Read on for my segment-by-segment thoughts on the 7/27 Smackdown.
Starting off the show with Miz and Christian was nice. Puts over the IC Title as important and re-establishes a guy they dropped the ball on.
Christian vs. Miz was pretty solid. Christian can have a good match with anyone and it's good to see that Miz still has it since some were concerned that he'd slipped.
Ryback vs. Mahal was good. They need to be careful with how they use Ryback. I liked that we got someone and something different from his general formula of squashing indie guys.
Sheamus and Bryan was fine enough to continue their angles.
Sheamus vs. Rhodes was nice. Yes, Sheamus won again, but Rhodes put up a good fight. The side story with Ziggler was nice (and stories are more important than wins and losses).
Nice post-match with Jericho and Ziggler. I hope we get a big performance from Jericho that gets Ziggler into a credible position.
Cesaro vs. Santino was fine, but I would have liked some kind of vignette to give the match and characters more meaning.
I'm really worried about Sandow with them just putting him in brief matches. This guy's getting a lot of on-screen attention, so I hope he has the goods to go longer. I'm impressed with what he shows in brief flashes but at some point he'll need to show more.
Good promo as always by Sandow.
Very solid main event with everyone working hard and looking strong. I was hoping for Sheamus vs. Kane in a battle of big men but I can handle more Del Rio if they play their cards right.
I'll be back for Raw on Tuesday. A news post will be up later tonight.
When you have a minute, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this Alex Riley article. I know you think highly of Riley. I was a fan of him as a heel and on the mic, and never really noticed him being THAT BAD in the ring as indicated in this article.
ReplyDeletehttp://bleacherreport.com/articles/1275362-wwe-rumors-alex-riley-losing-push-because-of-john-cena-doesnt-add-up
I haven't seen anything about Riley getting in a confrontation with Cena or sandbagging anyone, and I look at PWInsider.com every day (they have archives). If they said something about it, it was in the Elite section. Any time anyone asks them what happened to Riley they act bewildered since he got over so well vs. Miz and STILL gets good reactions every show.
ReplyDeleteHis injury didn't keep him out all that long. He was just on Superstars for a while.
I don't follow a lot of dirt sheets or Bleacher Report because it is so much in the way of rumors and speculation. If it isn't reported on PWInsider.com directly, I almost never post it on my blog (the only exceptions being things like interviews from other sources).
I agree most of Bleacher Report is a bit of hocum and can be taken with a grain of salt. It seems odd to me that Riley was in the U.S. Title picture, pinned the Miz (former WWE Champion) twice and was in the midst of a sizeable push, but then gets demoted to NXT and had a 14-match losing streak just the past month. Do you have any indication or gut-feeling as to why?
ReplyDeleteThe article indicated that it's not from the Cena confrontation, but more about his sloppy in-ring performances and injury he had. Was he that green to you?
About the best answer credible sites have come up with is "no one in Management/Creative is pushing for him to be used", so that's what I go with.
ReplyDeleteYou have to be really sloppy to be demoted if WWE likes you (Sin Cara, Khali) and you can be extraordinarily good and go nowhere if WWE doesn't like you (McIntyre). I haven't heard anything about him being punished for his ring work, or anything for that matter. WWE just wants to use other people I guess.