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WWE SmackDown
T-Mobile Arena - Las Vegas, NVLive on FOX - October 11, 2019
The news came early on this Friday, at a press conference in the arena where some pretty big news broke: Cain Velasquez has signed a "lucrative" multi-year deal with WWE, which will kick off with, as expected, a match between him and Brock Lesnar for the title at... well, where else but Riyadh, Parts Unknown, on Halloween. Along with Braun Strowman and Tyson Fury having a match as well. Because of course.
Still got the pyro, still got the AR graphics, still got the weird high-speed/halved frame rate thing. Still don't like the latter two things.
So... the Draft. This time around, it's being helmed by representatives from both Fox and NBC, for both SmackDown and Raw respectively, with the story being that the network reps are the ones picking the talent for their respective show.
Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins - So what's the story of this match? The winner gets the first pick for their brand, Roman being the rep for SmackDown, Seth for Raw. And how did the crowd react to Rollins, five days removed from one of the biggest OOF moments we've seen in WWE in a long while? Heard a set of boos, but still dominated from cheers, because these people are a bunch of MARKS. Bryan Alvarez was right all along.
As for the match? It's... a match. Just a match. Roman hits big moves, Seth his big moves, there are near falls, y'all know how it be. I can only snark at the notion that Bonnie Hammer is really paying close attention to this, on a Friday night. The thing is, this match got pretty good in its last few minutes... then it's FIEND TIME. From UNDER the ring, as well. And I'm all for this, given how godawful the PPV ended. Could've used more than just a scare tactic, though.
I guess the reps from USA and Fox are gonna flip a coin, now?
— TDE Wrestling (@tde_wrestling) October 12, 2019
We now have war rooms for both the Fox and USA reps. And the Fox group has the NFL mascot robot thing. I wish I were making this up. Oh, and the official decision of the match was a DQ, which means Raw gets the first pick. Out comes Stephanie McMahon to make the first set of picks.
The guidelines are as follows: Raw gets 3 picks for SmackDown's 2, tag teams are counted as one pick unless individual otherwise. And yes, the garbage "rule" is over.
Raw - Becky Lynch
SmackDown - Roman Reigns
Raw - AJ Styles, Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson ("California, Here We Come")
SmackDown - Bray Wyatt
Raw - Drew McIntyre
We then go to the peanut gallery, with Samoa Joe for some reason, to talk about the picks. That was sure a worthwhile 2 minutes of air time.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are doing a bit for this show, as taped last night during the Giants-Patriots game.
Big Breakfast Applebee's Waiter Baron vs. Chad Gable - I do not like this "shorty" gimmick. It's dumb and stupid and dumb. I wonder if he's got Cody's number on standby. And I also don't like how this feud is STILL going on. It's been a month. We've seen this match FOUR times now. It's great that Gable can get a crowd rallying behind him by being a damn fine professional wrestler, but it means less than dick if he get jobbed out again. And yeah, big surprise, jobbed out.
More cross-promotion, this time with the Fox NFL Sunday crew, to lead into the next set of picks.
Raw - Randy Orton
SmackDown - Sasha Banks
Raw - Ricochet
SmackDown - Braun Strowman
Raw - Bobby Lashley
Cue the highlight package for this program with Tyson Fury and Braun Strowman, which I would be more cool with if they weren't doing this at the next blood money show.
And it is here where I see that the whole damn draft list has been (mostly) spoiled... by WWE themselves. Read at your own caution: https://www.wwe.com/shows/smackdown/article/preliminary-wwe-draft-pools
WELL. HERE COMES THE PAIN. Brock Lesnar is out for some strutting with Paul E. talking. Brock only has one fear, the night when Cain Velasquez beat him for the UFC heavyweight title in the first round, and he'll conquer that fear at... ugh, you know. Out comes Rey Mysterio and Cain to interrupt and interject, bringing some "footage" of that UFC fight in 2010 (because they don't want to pay UFC and/or ESPN for actual footage), and to put in more of a sell for that match at... you know.
Sure is great to see Kofi Kingston... totally no-sell him losing the world title.
Cue the Fox Big Noon Kickoff crew to do some more cross-promotion. It's only going to get worse on Monday. And now we have our annual philanthropic segment with, you guessed it, the Susan G. Komen foundation. But hey, it could be worse, like that time they partnered up with Jenny McCarthy and Generation Rescue to take on the "fight against autism."
Except they've been partnered with Komen since 2012... yikes.
The New Day vs. California, Here We Come - Took all of 30 seconds for the match to go to commercial. Now, you know how the first opening matches on AEW had time to breathe? This match did not have time to breathe. Done and over with in a matter of minutes, after the T.I.P. to Styles.
Raw - Alexa Bliss
SmackDown - Lacey Evans
Raw - Kevin Owens
SmackDown - The Revival
Raw - Natalya
It is at this point where WWE probably realized their error and are now shifting things around. Great.
Raw - The War Viking Raider Experience Machine
SmackDown - Lucha House Party
Raw - Nikki Cross
SmackDown - Heavy Machinery
Raw - The Street Profits
One more cross-promotion bit, this time with Jay Glazer. More wasted time. And another hype package for Tyson Fury. Again, more wasted time.
Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair (c), SmackDown Women's Championship - Yes, we're getting this match again. Even though the "NO AUTOMATIC REMATCHES" rule is still in effect. But more interestingly, we see Bayley with a new haircut, a different outfit, and a weapon to take all of those "buddies" on the stage out, cutting and deflating them one by one. I like it. The match has got a strong mean streak to it, out of the gate, coming out of the break with some chop action, a "moonsault," and a Bayley-to-Belly... just for a 2 count. Another moonsault attempt gets blocked, only to turn into a Boston Crab; Figure-4 denied, heel pin attempt only gets a 2.
Final sequence sees a suplex and a running knee to Charlotte, with Bayley climbing to the top for an elbow, still only gets a 2, much to Bayley's frustration. Natural Selection leads to a Figure-8 attempt, but gets countered into a pin with some hair, and we have a new champion!
Which... kinda makes having the whole "Charlotte is a 10-time champion" thing pretty redundant. But hey, heel Bayley is standing tall, with new music and the title once again.
"Hey, bitches. Screw ALL of you."
Final Thoughts: Well, as a "Draft" show, it kinda wasn't committed to picking and choosing, just doing a lot of re-affirming of the bigger names' status quo location. FOX is clearly dedicated to making this investment work, by any means necessary, but it's going to take a lot of time for things to find their rhythm and flow. We're only two weeks into a FIVE-YEAR deal, it won't all be fixed overnight.
As for the matches, this really is a one-match show, Charlotte versus Bayley, more so for the latter of the two, establishing her new heel character and taking the title back - which, again, makes everything feel pretty redundant in the end. Seth and Roman was just window dressing for the continuing feud with Seth and The Fiend - maybe DO IT NEXT TIME, JUST AN IDEA - while the rest was just typical WWE television work. Now we wait to see the rest of the draft play out on Raw.
Show Verdict: It was alright, mostly inoffensive, and heel Bayley is awesome. I'd chill out to some Hawthorne Heights with her in a Starbucks.
"The previous title reign has been canceled due to lack of hustle. Deal with it." pic.twitter.com/P0CSbVLeU7— TDE Wrestling (@tde_wrestling) October 12, 2019
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