revealed that Rock was goading Solo into calling out Roman when it’s something that won’t benefit him in anyway. Whether it’s CM Punk, The Rock or Rhea Ripley, the company hasn’t been opposed to a surprise return over the past year. When they’re as hot as they are, flagging Roman so blatantly seems a bit unnecessary. We’ll see, though. 

[DavidB6937]

They're just fucking with you. Wait til Lesnar's music hits.

[MachoLibre]

Hmmm...any chance of it being a red herring and The Rock actually pops back up? To reveal his place in all of this and that he's responsible for and pulling the strings behind the new Bloodline and now coming for Cody? Not sure anyone believes Solo would be taking the title, so maybe it's a glorified angle, Solo is DQ'd, Bloodline absolutely batter Cody in the same vein they have the other babyfaces and Rock returns to makes his intentions clear.

At this point I think you could almost hold off until the Rumble match to bring Roman back. Continue edging us in the meantime, have him return at and win the Rumble. In hopefully a nice little flip of 10 years prior. With Rock/Cody also happening the same night. Possibly a gamble whether the anticipation of Roman returning would heighten or diminish to have a word with Rock over Solo.

[simonworden]

There's no way they are holding back Roman's return to the Rumble. I'd anticipate he'll be back for a wargames at Survivor Series. There's no other group than the Bloodline at the moment who feel big enough to enter that match. 

I think the most likely outcome is going to be Roman returns followed by a surprise Rock return where they turn on him but not sure it it all happens next week. Roman and the Uso's shouldn't all be mates immediately though, they need a bit of time to get together. It's a bit bollocks if they all come back and are all mates and chummy with the faces. Even more ridiculous if Roman suddenly wants to be Cody's pal. 

With the way it's going we're going to see Cody as the 4th Man and not Sammy it seems too.