Smackdown Spoilers for 5/26/16

[victor]

Quote

Main Event Spoilers:

 WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day kick off Main Event with a promo. Xavier Woods is wearing Big E's gear because his luggage was stolen at the airport. The Social Outcasts interrupt and it's revealed that they stole Woods' luggage. This leads to a match

* Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods defeated Heath Slater, Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas

* Paige defeated Summer Rae with the Paige Turner

* Baron Corbin defeated Jack Swagger with Dolph Ziggler on commentary. Corbin won with End of Days in a surprisingly good match. Corbin stares at Ziggler to end the show

Smackdown Spoilers for 5/26/16:

* Michael Cole opens SmackDown in the ring with a Money In the Bank briefcase. He talks about Extreme Rules and has a guest, Dean Ambrose. Ambrose talks about The Asylum and how he destroyed Chris Jericho. Kevin Owens interrupts and tells Cole to get the hell out of his ring. Owens says he is winning Money In the Bank. Sami Zayn interrupts and says the same thing, no one can stop him. Alberto Del Rio comes out and says he’s going to become a two-time MITB winner. A brawl breaks out between Ambrose, Owens and Sami as Alberto watches from the ramp

* Alberto Del Rio defeated Zack Ryder in a MITB qualifying match. Del Rio won a decent match with the cross armbreaker

* Big Cass and Enzo Amore come out to a big pop. They cut promos but The Dudley Boyz interrupt. Enzo talks trash to both but it was hard to hear what he said due to audio issues. The segment leads to The Dudleyz backing down from a match

* Rusev and Lana are interviewed in the back. Rusev says Kalisto has no chance of beating him tonight

* WWE United States Champion Rusev retained over Kalisto with The Accolade in a good back and forth match. After the match, Titus O'Neil hits the ring to make the save for Kalisto and challenges Rusev for the title but Rusev wants no part of it

* Natalya vs. Dana Brooke ends in less than one minute. WWE Women's Champion Charlotte, who was on commentary, interrupted the match and Natalya put her in a Sharpshooter. Dana and Charlotte double teamed Natalya before leaving

* AJ Styles is interviewed backstage and asked what's next. He simply says he doesn't know and walks off

* They air a Golden Truth video package

* Fandango and Tyler Breeze defeated R-Truth and Goldust with a roll up. The crowd chanted "what the hell?" at one point

* Seth Rollins comes out to a huge pop and cuts a promo. He says it's great to be back on SmackDown and asks if fans missed him. He can't say the same for the fans and the boos start up. Rollins walks off after a short 2 minute segment

* The Miz retained the WWE Intercontinental Title over Cesaro. Miz won with the Skull Crushing Finale in what was said to be an excellent main event. Miz and Maryse celebrated on the ramp to end SmackDown

That was a strange stretch near the end, they brought in Rollins just for that?

[Go2Sleep]

Del Rio in MITB? Woof.

[Rev Ray]

Oh no, emo AJ returns!  I hope this leads to Owen's promos of him gloating he broke AJ.

[Kevin Wilson]

Only thing I would add is the dark match was really fun. It was Gallows, Anderson, and Sheamus vs. Usos and Reigns. I thought they'd just do a cookie cutter six man tag but it went about ten minutes, everyone had near falls, a few dives, etc. Reigns in person is great, I feel bad for him that people boo him just because fans don't like how he rose to the top, he comes across as a superstar.

The Rollins segment is exactly how it sounds. Both title matches were good. Opening dark match was Crews vs. Viktor. Enjoyed the show overall. 

[Cristobal]

"AJ Styles is interviewed backstage and asked what's next. He simply says he doesn't know and walks off"

Sounds like creative has nothing for him. 

[Brysynner]

I still think this leads to AJ going on a losing streak, the Club offers one more time to get back together, he turns em down and Finn Balor makes his debut, joins the Club and goes on a winning streak. Finn subtly, by WWE standards, mocks AJ for his losing streak while he's on a winning streak. We get Finn vs. AJ where AJ almost wins but the Club "inadvertently" costs AJ the match. Finn openly mocks AJ as a loser and we get Finn vs. AJ the rematch at Battleground. AJ wins via countout or DQ leading to a full beat down on AJ. Finn says AJ will get a one on one match if AJ can beat Gallows and Anderson in one on one matches on the road the SummerSlam.

[victor]

Meltzer says Smackdown starts going live July 19th, with a brand split before that. They're finally starting to do something with the show, I hope it lasts  this time.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

8 hours ago, Cristobal said:

"AJ Styles is interviewed backstage and asked what's next. He simply says he doesn't know and walks off"

 

That's not so unusual. I hear that's how the booking meetings usually end. 

[Greggulator]

It's a shame they haven't done anything with AJ since he debuted. Get out the shovels!

[mattdangerously]

He's lost three PPV matches in row.  He'll be lucky if he doesn't get future endeavored with the next round of cuts.

[Charlie M.]

Miz/Cesaro is worth checking out. On par with their PPV match that I liked a lot.

Kalisto/Rusev and ADR/Zack are both decent but they've had better matches in the last week.

[evilwaldo]

If Ambrose wanted to get back to his unhinged days and reclaim that title from Enzo; he should have just taken the MITB briefcase and left through the crowd.

[caley]

Kalisto power-slamming Rusev was a great moment.

[Josh Mann]

Rusev has been really good since the LoN split. And the most important thing he's done is now he's not just leasing a finisher. That shit is now HIS.

[caley]

Everything about Rusev on this show was incredible.  His promo about Kalisto, the match, itself was just the right amount of hope for Kalisto while still maintaining his dominance.

In Canada, they're just now running Lucha Underground Season 1 and we just got to wear Alberto Del Rio shows up, and he's so awesome, and so seemingly genuinely touched by the crowd reactions and his promos are full of fire and good.  It's just a contrast to his WWE run, so far.  Though, to be fair to him, WWE really messed it up by having him be the surprise opponent to take the title off Cena (Seemingly a face pop), then putting him in that confusing angle with Coulter, then turning him subtly heel, then turning him full heel with the LON, then breaking away from the LON with no discernible gimmick or push.  I kinda wish he'd come out to stop the beatdown of Kalisto tonight.  BTW, this is all a long-winded way of saying that I actually thought ADR wasn't bad on Smackdown against Ryder, that the match was pretty fun and it's probably the closest he's come to matching that LU energy that he had.

Miz-Cesaro was lots of fun.  I was curious how Miz was going to beat Cesaro without hurting him, and they did it perfectly, with Cesaro repeatedly crushing him, then Cesaro going into the exposed turnbuckle for the win.  That was perfectly acceptable 50/50 booking: Cesaro got the MITB win, Miz gets some shine back with his tainted win.  

BTW, I am really loving everything Miz since WM.  I'd like to see a full stable around him: a big guy doing nothing to be his bodyguard, maybe a manager, maybe a new stunt double.

[Jiji]

Before he went on this in-ring hot run, I thought Miz would work best as a manager who only worked very rarely and after a face took out his goons. I still think he could be helped and add more longevity if he had some heaters to take the early bumps while he picked on JTTS types, demonstrating his cowardice and building some heat.

[Curt McGirt]

Spoilering this cause it's already long enough halfway through. Maybe you can get a chuckle or a thought anyway

SMACKDOWN NBC Universo Replay Report 5/28/16:

 

Missed most of it but Ryder booting Del Rio in the back of the head and getting a receipt was funny, in a sadistic way. That said, either man is or would have been cannon fodder for a very dangerous match, so Ryder should be happy really. But then I saw that first double-stomp on the replay and think that he is really trying to cripple himself for a spot on the card even when he's not gonna get it and I feel like someone should just take him aside and say "hey, man... it's not worth it." Probably Heath Slater.

Very happy to see Enzo back again so soon. I'm new to them but I love the "Little Dog/Big Dog" gimmick and to further the dog reference Enzo has a Pavlovic wrestling fan response to me. If he's cleared, I wanna see him Acid Drop one of the Dudleys. 

Goddammit the loud Spanish over top killed the Rusev promo, though I was able to hear every word of the last segment. At least I can hear Lana do that rude US diss with the "hand over your heart" comment when she's in the ring. And Rusev wanting to be announced as champ first was such a great dick move, even if it wasn't a great champ move (Harley Race does not approve). He does a great job slipping on the proverbial banana peel the whole match for Kalisto and that Accolade practically turning into the Romero-into-Dragon Sleeper that Liger does was very match ending. I can't wait to see him and Titus blast into each other. A Cruiserweight Division on the way makes me wonder about the future of Kalisto -- does he join that and get stuck in a ghetto? Does he keep working with bigger guys in tags? He looked to me like their new Rey and more new guys moving up plus a whole new division means a lot more competition for a top spot (because you know that's the only spot there'll be). 

Boy Nattie really does need to work on that Sharpshooter, doesn't she. And go figure, we have three stacked blondes at the top of the renamed Women's Division. Everything's going according to plan!

Yeah that wasn't Emo AJ. But then I only saw like 15 minutes of that in TNA because that's as much as I can stomach of TNA.

Dustin fuckin Rhodes dancing will not never make me laugh. I bet he used to do that in bars or at parties trying to pick up girls because they didn't expect it and it would be funny and endearing so that maybe the big 'ol Texas boy could get some. Match lasts as long as the dancing. Crowd is not happy. The blowoff to all this might be good though because Fabreeze (?! yuck) are so hateable. 

Rollins should lose at the PPV and work with guys like Styles, Zayn, etc. for fresh matchups. Maybe even "banish" him back to NXT if he loses. That would actually be a cool angle to imitate real life WWE practices and get over NXT as a battleground to move up. (That concept might piss NXT partisans off so I apologize in advance, just spitballing)

CESARO~! and... the... Miz... who gets the taste slapped out of his mouth immediately so I'm already happy. The guy really does deserve credit for being a master of his craft. Which is being somebody who deserves a slap, and god knows we don't have enough real Tully types in WWE*. And shit, he is actually on fire here, trying to snap Cesaro's arm, kicking him flat in the face. And he remains the person on the roster you most want to see eat Cesaro's Euro uppercut. They actually have the ref retie the untied buckle pad and give Cesaro a visual pin, and Cesaro then effortlessly busts out a Sharpshooter that he needs to teach to Nattie. Miz wins with a horrible Finale (I refuse to call it Skull Crushing) and you remember why you hate him for real despite such great work and a fantastic match layout. 

* Please, please forgive me for making that comparison. A thousand Hail Marys. 

 

[jstout]

Did Rusev put some pepper on that Accolade or what? I guess it's more Kalisto's flexibility, but that looked incredible.

Isn't Mauro Ranallo about 7 million times the announcer Michael Cole is? I love when Mauro called him "the voice of the WWE." I love shoot comments that aren't supposed to be shoot comments. Smackdown is a fun, breezy little program. Plus it keeps you updated on the newsworthy things that happens on the slog that is Raw. I betcha with the brand split, this show's gonna be the really underrated one of the two like it was in the "Smackdown Six" days.