WWE: smackdown live

From the “booking joke” line to Xavier singing the opening to “Be a Man” from Mulan and gushing over E3, no one in WWE has as much personality as the New Day.

But do you know what else is a booking joke, fellas? Shane McMahon. I’ll save his trash for last, by the way.

The New Day was out to open the second hour by celebrating Big E’s return to a clean bill of health. E joked that he’s had as many injury returns as Charlotte Flair has championship runs which...yeah. Pretty close!

That brought out Dolph Ziggler to point at the big screen where WWE yet again showed the ending to a Super Showdown match, thereby proving yet again that we don’t need to waste our time with those shows. Xavier had kicked him that night, and Ziggler said that that proved he was right all along. That it should have been him.

Twisted logic, Dolph, but okay.

That brought out Sami Zayn to defend Ziggler and spew a bunch of technically-correct-yet-said-so-annoyingly-that-you-just-dismiss-it arguments. He said that it’s funny the crowd isn’t backing Ziggler after that kick when if it had happened to Kofi, we’d be up in arms.

Psst. The key is to be likeable, Sami. If the past few years have proven anything, it’s that people have no issues whatsoever dismissing the truth for whatever reason. Just have to give them a good enough reason to dismiss the truth.

Kevin Owens came out as well, but was oddly silent. And then these six fought in the main event.

I’m not really sure what else to say, at this point. It rocked because these six rock at wrestling. My one issue with their stuff on this show was that, despite the fun personality they all inject into their promos, there are still these moments that drag. And funnily enough, those moments start as soon as someone says “at Stomping Grounds...”

Ratings and public perception for WWE are really bad right now, and I think that means it’s time to start hyper-analyzing the show. And all I know is that I always lose interest in those moments.

What about you?

The Rest

Bayley def. Nikki Cross – Fun little match that was prefaced by Alexa Bliss whispering poison in Nikki Cross’s ear. Despite hearing all the “mean” things Bayley has said and done, Nikki still wrestled as she usually does. I’m assuming Alexa’s trying to get Nikki to snap on her behalf, and that we’ll see that at Stomping Grounds.

Heavy Machinery def. Local Champions – What is “blue collar solid” supposed to mean? What the hell is being hard working supposed to do for me?

Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan were out to defend against the Yolo County Tag Team Champs, but they goaded HM into doing it instead. I’m assuming Yolo County is the local county, right? So why are they putting babyfaces up against a “hometown” team? It seemed like the crowd wanted to cheer their cardboard champs for a bit before Heavy Machinery won them over with the power moves and Otis’ antics.

Ember Moon can you slap these women silly already? - I’ve had several weeks of backstage scenes with Fire and Desire being awful to Moon. Ember, you haven’t done a single flipping thing since you joined the main roster. Murder these two dead, if you’d be so kind.

24/7 shenanigans – It took Jinder Mahal an hour to find a crowbar. That, in itself, is funnier to me than R-Truth getting locked in a box and shipped to Los Angeles.

Sonya Deville def. Carmella – For a while now, it’s been all about Sonya helping Mandy Rose to succeed. This episode, they flipped the script. Carmella had her submission finisher locked in, but Mandy dragged Sonya’s leg to the rope to force a rope break. That caused enough chaos at ringside for Sonya to rally and win.

Aleister Black opens the door – He’s still begging for anyone to fight him, and it doesn’t even need to be over anything complex like love or ideologies. Now, there’s really nothing too notable about Black’s promos at this point. However, the story is that he’s dark, mysterious, dangerous as all hell, and he scares people. Right?

So go balls to the wall with this and make Black do something massive. Have him go on a rampage. Have him do something unprecedented like picking fights with Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, Finn Balor, and Randy Orton all at once. This is an opportunity to do something that will make fans sit up and take notice; make it happen.

Apollo’s mad and Gable’s hair is amazing – Apollo was pissed off at what Andrade did to him last week. That’s good! He should be! Zelina Vega also game up to tell Apollo that Andrade’s pissed off as well and that it’d be in his interest to tuck tail and run. Also good! Now fight!

In the end, Gable was shown off to the side writing things on a notepad with a bit of a comic look on his face. It reminded me a bit of his NXT debut hanging around Jason Jordan. Simple! Intriguing! I like it!

30 minutes of this show was Shane McMahon doing dumb stuff – I told you I’m not recapping this stuff anymore, didn’t I? WWE wasted the opening half hour with Shane’s stuff and it’s just not entertaining at all. I would rather do anything other than watch this dude on television, at this point.

As Aleister Black said here, so much conflict, so little resolution. This show felt much like Raw to me. Nothing is standing out. Nothing has me invested, despite some nice moments and promising little interactions.

This show was mildly fun. That’s about the best I can say.

Grade: C+

Still waiting for an honest effort to make things better, WWE.