Jonathan Dehn
WWE Smackdown
01/03/2014
Washington, D.C.
–The Shield is out to begin the night. Dean addresses the rumblings that The Shield is crumbling from within. With eyes on Reigns, he claims that their egos are not out of control. Reigns takes the microphone. While having his eyes on Ambrose, he states that The Shield does not have a weak link. Rollins, happy to be there, tells everyone to continue to believe in The Shield.
The Shield vs. The Usos
Dean Ambrose is at the table with Cole and JBL. Reigns and Jimmy begin, with Roman throwing him around. Rollins steps in and runs into trouble with Jey, who enters. Jimmy returns for a double team elbow. Rollins spills to the floor after Dean kills it on commentary with a tangent about the long road to success and closing down Singapore’s bars with Roman. Reigns gets dumped to the outside, and Seth returns to get thrown out onto Roman.
We come back from break with Jey holding Seth with a hammerlock. Reigns gets the blind tag and hits a back elbow. He beats away and hits a suplex for two. Seth comes in off the top and drives a fist into the ribs. Jey gets flung into the corner as Dean makes a direct reference to Adam Ryland’s Total Extreme Wrestling series when asked about a unification of the IC and US titles. Seth gets a hold on Jey and stops the comeback with a stungun. Roman pops in and drops an elbow. Reigns works on the arm. Jey dodges a charge and Reigns spills out.
Jimmy gets the hot tag and gets right to work. Jimmy takes Seth over with a Samoan drop. Rollins runs outside. Reigns gets dumped. The Usos look to dive out onto their opponents, but Dean interrupts and causes a DQ. After the match, the beatdown starts. CM Punk is quick to run out to the ring to help out The Usos. The ring is cleared. Man, I feel like CM Punk forgot to do something recently…
Final Thoughts: **. The DQ ending was disappointing, but the work was solid and fun. Ambrose was also tremendous on commentary.
Fandango w/Summer Rae vs. R-Truth w/Xavier Woods
Xavier Woods is now on commentary. Fandango stomps away in the corner to begin. Truth gets a hiptoss and dumps ‘Go. Fandango comes back with a leg lariat, however. We’ve learned that the basis of Xavier Woods’ character is a wrestler with a PHD. Fandango gets a chinlock. Truth gets back with his own leg lariat. Fandango gets the boot up in the corner. Xavier can’t take anymore and starts to dance on the announce table as the Funkadactyls come out and dance. This distracts Fandango, of course. Truth gets the win with his rarely used Flatliner finish. There’s dancing after the match.
Final Thoughts: Yeah, faces acting like complete jerks can function if the wrestlers are established.
-Renee is with Big E Langston. Big E addresses Mark Henry’s injuries suffered against Brock Lesnar. Curtis Axel shows up to laugh about Henry’s condition. Big E puts some fear in Axel, declaring that he will not be laughing later on.
-There’s a recap of the least wanted or needed heel turn since WrestleMania X-Seven.
WWE Tag Team Championship Match – The Rhodes Bros © vs. The Wyatt Family
Bray is absent. So is Daniel Bryan. Goldust and Harper begin. Luke gets a shoulderblock. Cody is tagged in, and they hit a double suplex. Cody hits a dropkick to the knee and brings in Goldust. Harper gets control and brings in Rowan. The crowd is dead. Rowan slugs and brings in Harper. Goldust gets a clothesline off of the whip and hits a few punches in the corner. Harper charges out of the corner and lays him out. Rowan pops in with a knee drop. Goldy gets choked in the ropes. Harper comes in and puts on a headlock. Luchadust gets a sunset bomb to answer the abuse! Cody tags in and hits the springboard dropkick and the high knee. Cody knocks Harper out of the ring, gives Rowan a Disaster Kick on the apron, and splashes out on Harper. However, Harper pops up and throws Cody into the barricade and steps. We hit a break.
Back from the break, Rowan mauls Cody in the corner. Erick puts on the Iron Claw and tosses Cody across the ring. Harper tags back in and charges into the corner with an elbow. Harper uses The Gator Roll. Cody takes an uppercut that stops his momentum, but hits a flying clothesline. Rowan enters and cuts off the tag. Cody ducks a charge and pulls the rope down on Rowan. Harper tosses Rowan back into the ring, tags him, and takes down Goldust before hitting a powerbomb on Cody. Goldust breaks it up at two and spills outside with Rowan. Sunset flip for Cody gets two, but he eats a big boot. Up to the top, Cody fights Harper off and hits the moonsault.
Goldust gets a hot blind tag. Rowan gets Cody with a backdrop, but Goldust rolls Rowan up from behind for the win. Clever.
Final Thoughts: **3/4. It was a dominating performance for Harper and Rowan, with a victory pulled from the fire by Goldust and his veteran wiles.
Aksana vs. Nikki Bella
Thank you for that segue, WWE. It was certainly smooth. Nikki gets a hiptoss and a slam. Nikki hits a suplex for two after a trip into the corner. Aksana bails outside and puts Nikki’s arm into the post a couple of times. Aksana works the arm after they return. Aksana hits the sideslam and crawls sexily. It’s an underrated spot. Aksana holds the arm, and shows the improvement that Cole goes on about. The Bella comes back with a monkey flip. She follows with a clothesline, dropkick and bulldog for two. Aksana misses a corner charge and takes the backbreaker for a loss to Nikki.
Final Thoughts: *. This was fine. I do feel that Aksana has come a long way since her debut on that ill-fated season of NXT.
Big E Langston vs. Curtis Axel
Langston slugs at Axel’s gut to begin. Axel chops Big E, but that just pisses him off. Big E drives Axel into the corner a few times. Curtis gets a boot up in the corner and goes up to the top. Big E catches him with a big shoulderblock and gets two. Axel comes back with a kick to the knee and a clothesline. Axel excites with an elbow coming down from the apron. ARMBAR. Big E powers away from Axel and throws him off. Big E gets the belly to belly suplex and hits the big splash. Axel gets out of The Big Ending but gets his head taken off with a clothesline. THE STRAPS ARE DOWN. The Big Ending (which Axel is one of only two or three people in WWE that make it look credible) finishes it.
Final Thoughts: This wound up just being a filler squash, but Big E looked good out there, with Axel helping on that account.
-Bad News Barrett is back with the rising platform. He reminds the fans that their New Year’s Resolutions will fail.
CM Punk and The Usos vs. The Shield
Punk and Ambrose begin. They battle in the corner. Punk gets the best of the exchange, and in comes Rollins. Punk hits a spinning back elbow into a neckbreaker. Jey comes in with an elbow drop. Jimmy comes in with a legdrop on a Boston crab. Jimmy hits a dropkick and Jey comes back in to kick Seth in the chest. Jimmy gets a shoulderblock for two and clotheslines Seth from the ring. Reigns blocks the dive. “It’s not happening,” he says. We hit a break.
Reigns dishes out some punishment on Jimmy, getting up high with a clothesline. Seth returns and Jimmy is isolated. A senton splash gets two. Seth gets whipped up into the corner, and Dean returns to cut off the hot tag. Ambrose grabs the rear chinlock. Jimmy hits a jawbreaker but eats a clothesline. Jimmy fights back and hits a Whisper in The Wind on Reigns, who replaces Dean. Rollins tags in, and misses a splash. Punk enters with a clothesline and he cleans house. Punk hits the knee in the corner, clothesline, but Ambrose distracts on the elbow drop. Seth crotches Punk and goes up himself to hit a crossbody. Punk rolls through with the Anaconda Vice.
We break down, concluded with Seth and Punk down. Ambrose enters and clubs away in the corner. Ambrose hits the butterfly suplex off the top. Dean ignores Reign’s request for a tag. Reigns saves Dean from a GTS and gets smacked outside with Rollins. The Usos get stereo dives onto Reigns and Rollins. Punk counters Ambrose and hits the GTS for the win.
Final Thoughts: ***. This was an enjoyable match, with a clever finish that works towards the slow dissolving of The Shield. So, this was a good TV main event.
-After the main event, but before we leave the show, we get a Bray Wyatt vignette. The gist of it is that Bryan only hears his voice now.
–This was just a solid, complementary show to Raw. We got a couple of good matches and nothing that brought the show down as a whole. I was expecting a Wyatt Family tag team win, but that will come soon enough. I’ll go out on a limb and say that Bryan runs in and gives Cody TCK on Monday. Only heels and John Cena get constant rematches. They really seem to be rolling out the red carpet for Batista’s return. It’s just interesting to hear about all of these rumors where WWE is pushing him right to the title after he’s gone for three years or so and wasn’t a megastar as much as they act like he was. It’ll be nice to have him back, but it’s hilarious to see how much WWE sucks up to those that get filmed by people outside of their industry.
