The Smackers Thread

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, digforvictory said:

I'm finding this Cena heel turn absolutely awful so far.  I don't like agreeing with Ariel Helwani but it does come across as Cena acting, badly, at being a wrestling heel.

Yeah, he borders on being a comedy heel at times but he’s not convincing in any way for me. It feels like he’s playing a character. Perhaps part of that was the decision not to shake up his look and theme song - it’s hard to think of him as being something new when little about him is different. 

53 minutes ago, FUM said:

I don’t watch NXT so my only glimpses of Fraxiom have been their appearances on the main shows.

Nathan Frazer has been outstanding in both his appearances. Seems the better of the two despite Axiom having had the earlier opportunities.

He’s very good, but it’s going to be quite the challenge to get over in a tag division that feels so boring. The TLC match was very good, yet I felt oddly apathetic to it given how dull the division has been. It’s a booking problem more than anything else.

 

[Mr Butternut Squash]

Cena won me over on Monday but he was back to his children's party host worst on Smackdown. Felt like him and Randy could fall about laughing at any moment. Very bad but very funny.

Edited April 26, 2025 by Mr Butternut Squash

[DavidB6937]

A TLC match is a TLC match. Crowds just want to see spots. So yeah those guys would've struggled to have a bad one but not sure it means anyone actually gives a shit about the tag division. So good luck to Fraxiom who are outstanding but will probably have wrestled everyone in a month.

Orton and Cena lost me once they started going on about kids but did bring it back a bit. The Cena heel experiment is a fail for me though. He's either not very good at being a heel or the material is too bad for him to work with. I'm not sure which one but none of it feels natural or convincing.

[Mr_Danger]

I feel like Cena thinks he has to do the Chris Jericho in a suit heel voice because if he does his roast master general thuganomics heelin’ he’ll just get massively cheered. I can’t have my own kids because I’ve been raising all yours for 25 years was a killer line though. Maybe stop shilling all your colourful gear if you’re gonna do the black and white entrance. This is my favourite version of Randy so I’ll give them my time.

Fraxiom look very good but that name is shit. I’m pretty sure I’ve been prescribed Fraxiom when my regular antidepressants stopped working.

I’d rather watch an endless looped super cut of the Tiffy vs Charlotte feud than watch Tiffy vs Jade again. Tiffy is no ring general but the fact they’ve been working around the same amount of time and Jade is so much shitter tells me Jade will never get there. Just give her a Goldberg move set and see what happens. She’s shit. Has a ton of physical charisma but can’t talk and is so off key with her movement and placement. 
 

Jacob is the man. The true champion.

[Supremo]

We can make our own McDonalds at home.

What was the thing Bret said about Triple H? Never had an original idea in his life? Between this and them recreating The Dangerous Alliance/Evolution on Raw, it’s enough to make you hilariously roll your eyes.

I’d never considered it before, but watching Aleister Black slowly floating up from his back during this entrance is quite a good metaphor for how he refused to lie on his back for the last four years. JOB WATCH starts here. Will be interesting to see who’ll eat a clean loss first between Rusev and Black. Bet he stops doing the attention-seeking, emo promos online, too.

Big shout out to the one lad who tried to get a, “Tony Fumbled,” chant, only to immediately give up. Imagine chanting that when his first feud is with The Miz.

On the plus side, they kept his old entrance music. The difference in quality between CFO$ and Def Rebel is insane.

Good show overall.

It’s still very pantomime, but I’m enjoying Heel Cena more and more as the weeks go on. He seems to be getting more and more comfortable. Randomly insulting kids at ringside is what this business is all about. Get a plant kid in for Cena to throw a drink at them. Give us a stunt granny for him to push over.

Heat should be out of this world for the Backlash match in Orton’s home town. Expectations couldn’t be lower for the match itself though. Slowest headlock sequences you’ll ever see.

I’d never really seen much of Fraxiom before. Really fun team. Nathan Frazer giving Takeshita a run for his money with how hard he hits the ropes. Boss.

Jacob Fatu looks the absolute business with the belt. Looking this fucking cool in street clothes, giving Solo the side eye? He’s unstoppable. Could be the company’s top babyface.

”Soon.”

The joke used to be you couldn’t go a single episode of Smackdown without an impromptu match and a DQ finish. We’ve upgraded. We now get at least two of each, every single week. My main reason for wanting to watch that Netflix documentary about their creative process is that I’m utterly convinced every production meeting for Smackdown starts with Road Dogg brainstorming which matches will feature his two favourite tropes. It’s beyond parody at this point.

Surprisingly solid match between Jade and Tiffy. I expected the worst, but they mostly kept it together. Cool spot when Jade reversed the cartwheel into a Powerbomb. Wild when they mentioned Tiffy had only been in the business four years. Three years less than Jade! The perfect example of those who naturally get it and those who still stop mid-match like their controller is disconnected, when they forget the next spot.

I love Naomi. This heel run has been great. But fucking hell. Those were some of the worst punches this side of The Dark Order. Rubbish!

Don’t care about Zelina Vega. Wouldn’t have wasted Chelsea Green’s Title loss on her. That ref’s count looked fast to me. I hope Chelsea gets the belt back in court.

During the backstage promo with Melo and Miz, did I spot that they list all the previous winners of the Andre the Giant Battle Royale on the trophy? Hilarious, if true. A wasteland of sacked men who went nowhere. What a legacy!

Phenomenal main event. Nothing short of criminal to think this didn’t make it onto the Mania card, but New Day and the War Raiders did.

This ruled so much. Ladder matches are usually completely played out and do nothing for me, but the amount of new, fun spots they came up with was ridiculous! Belter!

Great performances from everyone, but there were two stand outs. First, Montez Ford looked unbelievable here. How they haven’t pulled the trigger on him yet is beyond me. And second, my boy, Big Joe Tess. Hearing him enthusiastically losing his mind in this match was the best. It’s like watching pro-wrestling with an enthusiastic Dad, having the time of his life.

Two good shows this week. Raw was better, but both brands feel free and exciting again now they’re no longer crashing down the Road to Wrestlemania, after the breaks failed and the wheels started falling off.

We’ve been to Halfords, the car is fixed, and the calm Thoroughfare to Backlash is proving to be far more enjoyable.

Rock’s going to turn up next week just to fuck everything up again, isn’t he?

Edited April 26, 2025 by Supremo

[Mr_Danger]

What was with the Acme Acres ring ropes? Never heard them boing like that when Jacob twanged them.

[DavidB6937]

Just now, Mr_Danger said:

What was with the Acme Acres ring ropes? Never heard them boing like that when Jacob twanged them.

I noticed that a few times. Kept waiting for them to snap during TLC and fuck someone up.

The camera seemed really shaky at the beginning too.

[LaGoosh]

Match wise I don't really know how a Cena heel run can work. He's spent an entire career doing the tried and tested babyface formula of selling his arse off then hitting the 5 moves of doom to get the win. A heel mostly has to work offence and Cena's offence has always been pretty terrible. And that's before you take into account how old and knackered he is (and probably desperately trying to avoid getting an injury that'll fuck up his movie/TV schedule).

[RedTwoster]

52 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Match wise I don't really know how a Cena heel run can work. He's spent an entire career doing the tried and tested babyface formula of selling his arse off then hitting the 5 moves of doom to get the win. A heel mostly has to work offence and Cena's offence has always been pretty terrible. And that's before you take into account how old and knackered he is (and probably desperately trying to avoid getting an injury that'll fuck up his movie/TV schedule).

He ‘played the heel’ often enough though, with people like Punk, Danielson and others. He was very capable of working from that position, the question is really if he still has what it takes to wrestle at that level. I didn’t mind the match with Cody, but I’m in the minority in holding that view. Perhaps he still needs to work past some ring rust, much as CM Punk did and AJ Styles definitely needs to.

I like the idea of a Cena/Truth title match at some point, even if it’s only on TV. I could see that being a fun underdog story. I hope they have something in mind with Cena and Truth after that interaction - I could see a short-lived partnership in which Cena uses Truth being quite enjoyable. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

Just now, RedTwoster said:

He ‘played the heel’ often enough though, with people like Punk, Danielson and others.

Sort of, he's worked through the beats of being the guy the crowd doesn't like but he's never played the mean, bad-guy-with-an-attitude.

I'm very much Team Cena, but I'm fascinated by just how strange it is watching him trying to stomp someone. It's not something you ever think about, but he's never been a stomper and now he looks absolutely insane doing it.

[LaGoosh]

5 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

He ‘played the heel’ often enough though, with people like Punk, Danielson and others

Not really. The fans were booing him but he didn't wrestle as a heel in those matches at all.

[RedTwoster]

7 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

Not really. The fans were booing him but he didn't wrestle as a heel in those matches at all.

That’s true, but he wasn’t working from underneath either in the way you describe - if he’s able to work that style, he should be OK. Against a more mobile opponent he should be OK, but I’m intrigued as to what the match with Orton will look like, for better or worse.

[TheScarlettChad]

Seeing Cena begging off at Mania was BIZARRE, Like the literal Superman for the latter half of the 2000s and early 2010s, begging off. Not even Roman did that.

[air_raid]

At this point I’d endorse Orton winning the title purely because when Cody comes for his next shot at it, we needn’t recap how Travis Scott cost him the title to the champion.

[d-d-d-dAz]

6 minutes ago, air_raid said:

At this point I’d endorse Orton winning the title purely because when Cody comes for his next shot at it, we needn’t recap how Travis Scott cost him the title to the champion.

Also, no one looks better with a World Title than Randy Orton.

On Raw and Smackdown when he picked up the belt it just felt right.