PWInsiderXTRA - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

LOOKING AT THE GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR THIS WEEK'S SMACKDOWN

SMACKDOWN - 20/04/2012
What needs to be accomplished on this week’s Smackdown?
•As I said last week Smackdown needs a fresh injection, because it’s been very stale since Wrestlemania. I thought last week with the legends that we would easily give it a fresh coat of paint since we would be seeing characters we don’t normally see, but instead WWE played the show for laughs and took advantage of that talented sixteen person writing team
• WWE appears set on continuing on with the Randy-Kane and Cody-Show feuds. I liked the angle they did last week with Kane and Randy and will be interested in seeing the follow up of Kane taking out Randy’s father tonight. Cody and Show has shown me nothing post Wrestlemania and I’m not sure it’s the best use of Cody keeping him in a feud with Big Show
•Sheamus beating Daniel Bryan in 18 seconds might have been the worst thing to happen to him for his character. He’s been cold since Wrestlemania and his scripted verbiage makes him a B version of John Cena, which is never a good thing. Hopefully WWE recognizes this and gets Sheamus title reign on track tonight
•Extreme Rules hype
Show Breakdown

1. I still maintain Bryan is the best talker of 2012. I love Bryan sighting where it all began in Chicago last July. Excellent storytelling.

2. I feel like WWE is piping in some boos here on Bryan, but perhaps he’s generating it himself with his verbiage, although I’m unsure what he’s said that’s offended a crowd full of Yes signs.

3. AJ has proven to be quite the good actor for typical WWE Diva standards.

4. Lots of harsh words from Bryan to AJ...I really hope it’s leading to AJ going heel and helping Bryan win the title as oppose to the predictable route of standing up to him.

5. I like the twist of AJ snapping on  Natalya however I wish WWE would stop using Natalya as the women who is squashed and beaten down to get other women over. I’m not sure if it’s Vince or Hunter’s grudge against the Harts or what’s going on, but Natalya really gets the short end of the stick alot.

6. Here’s the problem with the Damien Sandow character, it’s going above the heads of what I assume is the standard target audience of WWE. This isn’t going to lead to good heat, but either go away heat or apathy. Of course that being said when I first saw the Alberto Del Rio vignettes I didn’t think the audience would react to him, but I was wrong about that.  

7. I read the spoilers that said Hornswoggle would be Brodus little brother and I thought it was killing the Brodus character dead, but it was actually somewhat entertaining. Probably the best usage of Swoggle in a long time. They just need to make sure not to overdo it with the comedy...I know that’s hoping for too much.

8. I’d probably use someone else in the role of getting squashed than Hunico, but WWE seems to have slotted him in the enhancement guy role, which he might hold for a year or two before being future endeavored.

9. Didn’t care for the tadpole splash after the match and I think this is where WWE doesn’t get how to maximize the Hornswoggle character as a babyface. I don’t think the masses find that cute instead they see it as a little runt taking a cheap shot on someone after a match.

10. I’m not really too up to date on the NXT talent, I remember thinking Darren Young wasn’t long for WWE after he got cut from Nexus, but glad to see they found a role for him. Titus showed alot of charisma in that backstage segment, which I don’t recall him having before the few times I caught him on NXT a long time back.

11. I like the follow up to Kane taking out Randy’s father. Randy cut an intense promo basically promising violence and created anticipation for his match at the pay per view.

12. I’d say debuting a new tag team like Titus and Young is a good sign for the resurrection of the tag division, but we all saw the tag champs get decimated on Raw.

13. Amusing tag line “Jericholics Anonymous”. Love the video package telling the story of Punk and Jericho. The video package actually did a better job conveying the story than Punk and Jericho have done.  

14. Alberto-Show is a battle of former World Champions and probably should have been given some hype in advance. I don’t recall if they mentioned something at the start of the show, but if it didn’t even get that type of acknowledgement that’s not a good sign.

15. I’m glad WWE for this week at least got away from the goofy videos mocking each other that Show and Cody have been exchanging. I’m a little stunned a match wasn’t announced for Extreme Rules, but I assume that will come next week on two days notice for the universe.

16. I’m still interested to see if the fan base will take to a guy who looks like Ryback in 2012...perhaps they will if WWE doesn’t cram him down their throats like they attempted to do with Mason Ryan.

17. The Lesnar package is just outstanding. Good to see it on both shows. They are really trying to play Cena up as a major underdog, which scares me that they might have Cena go over.

18. I’m glad to finally see WWE is having Aksana be a heel, although I thought her turn on Teddy could have actually meant something as oppose to the way they did it without even really doing it. Teddy looked so sad standing there so that was good for his character to continue to garner sympathy although some might start to look at him as spineless. As for Antonio, I thought his verbiage with Aksana and Teddy was a bit forced, but it was smoother once Laurinaitis came on screen.

19. It’s good to see that Mark Henry appears to be somewhat back in WWE’s good gracious. He lost on both TV shows this week, but was protected in both losses. The chair shot off the top rope on Raw and taking three finishing moves before being pinned on Smackdown. Meanwhile Daniel Bryan gets dominated by Sheamus and Cody Rhodes can’t even get one up on Big Show for one night. Solid six man action though as WWE has the six man formula down to perfection!

What was accomplished on this week’s Smackdown?

The Good

•I said at the onset of my column for this week’s Smackdown that the show needed a fresh injection and I feel they got one tonight! We got three new characters debuting, a mean streak put on the AJ character and Cody and Big Show finally moved past showing videos of each other!

•Very good Randy Orton promo promising destruction and hyping Extreme Rules

•Brock Lesnar video package. It’s so good it deserves recognition twice over!

•Jericholics Anonymous video package. Good stuff to tell the story of Punk and Jericho

•Titus O’Neal and D-Young. I like what I saw out of them especially Titus from a charisma standpoint

•Aksana looks to be going heel and Teddy looks as sad as ever. Finally WWE is taking the Aksana character in the right direction and man did Teddy look like an old sad man in that uniform. I do have a negative with Aksana that I’ll mention in the bad column

•Daniel Bryan-AJ dynamic continues to be outstanding. I really hope WWE understands the great dynamic Bryan and AJ have together. They really need to have AJ go full heel with Bryan

•Hornswoggle with Brodus Clay. Surprisingly this worked for me; however WWE needs to be weary of having Hornswoggle cheap shot the heels after matches. Hornswoggle has been around so long now and the act is kind of stale that it’s no longer cute that he does that

•Quality six man tag action at the end while protecting Mark Henry in defeat

The Bad

•Lack of hype for the three hour Raw. Again WWE just doesn’t hype these shows properly. They need to dedicate a segment to it as in the announcers talking about it while the camera is focused on them and then hit a graphic with the Lesnar-Cena contract signing. Talking about it throughout a match is just in one ear and out the other and who knows if anyone pays attention to the commercials

•Aksana goes heel without going heel? I’m not sure if that was supposed to be a heel turn, but I’ll hold out hope that WWE will do an in ring segment or something where Aksana low blows Teddy or something. Will see where it goes, but if that was what they had in mind for Aksana turning on Teddy that was lame

•Antonio’s debut. Didn’t like act one. WWE is debuting alot of new talent on Smackdown and it’s a bit much right now. WWE had lots of current talent on the roster that they could be using better

•Cody one ups Big Show, but can’t even sustain it for one night. I wouldn’t have had Show knockout Cody again tonight. Cody cost Big Show his match and they should have left it there for this week

•Damien Sandow. I think the character is going to be treated with apathy when he debuts. It’s just too over the head of the typical WWE audience to work that being said I reserve the right to be proven wrong as I was with Alberto Del Rio following his vignettes

•Hunico as enhancement talent. This is a guy WWE has just debuting on television in the last year and he is already slated as an enhancement guy along with the likes of Drew McIntyre and Heath Slater. Hopefully WWE puts a reemphasis on tag teams and have him and Camacho in that division

•The usage of Natalya. I really have to question if the treatment of Natalya is some past grudge with the Harts. I read the results from the oversea tours and she spends the first half of the tour putting over AJ and the second half of the tour putting over Alicia Fox and on TV she’s getting destroyed by the diva of the week whether it’s Tamina, Eve or AJ. I liked the segment with AJ snapping, but put someone else in that spot such as Alicia Fox, Tamina or AJ’s best buddy Kaitlyn

•No promotion for Alberto-Show, the battle of two former World Champions.  

Overall Thoughts

•The best Smackdown we’ve seen since Wrestlemania. I still had a few complaints, but they are all easily fixable.

What needs to be accomplished on next week’s show?

•Final hard sell for Extreme Rules. WWE didn’t do a terrific job of promoting Extreme Rules tonight and hopefully they get to that next week and don’t try and rely on Lesnar-Cena without making the rest of the show feel special. I trust a lesson was learned from Survivor Series

•Orton-Kane. Kane took out Randy’s father. If these two are in the same building or same ring, I don’t want to see any talking. I assume WWE will be on top of that

•Focus on Bryan-Sheamus. WWE has been more interested in establishing the Bryan-AJ dynamic, which is fine since its good television, but Bryan isn’t wrestling AJ at Extreme Rules so I hope the focus gets back to Sheamus-Bryan next week