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A SOLID, BUT UNSPECTACULAR DOUBLE: LOOKING AT THE FIRST SMACKDOWN OF THE NEW ERA

By Mike Johnson on 2016-07-27 16:24:00

The first Smackdown Live of the New Era was a solid but unspectacular show, especially when compared to the first post-Draft Raw the night before.

I want to state first and foremost that it's entirely possible I am being unfair to the episode but given that Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were scripted to talk about how the show was going to be about the talents and McMahon appeared at least three times, plus for all the talk of new ideas and new ways of doing things, Smackdown felt like just another WWE TV presentation, while Raw the night before felt like something eventual and fun and different.

It should be noted that Smackdown did not have what Raw did - a hot new act to build around such as Finn Balor.  While Smackdown did receive some NXT talents in the draft, the biggest asset from that brand was American Alpha, who will debut next week.   By not having them on for the debut episode of the new direction, they were missing one of their biggest weapons, a strong, athletic, kickass tag team with fun charisma.  So, by sitting Alpha out, perhaps playing for the long game, they sacrificed a potential slam-dunk match against, for example, the Usos.

Smackdown may have also erred in opening up the show too similar to Raw with the GM and Commissioner bringing out talents to content for a championship match before setting the stage for a Battle Royal.  One of the advantages the brand has over Raw now is that they will know what Raw brought to the table the night before and they can attempt to do something different.  This week, I felt like the show was derivative of Raw, at least when it came to the opening.

Another issue that will need to be addressed in the weeks to come is what to do with the tag teams and the women on the brand, so that they have something concrete and important to clash and strive for.  Perhaps instead of yet another set of title belts, Smackdown can do something unique, like a gold medal or a trophy (or in the case of the women), a crown that can be passed on from champion to champion.  To me, anything that can be unique and alternative to Raw is what Smackdown should be focusing on.  I didn't feel that last night.

That's not to say there wasn't good on the show, it's just that the show didn't hit the spectacular marks that Raw did the night before.  For once, the third hour for Raw proved to be an asset, but unlike Raw, which felt like an energized show, Smackdown felt like just another episode of WWE TV.  Even with John Cena and the returning Randy Orton now exclusively there, there was an energy missing from Smackdown despite being live, that permeated the entire three hours of Raw.

All that said, the wrestling on the show was good, especially the Six Pack Challenge at the end.  It was good to see Baron Corbin and Apollo Crews used in the main event as they have been woefully underutilized since coming to the main roster.  The surprise win of Dolph Ziggler and his pinfall over AJ Styles to earn a Summerslam title bout against Dean Ambrose was a nice touch.  The real question is whether Ziggler has been had so many previous pushes castrated and killed that the new push will be seen by fans as legitimate and whether they will get behind him the way that everyone's been wanting to for so long.  There's been a lot of time since his World title win over Alberto Del Rio in New Jersery and a lot of it was used in ways that hurt Ziggler.  This was a good first step in turning the ship around, but it's not going to happen overnight, especially if creative doesn't get 100% behind him.

The old school promos during the course of the show with Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler were welcome additions as well as a throwback to the old days of Saturday Night's Main Event and old WWF TV shows.  I actually think they made a mistake by not having everyone in the main event cut one and in the weeks to come, would love to see the company have talents cutting promos not just for their own matches but perhaps talking about who they expect will win the Smackdown main event or commenting on some important controversy.

Randy Orton seemed just as excited to be back on Smackdown as he did on the PPV.  Thankfully the scary bump he took out of the ring against Miz wasn't anything damaging.  Orton's dismantling of Miz was a nice preview of what could happen to Brock Lesnar at Summerslam, although unfortunately, it came at the expense of The Miz.  While Rusev lost to Finn Balor on Monday, the U.S. champion had fought in a long 20 minute plus competitive bout against three other men and it helped to make Balor.  There was no similar upside to sacrificing Miz to Orton in my opinion.

The Battle Royal was fine, but as is the case with most Battle Royals, much of the action meshes together.

Becky Lynch vs. Natalya was good and the post-match introductions did set the stage for the Smackdown women's scene.  That segment was what it needed to be.

With all the talk of returning talents, they did a nice job of using Heath Slater (who cut a great promo) as the setup for Rhyno's gore and the video piece on Shelton Benjamin was a nice way to get people excited for his return.  It will be interesting to see how the older talents are utilized in the weeks to come.

Overall, if Raw hit a home run on Monday, Smackdown hit a double.  They are on base, but Raw was the victory this week.  The good news is, there are a lot of innings still to play. 

Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.

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