Jonathan Dehn
WWE Smackdown
08/16/2013
San Jose, California
-The Wyatt Family comes out to start the show, and I will never tire of their theme song. Cole reminds the audience that the Ring of Fire match is only designed to keep others from the ring. That’s a nice way to sterilize a match where the ring is surrounded by fire. At least, say that anything can happen with such an environment. Give us something! Bray works to clarify a couple of things. He tells us a story about Kane being a bullied child that hides behind a mask. He looks to expose his lies at SummerSlam. Kane pops out after some pyro and disposes of Harper and Rowan. Kane then enters the ring and slugs away at Wyatt. Harper and Rowan reenter and the numbers catch up on Kane. Wyatt hits The Kiss Goodnight and kneels over Kane to end the segment.
Damien Sandow vs. Christian
I fail to see why they couldn’t put Sandow and Rhodes together in a tag match before SummerSlam. At least let us see if they have chemistry. Sandow slugs away to start, but the two begin to trade reversals before Christian hits the missile dropkick. Sandow fights back and drops Christian over the top rope from a suplex and then hit a high knee that sends Christian from the ring. Damien rolls him back in to get two. Sandow throws Christian from the ring following a rear waistlock, follows him outside, and then sends him flying over the steel steps before we go to break.
Sandow holds a chinlock as we return. Sandow pulls Christian down and over the apron and throws in some knees. He returns to the ring stepping on Christian. Captain Charisma fights back with a back body drop and pounds away in the corner. Sandow charges, but gets caught with a reverse DDT for two. From the top, Christian misses a crossbody and Sandow hits a neckbreaker for two. Christian dodges a few strikes and gets a sunset flip from the corner for two. Christian hits the back elbow but Sandow dodges the Killswitch and cartwheels out of the way.
Sandow hits the Russian legsweep but gets caught with a small package that gives the thrill of victory to the Canadian. Sandow goes after Christian, but takes a spear that sends him from the ring. Del Rio then storms the ring, attacks Christian and talks some smack to him. He looks to take out Christian with the cross armbreaker, but Christian squirms out and hits the Killswitch
Final Thoughts: These guys were damned good together. ***. I missed it, but they had plenty of good reversals that they played off of, and that type of stuff makes both guys look pretty good. And while I don’t mind Christian being pushed like a main event talent, I wish that it wasn’t done at the expense of Sandow, how continues to be cursed by the case.
-Backstage, Renee is with Rob Van Dam. RVD says he isn’t too worried about The Shield, motioning towards his tag team partners for the evening, Mark Henry and The Big Show. Show and Mark both say their pieces about how The Shield isn’t so tough.
Natalya and Kaitlyn vs. AJ Lee and Layla
Something annoying…ringing the bell while AJ still is holding her title. Nattie and Layla start. Nattie grabs a headlock. Layla rolls through into a two count and moves into a headscissors. The two trade pinning combinations. AJ distracts Nattie and she gets beaten down. Layla smashes her butt against Nattie’s face and brings in AJ. AJ puts on a sleeper. This goes on for a while until Nattie brings in Kaitlyn.
She hits the shoulderblock, a corner splash, and a backbreaker for two. AJ gets the boot up on an Irish whip, but gets caught with a gutbuster for two. Layla breaks up the pin and legsweeps Kaitlyn. AJ cleans up with a shining wizard for the win. Cole actually called it a shining wizard. I think that is newsworthy.
Final Thoughts: *. There just wasn’t enough time and this match didn’t mean all that much. The finish was pretty cool, however.
-Backstage, Ryback is with Renee and says that he isn’t on SummerSlam because people are scared of him. Off screen, some dude is smiling at Ryback and then Ryback bullies him. Ryback punches him in the stomach and tosses him over a table. Somehow, this reminds me of Goldberg.
The Shield vs. Rob Van Dam, Mark Henry and The Big Show
Rollins and Henry start. Mark tosses Rollins around a bit, hitting a slam. He tags in Rob, who comes off the top with a kick. Van Dam hits the monkey flip from the corner and hits the standing moonsault for two. Ambrose tags in blind and hits Rob in the back of the head with a clothesline. Dean slugs away in the corner and hits a short armed clothesline. Reigns enters and gets slam for two. Reigns throws on a chinlock and kinda just neutralizes Rob for a little while.
Van Dam comes back with a spinning kick after Reigns takes a moment to slug at Henry. Big Show gets the hot tag and clears the ring. Reigns pulls the ropes down on Big Show, but gets tosses over the announce table by Henry, who gets smacked by the flying Rollins. Big Show beats the count back into the ring and knocks Ambrose out. RVD enters and hits the frog splash for the win.
Final Thoughts: **1/2. The Shield are just guys now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost all of their belts in the near future. I could have gone for ten more minutes of this. This was fun for how short it was.
The Miz vs. Jack Swagger w/Zeb Colter and Antonio Cesaro
Zeb calls Miz a phony and ignorant before the match. It’s a slugfest to start. Miz hits a dropkick to the knee and begins to work at it. Swagger reverses a DDT into a slam. Swagger whips Miz around and hits a series of clotheslines, hitting a stiff one to finish. He does his pushup taunt over Miz and continues to knock him over with shoulderblocks. Miz fires back with the backbreaker, neckbreaker combo. Swagger misses a chopblock and gets a DDT from Miz for two. Miz hits the corner clothesline, but gets distracted by Cesaro and knocked to the outside. The referee ejects Cesaro and Colter in response. Swagger is distracted by this and gets rolled up by Miz, who heads for the pay window.
Final Thoughts: **. Here’s a dirty secret. The Miz is a decent worker who is much improved since his lousy WrestleMania main event with John Cena. He sells a good beating and all of his offense makes sense.
Zack Ryder vs. Curtis Axel
Ryder goes for a quick rollup to start, and follows with a couple of armdrags. Axel elbows Ryder out of a hammerlock. Zack gets the elbow up in the corner and hits a flapjack for two. On the outside, Ryder follows Axel back in and gets stomped. I hate that spot. Ryder flips out of a suplex and gets the knees up in the corner. He follows with a missile dropkick. Axel bails on the Broski Boot. Ryder is just going through the motions when he does it. Ryder misses a crossbody from the top, and Axel slugs away. Curtis hits a back suplex and then follows with an inverted neckbreaker for the win.
Final Thoughts: *. Hey, Zack got on the show. There was nothing to really see here.
-Heyman is in the ring and is upset to be outsmarted by CM Punk on Monday. He doesn’t say much of note about that match at SummerSlam, just hyping it a bit.
No Disqualification Match – Daniel Bryan vs. Wade Barrett
They lockup to start, and Bryan begins to chop away in the corner, and follows with a legwhip. Bryan moves to the surfboard and stomps away. Wade comes back with a kneelift off of the whip. Barrett stomps away in the corner. Bryan flips out of the corner and hits the clothesline. He knocks Wade to the floor, but misses the baseball slide. Wade runs him into the barricade and whips him into it as well. Wade misses a big boot and gets caught atop it. Bryan kicks him down into the timekeeper’s area. Bryan grabs a table and slides it into the ring.
Wade fights back and slams Bryan into the announce table and into the steel steps. Wade grabs a kendo stick and reenters. Barrett hits a few shots, but Bryan recovers and sends him scurrying. Bryan hits the dive and goes to the top. Bryan hits the dropkick from the top and nips up. Vince comes out to distract Bryan and is wearing the worst suit in the history of suits. NOTHING MATCHES. He looks like Doink.
We come back from break with Wade hitting a swinging neckbreaker for two. Wade leans a table in the corner and looks for a powerbomb. Bryan counters with a ‘rana that sends Wade outside. Bryan follows with the knee from the apron. Bryan taunts at Vince a bit and kicks the crap out of Wade right in front of him. Wade hits a snap suplex on the outside to Vince’s pleasure. Barrett throws Bryan into the steel post. Wade brings out a chair and goes back inside. Wade brutalizes Bryan with the chair and goes to the top with it. He misses a dive with the chair.
Bryan hits the corner dropkick flourish and grabs the kendo stick. Bryan destroys Wade with the stick and the kicks. Wade gets two from a rollup on the buzzsaw kick. Bryan gets the Yes! Lock, but Vince pulls the ref from the ring. Bryan and Vince get into it. Wade hits the Bull Hammer and Vince calls Maddox into the ring to make the count. Bryan kicks out at two. Bryan kicks Wade in the head and Maddox doesn’t make the count. Bryan stares down Maddox as Vince hands Wade the stick. Bryan ducks the attack and Maddox gets knocked out after the stick bends around the curvature of his face.
Bryan dropkicks them both into the corner and throws Wade through the table. Vince threatens to become the official, but HHH walks down with a referee shirt. Bryan finally finishes Wade off with the top rope headbutt for the win. HHH and Bryan celebrate as Vince pouts. The crowd quiets down as Orton walks out onto the ramp to once again loom over the proceedings as the show comes to a close.
Final Thoughts: ***1/2. It must be Christmas morning for Wade Barrett when he gets to work with Bryan. This was entertaining, although overbooked to all hell. It was fun seeing Vince slapping together a lousy screwjob with Maddox and Barrett. The fans chanting for HHH before he came out to right the wrongs bothered me, as Bryan is the guy who’s going to be wrestling the matches.
–This was a solid show tonight with two good matches and some slick videos to hype up SummerSlam this Sunday. Smackdown, of late, has been moving storylines forward instead of just complementing them. This is always welcome. This is a two hour wrestling show, and something that WWE is accustomed to producing. So, I’m quite leery of Smackdown also becoming a three hour show. RAW is a tiring experience, especially when you’re typing alongside it. This show, on the other hand, is quite pleasant. I’m unhappy with the lack of Dolph Ziggler on both this show, and his two second cameo on Monday. I don’t need reddit to predict that he’s jobbing at SummerSlam. Christian is having a great run as challenger to the WHC and I don’t mind his run, as he’s beginning to churn out good matches regularly. Still, The McMahon storyline is just about to swallow up Cena and Bryan entirely. Hopefully, the overbooking planned for Sunday is done exceptionally well and with great thought.
