Smackdown Spoilers for 1/21/16

[victor]

 

Dark Match:

Zack Ryder pinned Fandango (3:41)

Main Event:

- Jack Swagger & Mark Henry defeated Konnor & Viktor when Mark Henry pinned Viktor (8:11)

- Neville pinned Tyler Breeze (4:57)

- Curtis Axel & Heath Slater (w/Adam Rose & Bo Dallas) defeated The Dudleys when Curtis Axel pinned Bubba Ray (10:02)

Smackdown:

 Chris Jericho kicks off this week’s episode of SmackDown with an in-ring promo. The New Day interrupts. The segment ends up leading into a match between The New Day vs. The Usos and Dolph Ziggler.

* The Usos and Dolph Ziggler defeated The New Day.

* Becky Lynch defeated Alicia Fox.

* Miz TV segment with Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose. Ambrose ended up hitting Dirty Deeds on The Miz. Owens then hit a pop-up powerbomb on Miz to end the segment.

* Bray Wyatt defeated Ryback.

* Titus O’Neal defeated Stardust.

* Roman Reigns vs. Rusev, Sheamus, King Barrett and WWE United States Champion Alberto Del Rio ended in DQ. After the match, the Usos ran down to assist Reigns. The Wyatt Family then came to the ring and attacked. This concluded the tapings

Who did Bubba Ray piss off that he's jobbing to Curtis Axel?

[BrianS81177]

How many times has Stardust jobbed to Titus now? Seems like that's all he does.

[Hollywood Cibernetico]

Since 12/15, Titus has squared off against Stardust 3 times in singles action and has won all three of those matches without question. Toss in the multi-men matches and it has just been a straight up sweep.

[Dirty J.]

I know this is Smackdown and all, but this looks extremely weak for a go-home show.

[Big Fresh]

I don't know.... Both Ambrose and Owens beat up Miz, so it can't be all bad.

[Brysynner]

So Miz is the heel that other heels find so annoying even they want to beat him up.....Miz/Roman at Wrestlemania: No One's Gonna Boo Roman This Time

[Patrick B.]

They did it once before (Cena-Miz).  Don't give them the idea to do it again.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I love the idea that Ambrose and KO hate the Miz more than they hate each other.  

[Charlie M.]

So far they've only faced the Ascension but it's looking like they might actually go with Swagger and Henry as a tag team. I'd love to see them feud with New Day.

[Craig H]

Pics floating around on Twitter showing very low attendance for this show. People have said it was less than half full and large sections were tarped off. So I guess we're now in that part of the wrestling cycle where people don't even go to the shows. Well done, WWE.

[MonteCarl]

Eh. Smackdown tapings have had low attendance for years. I went to several back in 2003-04 and almost all of them had almost nobody sitting on the same side of the camera with the top sections completely taped off and everybody sitting on the side of the arena that the camera was pointed at. This is nothing new.

[J.T.]

I can dig a regular All-American Americans tag team of Henry and Swagger.

 

STAR SPANGLED EXPRESS~!

 

And yeah, who did the Dudleyz piss off in booking so much that they went from returning conquer tag-team heroes vying for a title shot to jobbing to Axel and Slater on the C-Show?

 

Poor Tyler Breeze.  He can't even get a win on Main Event.

[NikoBaltimore]

EDIT:  Nevermind

[Pete]

 

This might actually be the best thing that happened last night.

[Curt McGirt]

Mark Henry and Jack Swagger people. YES.

 

Otherwise... fuck, really?

 

We'll talk about this tomorrow. The Truth video made me really happy though. 

[victor]

That video is awesome, seeing the heels like Owens, Del Rio out of character cheering and clapping with the rest is just strange.

[stro]

I know this is Smackdown and all, but this looks extremely weak for a go-home show.

Raw was and always is the go-home show. Smackdown before a PPV is like the Marvel movie comic tie ins that no one reads or knows exists. 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

 

I know this is Smackdown and all, but this looks extremely weak for a go-home show.

Raw was and always is the go-home show. Smackdown before a PPV is like the Marvel movie comic tie ins that no one reads or knows exists. 

 

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Unless they specifically refer to it on RAW, whatever happens on Smackdown is non-canon. I thought the move to USA might change that a bit, but it does not look like it.

 

There's actually a bunch of guys who would benefit from having their own show. We need the roster split back.

[stro]

WWE/NXT IS the roster split. You've had it for 3 years now. 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

WWE/NXT IS the roster split. You've had it for 3 years now. 

 

Shallow and pedantic analysis. It's not the same. It's more accurate to say NXT is the new WWECW, but it's not like they'd actually move the likes of Kane, or a Matt Hardy, or even a Mark Henry onto NXT fulll-time.

 

NXT is network only, Smackdown has a TV deal. With the arguable exception of the NXT Title match on the 'Beast in the East' special, NXT matches don't feature on network specials.

[stro]

I don't know what is shallow or pedantic about it. Raw/SD is one brand of WWE with its own style, look, booking style, and champions, while NXT is another brand of WWE with its own style, look, booking style, and champions. It is the same thing as Raw vs Smackdown. They HAVE sent main roster talent down there, they used to do it more, but they still do it.

 

They both share specials on the Network. NXT not being on actual PPV doesn't mean shit when mainline WWE only gets around 40K buys per PPV now due to the Network. If you assume NXT is watched by everyone with a Network subscription, it has as many viewers as Smackdown normally gets in US. It also airs on actual television in most of the world outside of the US. It's pretty much exactly the same as Raw vs SD, with built in competition and all.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Ooh the Ascension are on NXT! Yeah, shallow and pedantic.

 

Brock wrestled most of his first run exclusively to Smackdown, Batista most of his title reigns, Undertaker most of the 2nd Deadman period, Eddy Guerrero most of his classic WWE work, Edge most of his main-event run. Comparing NXT to Smackdown is ridiculous.

 

Other key difference: no annual draft. A move to NXT is a big step down for anyone (yes Emma has managed to make a storyline out of it, but it is what it is). Yes, Smackdown was kinda sorta a step down too - but guys who went from RAW to Smackdown often saw a push. Matchups were protected, people had the chance to tweak their characters...think about the great face turn Mark Henry did when he came to RAW and defeated Randy Orton in a gauntlet match.....then think about the great heel-turn he did a year or so later when he went to Smackdown and decided to take the gloves off.

 

It's by the by anyway. There's a whole bunch of guys who don't belong on NXT, but are hurt by the lack of a separate Smackdown roster. You'd have to be blind not to see that, and that is what I mean by a shallow and pedantic analysis.

 

The NXT specials are probably the basic equivalent of the Smackdown only PPVs that they stopped after a few years. When NXT has at least couple of matches on Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and it isn't extraordinary to have several NXT guys in the Rumble then your point might have some legs.

[stro]

That ignores how half the roster still had nothing to do even with the original brand split. That's what Velocity and Heat were for. Superstars/Main Event fill those roles today. Agree to disagree, I guess. To me, NXT is clearly a separate brand marketed to a different section of the audience than Raw is, just like Smackdown was in 2002-2003. Separate brands, separate stars. It's the same thing to me.

[The Z]

Separate brand or not, it's still weird that they put so little effort into making Smackdown a show that you would want to watch.

I haven't watched Smackdown in two years or so and I haven't missed anything. It's only been that way since they turned Raw into a three-hour show.

It's almost like they don't even care, if you watch it or not. But why? Wouldn't it be better to have two "must-see" weekly shows than just one?

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

That ignores how half the roster still had nothing to do even with the original brand split. That's what Velocity and Heat were for.

 

1. It was nowhere near half, and that was more true of Heat than of Velocity. Velocity was where the lower-card Smackdown guys, particularly cruisers, got more time - but they usually got some time on the main shows too. There was generally more of a sense of rotation, of fluidity. In late 2009, Jack Swagger wasn't getting much time on RAW and sometimes wrestled on HEAT. He then won MITB, and cashed a few nights later to win the World Heavyweight Title. That kind of thing is much less likely to happen now. Mark Henry got similar treatment the next year.

 

2. Heat and Velocity had TV deals.

 

3. It is a big mistake to think that Smackdown was deliberately marketed to a different section of the audience. They hated the fact that they ended up splitting the audience, which is why they ended up doing the RAW Rewinds, and probably one reason why they unified the tag titles.

 

4. As The Z implies, even if you accept that NXT is somehow what Smackdown was during the roster split era, you've still got this zombie show called Smackdown which they don't seem to care about. Wouldn't it be better if they just had some of the roster work that exclusively, even if not as formally, maybe had an exclusive title or cup or something? Anything really would be an improvement on the lazy ass show it is now.