Backlash XII

[piranesi]

1 minute ago, ChrisM said:

Aside from the Bray/Kane/Orton weirdness(and even that match was good),

 

I even thought Bray/Kane was fine for a big dumb guys garbage match to fill time.  I would have accepted that on any PPV from 1983-1995 easily.

[NintendoLogic]

Just now, odessasteps said:

Now part of the nwa/wwf champ club? 

Along with Ric Flair and Buddy Rogers.

Plus the IWGP/WWE champ club along with Brock Lesnar.

Plus the TNA/WWE champ club along with Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Rob Van Dam, and Jeff Hardy.

[JCM]

Smackdown is such a well booked show. AJ is the best wrestler in the company, and a perfect ace for Smackdown. They have Ambrose, Cena, and Orton to chase him with a potential of Nak coming up at some point.

[Charlie M.]

Just now, NintendoLogic said:

OK, guys. Serious question. When did MIz become a superworker?

About a year ago, post-Mizdow is when I was able to trace it back to during March Madness. He had a house show run with Cesaro and has been very smart in the ring ever since, IMO.

[The Man Known as Dan]

1 minute ago, hammerva said:

Man when the Smackdown brand was developed we thought they were doomed but man this has been shockingly good.  Much better than RAW.   

Love the idea that AJ Styles beats Cena clean with no cheating at all at Summerslam but needed a nut shot to beat Ambrose.  I would like to think that put over Ambrose more 

Heath Slater winning the tag title was the greatest thing to happen to someone from West Virginia since the Cactus Bowl victory  .   

See, I think it has a different statement, that I also kinda love. AJ Styles doesn't need to cheat. He most likely could have put Ambrose away tonight without cheating. He just likes to cheat. I dig that.

[piranesi]

1 minute ago, Charlie M. said:

I think the spot of the night was Heath tagging himself in and going fucking crazy with DDT's and shit. It was like the first time in his career he's ever got to do that.

That was so great.  The look on his face. Like "TIME TO GO TO WORK!" And they had the Uso's get out of it well by cheating and still let Heath get more over on them outside the ring. It was all so well done.

[The Man Known as Dan]

You know, there was 6 women in that opening thing, and the only one I thought didn't look pretty freaking good was Natalya. I'm really over her. 

[mattdangerously]

2 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Now part of the nwa/wwf champ club? 

Sole member of the IWGP/TNA/WWE champ club.  (Unless you want to count Angle, but I don't think the IWGP recognizes his reign.)

[HumanChessgame]

4 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

OK, guys. Serious question. When did MIz become a superworker?

When he had someone to carry him.

[Brysynner]

What made this PPV special wasn't the match quality (which was pretty good throughout the night) but the stories being told by the winners.

Becky was the one Horsewomen who never got a chance as champion. Her entire main roster run was getting screwed out of winning the title by outside interference and now she finally gets her chance to shine and will forever be in the history books as the first Smackdown Live Women's Champion.

Heath Slater finally gets a job and more importantly he was the one who got the pin so it wasn't like Rhyno won the match for him (sure he hit an Uso with a Gore) and the records books will say H. Slater pinned J. Uso to become the first ever Smackdown Live Tag Team Champions.

AJ Styles has been wrestling all over the world in small gyms in Georgia, TV studios in Orlando and even big arenas in Japan but for his entire career he never once was the WWE Champion and now he has erased the one blemish on his career. Sure he did it with an illegal kick but sometimes the end result is more important than constantly playing by the rules.

[jstout]

I've never cared for Bray Wyatt and I still find it crazy that he lost to Kane. You figure they'd let the guy have that win.

[The Man Known as Dan]

Just now, HumanChessgame said:

When he had someone to carry him.

Dolph Ziggler couldn't carry anyone to a great match, and he certainly didn't tonight. That match was like, 80-90% Miz.

[Brian Fowler]

I loved the closing stretch of the tag title match so much. Tease Slater getting it, deny the win, just as the cruising disappointment looks imminent, BOOM!

Miz is such a perfect midcard heel. AJ is a perfect heel ace. I really like where smackdown is all of a sudden. Getting the belt off Ambrose solves like 65% of all problems the show as well.

[hammerva]

Funny that they show the stupid KFC littles commercial with Ziggler pinning Miz in a chicken suit about 30 minutes after losing to the Miz in a title match.  

Man they have to be turning Ziggler heel because the last 3 months of Smackdown has been to make people think the Dolph is a complete loser.  I mean Lawler mentioning that he beat Ziggler 10 minutes after suffering a heart attack was a great burial

 

[piranesi]

Just now, jstout said:

I've never cared for Bray Wyatt and I still find it crazy that he lost to Kane. You figure they'd let the guy have that win.

Kane had a lot of pressure to make up for that whole Aleppo thing.  He needed this.

[Brian Fowler]

3 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

You know, there was 6 women in that opening thing, and the only one I thought didn't look pretty freaking good was Natalya. I'm really over her. 

Alexa shocked me tonight. When did she get so good at wrestling as a character and drawing heat during a match?

[Greggulator]

Splitting the rosters has been so great because the shows breath so much more now. There is a lot more time to tell stories with characters who earlier would not have gotten that time. It's so much fun and Smackdown really does have a NXT type of feel to it right now.

Echo everything on Miz/Ziggler. That match was just absolutely incredible. Great storytelling and psychology throughout. I'm glad Miz has had this "oh, snap, this guy is great" feel from us critics lately. But I think it's time people started to come back around on Ziggler. He's really great at selling and comebacks and making others look good in losing. He's really great as Pro Wrestling's Gonzaga -- always the bridesmaid, never the bride. He's perfect in that role and there's no shame in that.

Ambrose/AJ was a blast. Great wild match. I loved the end with the kick in the nuts callback to the build-up to the show.

I really liked Usos vs. Hype Bros. That match solved the great kayfabe question of "Why should The Usos get rewarded for cheating?" They weren't. And it also was the first match we got to see with the heel Usos. They're a revelation. They came off against the Hype Bros. as looking like great shit-talking cheap shot artists. I love the chop-block/targeted superkick combo. It looks really nasty. Hype Bros. were also a lot of fun. Ryder's become actively good and Mojo's a great energy guy/apron type who knows three moves. Perfect faces to lose to heels.

Kudos to them for the really great Slater storyline. Slater gets the double-wide!

[The Man Known as Dan]

Just now, Brian Fowler said:

Alexa shocked me tonight. When did she get so good at wrestling as a character and drawing heat during a match?

Alexa has been a solid heel hand to me for about a year now. She always feels like a giant upside act. She's just sucha  hateful little witch, and it's awesome.

[(BP)]

I'm going to rewatch the main. The story was that AJ is a superb wrestler but Ambrose is a dangerous brawler. And that's certainly what the opening minutes were. But after that it reminded me of Balor/Rollins where a bunch of shit was happening in front of me but I really wasn't sure why, what it had to do with what I'd just seen, or where it was going. 

[JCM]

Just now, Greggulator said:

Splitting the rosters has been so great because the shows breath so much more now. There is a lot more time to tell stories with characters who earlier would not have gotten that time. It's so much fun and Smackdown really does have a NXT type of feel to it right now.

 

Ryan Ward being on SDL is really starting to show up in the booking. They've had excellent story telling the past several weeks.

[piranesi]

1 minute ago, (BP) said:

I'm going to rewatch the main. The story was that AJ is a superb wrestler but Ambrose is a dangerous brawler. And that's certainly what the opening minutes were. But after that it reminded me of Balor/Rollins where a bunch of shit was happening in front of me but I really wasn't sure why, what it had to do with what I'd just seen, or where it was going. 

Spot on about the opening.  It was so great that Ambrose built to the match like

"I'm gonna pull you down to my mud level and you won't be able to deal with it"

But instead a lot of the match was just AJ dancing circles around a confused, lost Ambrose like Ambrose was a caveman fighting an acrobat.

But when Dean got something in late it was both ugly and devastating.  Great laid out story.

[Jiji]

15 minutes ago, Charlie M. said:

GREAT SHOW!

AJ/Ambrose was the best Ambrose match in forever. People complained about all the finisher kickouts at SummerSlam and AJ flipped a switch and had a great match with zero finisher kickouts.

Slater/Rhyno just winning clean was pretty cool. It's okay to actually give people a happy ending. Jey Uso brought some good trash talk. The Usos are gonna be fun as heels.

Miz/Ziggler was excellent. Would have been match of the night if not for that pesky AJ Styles always having to show everyone up.

Becky did it! That match was both good and bad at times but it never completely fell off the fails and had the proper ending.

Kane/Bray was a fun brawl but I would have preferred Bray actually getting a win for once.

Corbin/Crews was even good.

Agree with all of this. This was about as good of a show from top-to-bottom WWE has put on a PPV in a long time. Not a single match I wouldn't say was at least very good with the main event being a main roster MOTYC. It was so refreshing to see an intensity and viciousness in Dean Ambrose's ring work we haven't seen since the Shield days or even prior to that. The dropkick that sent Styles from the apron to the floor was gross, as were both of his escapes from the calf crusher. He was just really mean throughout the whole match and that suits him perfectly. Even stuff like how he violently hucked AJ over the barricade to set up the table run spot was gnarly. And that catapult into the LED ring post was gross as well. Some of this is certainly aided by AJ Styles being the fucking man, but Dean deserves a tonne of credit for nailing tonight's main event performance. And great way to follow up on the SD nut shot by finishing the match with a nut shot (and a hurtful looking Styles clash. He jumped just as he was getting the second leg hooked and looked to really put his weight behind it!). My only qualm regarding the main event was how tone deaf it was at times. There were clear audible boos for Dean but they kept doing long drawn out Styles heat segments that didn't work. It would've been nice for them to audible into something else.

Uso heat segments were good. Slater's fire was excellent.

That was one of the best performances from both Dolph and Miz in their careers. Excellent back and forth final third act in a match that went really long but never struggled.

The women's match was pretty much a series of 1vs1 encounters with the odd triple threat spot thrown in there. Naomi was awesome busting out indietastic moves, including her GM's old finish.

Bray looked great and I hope this leads to him beating Randuh Ohtun in a 1 on 1 match, playa. 

Every match got a huge amount of time, so everything was allowed to breathe and nothing felt like filler. It was just such a great show. A+++

[Casey]

 

[MORELOCK]

24 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

Ziggler got a surprisingly good match out of Miz.

 

14 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

When he had someone to carry him.

 

 

LOL of course someone is being this fucking guy

[piranesi]

I don't know if I'm distorting things in my mind, but it feels like we're on a long streak where WWE PPV's that look great on paper suck, and WWE PPV's that look terrible on paper end up being pretty great.