By Jason Powell
WWE Smackdown Live Hits
Kevin Owens, Shane McMahon, and AJ Styles opening segment: A strong opening to set up an intriguing main event. Sure, we’ve seen Styles vs. Owens many times, but the hook of Owens picking his own referee was intriguing. Owens had good heel logic for protesting his loss. Styles agreeing to let Owens pick the referee felt slightly more gullible than him being a confident champion. I assume Style will move into a program with Corbin from here, but that’s just a guess. Ideally, Styles will end up doing the open challenge gimmick as he mentioned early in the show.
AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens for the U.S. Championship with Baron Corbin as special referee: Shane McMahon getting involved felt a little petty given that it looked like Owens’ fingers grazed the ropes before Corbin called for Styles to release the Calf Crusher. However, that works well in terms of being a tough call in that it gives Owens more of a reason to hold a grudge against Shane as they continue the build to their match.
Bobby Roode vs. Aiden English: Roode’s long road to WWE has finally ended. The NXT run was nice, but it’s good to see the longtime TNA wrestler appear on the main roster where he belongs. Roode being positioned as a babyface to start was surprising. Granted, the fans love his glorious theme and this crowd was thrilled to see him, but the Glorious gimmick feels heelish by nature. Of course, they can always turn him at some point, so we’ll see where it goes.
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. The Singh Brothers: Nakamura got some revenge for the Jinder Finish at SummerSlam while also keeping his feud with Mahal alive.
Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable: Benjamin was supposed to return to WWE around the time of the Superstar Shakeup, but he ended up having surgery. Fortunately, there was still a spot for him, and it could be entertaining. Gable was downright giddy about the idea of forming a tag team with Benjamin, but Shelton didn’t look nearly as keen on the idea. Are they recreating the way American Alpha formed with Jason Jordan not warming up to Gable right out of the gate? My guess is that Benjamin will end up being a heel assigned with the task of helping launch Gable as a babyface.
The Usos vs. The Hype Bros: A minor Hit for a nice television win for the new Smackdown Tag Champions. Mojo Rawley and Zack Ryder also had a good showing and were somewhat protected by the distraction finish.
Naomi and Becky vs. Nattie and Carmella: A minor Hit for a solid tag match and for Natalya delivering a straight forward promo. Her verbiage was pretty basic, but she didn’t seem as quirky as usual while delivering it. Meanwhile, Carmella’s Money in the Bank threats have grown tiresome.
WWE Smackdown Live Misses
Dolph Ziggler: We’ll see where his tease for next week goes, but his character’s complaints always ring hollow because it always feels like the solution to his problems are for his character to simply start winning matches.
I always felt the answer to Dolph Ziggler’s problems would be to not be called Dolph Ziggler. I was amazed to find out it’s not even his real name. He for some reason to have about the least cool ring name possible. It’s a minor miracle he ever got over at all.
Reminds me of Bill Bryson’s comments about how Hollywood knew what it was doing with name changes most of the time. Doris Day has far more glamour than Doris Kapelhoff. Archie Leach is OK but Cary Grant is the debonair man about town. Marion Morrison is mistaken for a woman’s name, John Wayne is not.
Dolph Ziggler is a Kapelhoff of a name.
With WWE, he’s lucky that haven’t shortened it to just ‘Ziggler’.