Smackdown Review, 5/29

OPENING SEGMENT WITH SAMOA JOE, DANIEL BRYAN & BIG CASS

Pretty good heel promo from Joe tonight. Usually he annoys and bores me. Cass is a great heel. Paige announces a triple threat match for the final MITB spot. Great way to build a feud and it’s highly likely that the two men who don’t win will have a singles match at MITB. I would guess that Joe wins the match and Cass and DB have a singles match.

Segment Rating: Seven This Is Your Lifes

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA VS. TYE DILLINGER

Looks like Tye got a haircut for school picture day. It feels like an old-school obnoxious heel tactic by Nakamura to keep counting. It’s effective. Tye looks like he’s not even in Nakamura’s league in this match. He gets a few moves in but he never stood a chance. This was almost a squash, but the match does its job in keeping heat on Shinsuke and letting him get his taunts in.

Match Rating: Six Gold Medals

 

DANCE CONTEST: LANA VS. NAOMI

I’m embarrassed that this is going to happen. I’m so glad that Lana hit that neckbreaker on Naomi just so this segment could have a point to it. She needed to pull some heel shit or it would have been a worthless and wasted segment. The dancing wasn’t bad and it turned into a not terrible segment.

Segment Rating; One This Is Your Life

 

NEW DAY VS. THE BAR & THE MIZ

I’m impressed that New Day can still keep people guessing as to who is going to be in the MITB match. It’s hard to keep a secret these days. I’ve been saying Woods and I’ll stick with that guess. As has been the case in most of New Day’s matches recently, Woods gets a lot of ring time in this one and showcases a lot of his moves. Big E gets the pin in a match that got better as it went on.

Match Rating: Five Gold Medals

 

MANDY ROSE VS. ASUKA

Asuka ridiculously oversells a pre-match attack by Sonya Deville. Sonya plays a good heel and makes sure Mandy has an even bigger advantage than just having Carmella on commentary. Asuka is a hell of a worker to be able to make Mandy Rose look good. All in all the match pretty much sucked, and so did the dumb stare down with Carmella after the match.

Match Rating: Two Gold Medals

 

Paige announces Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte for next week. Bitchin.

 

MITB QUALIFIER: BIG CASS VS. DANIEL BRYAN VS. SAMOA JOE

It looks like this match is gonna get a lot of time, which is awesome. You guys know how much I complain about these matches being one on one too often, well this is one time I wouldn’t have complained about it after Bryan got tossed over the announce table, because that would actually make sense. Big Cass did that to Bryan in hopes of taking him out of the match and improve his chances of winning. It wasn’t Bryan taking a punch, rolling out of the ring, and laying there for 10 minutes. Quite the opposite: he was back in the ring almost immediately. Then Joe goes and does exactly what I always complain about. I REALLY don’t like him. His matches feel so lazy anymore. It’s up to Cass and Bryan to carry this one, and they’re doing a damn good job. It’s almost expected for Bryan to be the horse in a match like this, but it’s pleasantly surprising to see Cass look as good as he does in this one. He’ll always look a little awkward because of his size and body type, but he’s one of the better big men in WWE. My biggest gripe is that it made no sense for Cass to roll out of the ring and let Joe get the win. How was he ok enough to roll out of the ring but not get up from there to save the match? Why wouldn’t he lay in the ring so if something like that happened, he’d have at least some chance at breaking it up? Then he’s PERFECTLY FINE to hit a big boot after the match. NO LOGIC, PEOPLE! Well, however nonsensical the ending was, it went as I expected with Joe getting the win and a likely Bryan-Cass singles match.

Match Rating: Six Gold Medals

 

Overall show rating: Five Gold Medals