The Smackers Thread

[air_raid]

Bit of a weird Hunter move, but maybe he’s still angry at tag team wrestling all these years later because WCW replaced him in The Bluebloods with one of the best tag team wrestlers of all time?

[Chili]

Good job it's just a blip. No previous behav... Ahh

 

[DavidB6937]

For whatever reason they're just absolutely incapable of booking tag team wrestling well on a consistent basis. Whether it's the lack of teams or what I just don't know. Even when you think they're trying, they burn through the options so fast and you're back to being bored. Surely it can't be that difficult.

[LaGoosh]

Also you'd think by the amount they bang on about the Attitude era they'd remembered that loads of the top acts from that time period were tag teams. People love tag teams!

[RedTwoster]

That was probably the best Smackdown of the Road Dogg era, even if that is a bit like saying ‘that root canal treatment wasn’t as bad as I expected’.

Very little happened, heel Cena is still dull and the tag division is even more boring, no matter how many times they try to suggest it isn’t. 

And fuck, a sloppy match featuring Nia Jax provoked ‘this is awesome’ chants, really showing just how low the standards are for matches in WWE. I’m glad Naomi won,  and Jade Cargill’s offence looked good, but Nia really dragged the whole thing down.

Good on Cody for not taking his dog out as the pyro blasted off in the background, at least he’s learned his lesson there.

I’m utterly baffled by the decision to put the US title on Zelina. I can’t remember a less over wrestler holding a singles title in WWE for quite some time. 

I’m assuming/hoping Punk wins MITB and chooses to cash in his contract ahead of time to face Cena at Summerslam.

The show was watchable enough, but as usual, you missed very little if you didn’t watch it. 

[The King of Old School]

5 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

 

I’m utterly baffled by the decision to put the US title on Zelina. I can’t remember a less over wrestler holding a singles title in WWE for quite some time. 

Throw back to Austin Theory holding the mens US belt.

[Supremo]

Wake up babe. New John Cena face has dropped. We had smiley babyface John Cena. We had grumpy Thomas the Tank heel John Cena. Now we have sad, dead-behind-the-eyes, he-knows-this-run-is-tanking John Cena.

He looked so gutted introducing Logan Paul. You and us both, John. We’re just as sad as you. Hoping for CM Punk vs. John Cena at Money in the Bank only to get a, “Can They Co-Exist?” Tag with Cena and Logan Paul is like waking up on Christmas morning to discover there are no presents, you’ve been burgled, and the burglars took a shit under the tree.

All these NXT guys suddenly appearing gave me flashbacks to this. If nothing else, at least panicked call ups suggests they know things are wrong. Let’s hope for a better success rate.

Doing Zelina Vega’s entrance during the ad break. Funny.

Best thing on the show was this bonkers match graphic.

Finally! Something fresh for Phil! A match that doesn’t involve Seth Rollins!*

*To qualify for a match involving Seth Rollins.

[tiger_rick]

9 hours ago, Supremo said:

Oh my. Now there's something I forgot ever happened. Just look at those faces. Absolutely pissing star power. Can't fail, this lot.

Genuinely forgotten the name of top left. Seem to recall he just disappeared because of his mental health or a historic allegation, or possibly both.

The bottom left is Tucker, right? Otis's tag partner who they let go and I've literally never heard of (or thought about) again.

Biggest success from that lot? Otis, comfortably?

[mim731]

2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Genuinely forgotten the name of top left. Seem to recall he just disappeared because of his mental health or a historic allegation, or possibly both.

I also can't recall his name (I could look it up), but I do have some vague recollection of him getting in trouble for saying some homophobic or similar things and then it turned out he was previously in a gay porn film or something pre-WWE? I'm sketchy on the details but I definitely recall there being a hilarious twist in that story. 

[TheBurningRed]

2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

Biggest success from that lot? Otis, comfortably?

Otis a close second. Nikki Cross I‘d say is the biggest success. Won MITB (and actually cashed in unlike Otis), women’s champ, 3x women’s tag champ. 

Tucker has retired now. Lars Sullivan seemingly disappeared after he got released. Homophobic rants on a forum despite the man himself appearing in a gay porn. 

[LaGoosh]

Wasn't there an issue where once he was called up he started getting panic attacks and missed his Raw debut or something?

[TheBurningRed]

He had a panic attack before beginning a feud with Cena if I recall correctly. 

[tiger_rick]

17 minutes ago, TheBurningRed said:

He had a panic attack before beginning a feud with Cena if I recall correctly. 

Perfectly understandable if it happened in 2025.

[The Dart]

If you ignore any behind the scenes rumours or stories and are just a casual fan who doesn't watch NXT, then Lars Sullivan had the weirdest run ever.

Announced out of nowhere to debut next week along with 5 other new wrestlers (which is unusual to begin with)

Next week comes, the 5 others debut, but he doesn't and is never mentioned.

4 or 5 months later he appears unannounced and attacks Kurt Angle (I think?)

Then for some reason starts feuding with The Lucha House Party and his only match is beating them in a 3 on one handicap match on a PPV and then again on the next Raw.

Then he disappears for another year.   Comes back, has 2 matches on Smackdown and then disappears again never to be seen or mentioned ever.

 

[HarmonicGenerator]

And yet, Lars has a five star Meltzer match rating on his resume, making him objectively! better than Kurt Angle, Mr Perfect, Randy Savage and Triple H.