Smackdown spoilers, 26th July 2013.

[Niners Fan in CT]

The ending with Cody, Sandow and The Suitcase was awesome. I love segments that take place outside of the arena and this was perfect.

 

I really liked the AJ and Dolph segment as well. I don't mind Dolph as a womanizing douche even if those are heel characteristics. It's better than him completely changing his character and pandering. I have to mention how F'n hot AJ looked in this segment and she did a very good job in delivering her lines and bringing the crazy. Kaitlyn looked great too and I was surprised to see they are continuing the feud.

[E.J.]

Was Sin Cara going through the garbage in that backstage segment with Sandow?

[LooseCannon]

The ending would have been so much better if Cody Rhodes had come back to shove Damien Sandow into the water after he proclaimed that he can't swim.

[MGFanJay]

Was Sin Cara going through the garbage in that backstage segment with Sandow?

I thought he was reading a magazine.

[Johnny Sorrow]

No, he was dumpster diving. And a cardboard box was apperently grabbing his attention

[Big Rob]

Was Sin Cara going through the garbage in that backstage segment with Sandow?

Maybe he'll come out with the Cruiserweight Championship next week!

[Brandon Bones]

Del Rio/Van Dam, made me laugh. That was great. Now they can have a match in the future with an issue.

[Newb82]

I love that ADR won a match because Mike Chioda might be the only grown man on earth that can't figure out what "no mas" means.

[MADCAP]

Sandow laying on the ground, wet and sobbing would be a great butthurt .gif.

[MORELOCK]

Great episode, Sandow was gold. I did wonder where the hell Brodus went during the Wyatt promo, since he barely took any offense at all.

[Hagan]

I love Dolph and AJ, but it follows the bad example of babyfaces not really reacting to things. I mean, it fits Dolph's character but I'd like him to have been more annoyed or pissed off.

 

Actually...since I hadn't found the new board to really go off on it. The Ziggler/AJ break-up was a continuation of the babyface being a dick trend. So...Dolph loses the title to death by superkick. We see AJ weeping at ringside during it. Dolph goes away, comes back, they don't really have anything to do with each other, but no tension. Then AJ, after the month prior showing such concern for her boyfriend's health, comes down to ringside and gets him DQ'ed for attempting to prevent another death by superkick.

 

Dolph then casually and abruptly dumps her on Raw, a woman with known abandonment issues who was mistreated by several of her last boyfriends.

 

Character consistency is great and all, but how is Dolph anything other than despicable here? Why are WWE babyfaces such hypocrites  and jerks?

[Niners Fan in CT]

In fairness, there was a little more to it. After winning the Divas title AJ went off on her own doing heel things and many times when Dolph asked or wanted her support she was busy with other shit. Dolph would show up to arenas wearing AJ's t-shirt but AJ was nowhere to be found. So there was a little tension there... it was just subtle and some of it ended up on the website and/or app instead of the actual show. I only know about it because others posted about it.

[Dewar]

That Dolph/AJ segment was TERRIBLE. How the same folks can come up with that bullshit, then end the same show with Cody/Sandow and the Gulf of Mexico makes me scratch my head.

 

Liked the Henry/Usos six man tag, and Sin Cara going through a trunk of random shit backstage. Sandow ruled it tonight, and RVD managed to not bust open his opponent this week. Not a terrible show this week.

[Rows]

I love Dolph and AJ, but it follows the bad example of babyfaces not really reacting to things. I mean, it fits Dolph's character but I'd like him to have been more annoyed or pissed off.

 

Actually...since I hadn't found the new board to really go off on it. The Ziggler/AJ break-up was a continuation of the babyface being a dick trend. So...Dolph loses the title to death by superkick. We see AJ weeping at ringside during it. Dolph goes away, comes back, they don't really have anything to do with each other, but no tension. Then AJ, after the month prior showing such concern for her boyfriend's health, comes down to ringside and gets him DQ'ed for attempting to prevent another death by superkick.

 

Dolph then casually and abruptly dumps her on Raw, a woman with known abandonment issues who was mistreated by several of her last boyfriends.

 

Character consistency is great and all, but how is Dolph anything other than despicable here? Why are WWE babyfaces such hypocrites  and jerks?

AJ acted like an idiot for Dolph's match at MITB. Plain and simple. Interrupted his match midway with her music, skipped around the ring, blatantly dq'd Dolph after he told her to leave repeatedly. This isn't even the same type of interference she did when they were on the same page, where she'd be a bit more subtle. This was just blatant stupidity.

 

He wisely cut her loose so she can latch on to someone else and cause them problems. This "Faces are dicks" trend people seem to follow is annoying.

[BEN!]

The ending would have been so much better if Cody Rhodes had come back to shove Damien Sandow into the water after he proclaimed that he can't swim.

 

No way, Sandow jumping in the water even though he can't swim is the self-proclaimed intellectual showing his ass.

 

It'd be real good if we found out that Rhodes further outsmarted Sandow by taking the actual contract out of the case before he tossed it in the drink and put his own name on it as set precedent by Shawn Michaels being granted a title shot by signing Chris Benoit's WrestleMania contract.

[Overly Critical Man]

Dolph's not a dick so much as he's just kayfabe a really stupid guy. He's not clever or cunning. Vickie was always the brains for him. That's why it's in character for him to stand there and let AJ destroy all his stuff or to continuously put himself into situations where he gets kicked in the head.

[MJKostka]

"HELP! MY BRIEFCASE! MY CONTRACT! I CAN'T SWIM! HEEEELP!"

[caley]

I actually liked the Ziggler-AJ segment.  Ziggler was funny enough ("There's this girl at the DMV who owes me a favour 'cuz when she had her leg up behind...wait, that's not PG..."). Also, I don't understand why people are upset about Ziggler not reacting, he had reasoning for all of it.  It's like a little kid trying to take out revenge on an adult and failing poorly ("I'm gonna run away!") and it put Ziggler across as a cool guy, moreso than anything else.  I was half-expecting AJ to bring out some embarrasing underwear, or dick-cream or something, so I'm pleased with the way it went.

 

I loved the ADR-RVD thing because it was so out of nowhere.

 

Christian looked fine, but I'm starting to think Jack Swagger might be the rest regular wrestler in WWE.  He's just a poor, poor actor.  Like sub-Sid Vicious when it comes to acting. There was one part where he was supposed to run into the corner and Christian dodged and he did it at half-speed and still had to stand and stop and wait to get hit.  He's maybe just not cut out to be a pro wrestler.

 

Sandow was on fire all night.

 

I was happy to see that Henry didn't come out to the ring smiling and/or slapping hands.  He was awesome with Booker T, too.

 

I'm becoming a pretty big Fandango fan.  The way he is just so into his own gimmick, never looking ticked off or like he's acting, but just selling every second he comes out of the curtain.  Hopefully WWE keeps him heel, the worst they could do is turn him into another Santino.

 

Highlight of the night, though, was Luke Harper busting out the "Yeah yeah yeah" in his match.

[just drew]

What frustrates me most about Swagger is that we've seen him do it. I really enjoyed his world title run. He just is a guy who HAS to be externally motivated, and I gather that Vince has no patience for that...

[SturmCRF]

I thought Swagger was excellent during his World Title run, the arrogant super athlete thing probably wasn't that much of a stretch for him to pull off, and it's a shame they depushed him so quickly. Now, he's just listless and boring. Colter shoulders most of the burden of getting their characters across, and either that's made Swagger lazier or they've explicitly told him he's now playing the muscle and should make little to no effort to inhabit the role of a border patrolling pseudo Nazi. For all the talk of WWE having too many failed sportsmen/bodybuilders with no passion for wrestling, he's the only guy I can think of where his disinterest is that obvious.

[caley]

He's such a bad, bad actor, too, though.  Like even when he says "We the people" it comes across as a dude saying stuff because he's been told to, unlike Colter and Cesaro who look like they genuinely believe it. 

[Andrew POE!]

I love Dolph and AJ, but it follows the bad example of babyfaces not really reacting to things. I mean, it fits Dolph's character but I'd like him to have been more annoyed or pissed off.

 

Actually...since I hadn't found the new board to really go off on it. The Ziggler/AJ break-up was a continuation of the babyface being a dick trend. So...Dolph loses the title to death by superkick. We see AJ weeping at ringside during it. Dolph goes away, comes back, they don't really have anything to do with each other, but no tension. Then AJ, after the month prior showing such concern for her boyfriend's health, comes down to ringside and gets him DQ'ed for attempting to prevent another death by superkick.

 

Dolph then casually and abruptly dumps her on Raw, a woman with known abandonment issues who was mistreated by several of her last boyfriends.

 

Character consistency is great and all, but how is Dolph anything other than despicable here? Why are WWE babyfaces such hypocrites  and jerks?

 

If you want someone to blame, blame the braintrust writers at the WWE. To me, they completely hotshotted the breakup/angle with AJ & Ziggler. I really wanted AJ & Ziggler to stay together while Ziggler chases the World title because Ziggler's concussion was non-scripted. But no, they have to do it anyway.

 

I found Ziggler's segment with AJ to be completely hilarious. If Dolph Ziggler plays his cards right, he'll be the new Edge for the WWE.

[Rows]

They kinda had to split quickly with the way their characters were going.

[Stevie Ray Von Erich]

But tension is drama and drama is why we watch. It could have been interesting and compelling, but it's way too subtle or smart for WWE to do on purpose.

[Patrick B.]

My favorite part was Dolph's nonchalant "Hey babe? Look out" right before Kaitlyn speared her.