ThunderStruck: WWE Smackdown Analysis 04/16/15

Thursday Night Smackdown is coming at you from the 02 Arena in London! We’ve got John Cena kicking off the show. He rambles about Rusev and their Russian Chain Match at Extreme Rules with the US Title on the line. Then the WWE Tag Team Champions, Cesaro and Tyson Kidd come to the ring when he calls for an opponent for the US Title open challenge. Daniel Bryan eventually comes out to even the odds, and thus we have our main event for the show.

^There may have been some words exchanged, but do those ultimately matter here? We’ve got four top talents(all champions for that matter!) matching up in the main event for a Teddy Long-ish setup of a tag match. I can dig this, and evidently so can the London crowd.

Bray Wyatt defeats R-Truth in a match that goes less than three minutes.

^Cole and Lawler hyped the match as a “rare wrestling appearance” for Bray. That tells me that I’m probably correct in assuming that WWE is going to treat him like the Undertaker in a sense as he’ll be a sparsely used attraction that has only important rivalries and squash matches in between those.

We see a piece of an interview with Roman Reigns on WWE.com. They’re trying hard to get the guy over, and I feel like it’s working. Roman is a good talent who happened to get pushed at a time when the fans expected something else. This will be a good year for him to develop and become the top star that I’m pretty sure he can be.

Miz is in the ring and he complains about Mizdow. Bad News Barrett interrupts the Miz, insults the Miz, and we have our next match. Barrett wins the match in under a minute with a quick bullhammer elbow.

^The crowd cheered Barrett big time, and that confuses me as to why they would have such a quick squash here. Things like this have never impressed me as a fan.

Raw flashback. I don’t cover these as they’re not new.

Miz/Mizdow segment backstage setting up a match on Monday’s Raw for the right to use Miz’s name, gimmick and entrance music. I hope this is the end of this one as it’s gotten rather stale. The segment was well done, but I’m just over the rivalry.

Sheamus takes on Neville. Sheamus cuts a heel promo on Neville before the match begins. The match ends by DQ at seven and a half minutes when Sheamus drops Neville on the announce table. Sheamus beats Neville down until Dolph Ziggler makes the save. Ziggler cuts a promo on Sheamus as the great white heads up the ramp. Sheamus informs Ziggler that their match at Extreme Rules will be a “kiss me arse” match.

^The seven minutes that we saw from Neville and Sheamus were absolutely awesome. Neville might be smaller than the average performer, but he’s made a huge splash in WWE since he came to Raw and Smackdown. Great stuff here, and I enjoyed the continuation of Ziggler and Sheamus as they build for their match at Extreme Rules. How awesome is it that we have a midcard feud with no title involved that is getting good time to develop on TV? I’m guessing the match will deliver in spades if it’s given more than 15 minutes.

Daniel Bryan and John Cena are shown strategizing for their main event match later in the show.

Los Matadores with El Torito take on The New Day(Kofi and Big E with Xavier Woods in their corner). New Day cuts a heel promo on the crowd as they come to the ring. A New Day sucks chant breaks out. New Day gets the win with Big E getting the pinfall in less than three minutes.

^I truly enjoy the emphasis on the tag team division, but with all the damn flashbacks and silly segments backstage, couldn’t we get more time with the WRESTLING in the ring?

We see Fandango dump Rosa Mendes in a backstage segment. Adam Rose tries to cheer her up after the fact.

^Smaller rivalries becoming important again? Yes!!! It’s about damn time. WWE needs to script them into Raw more and keep this stuff fresh.

Big Show comes out and delivers a lengthy promo on Roman Reigns. Show announces that his match with Reigns at Extreme Rules will be Last Man Standing.

^It was good, but it’s nothing new from Show in terms of building a feud. The guy has gotten old fast. I chuckled a bit as he shook the car on top of the stage when he stood up on it.

Natalya, Alicia Fox and Cameron have a triple threat match. Cameron gets the win in just under five minutes. Alicia Fox pitches a fit after the match.

^That was short, but longer than most diva matches we see. I enjoyed the work from these three ladies, and I honestly didn’t know Cameron could work that well in the ring. Kudos to all involved here.

Fandango takes on Adam Rose in our next contest. Rosa comes out and ends up helping Fandango win the match unintentionally. He still wants nothing to do with her as he dances for the crowd after the match.

^Another super short match that felt more like a segment. This is starting to remind me some of the attitude era Raw episodes where segments stole the show. The problem here is that the matches are just not long enough(how hard is it to get six-eight minutes for a decent match?). I do like Fandango’s revived popularity though; the guy is a hard worker and can entertain on the mic.

Bray Wyatt cuts another mysterious promo.

^I’m guessing he’ll go after Reigns or Orton at Extreme Rules when their matches are finished. Could be Cena, but that’s been done already. Same for Kane and Daniel Bryan.

Daniel Bryan and John Cena take on Tyson Kidd and Cesaro in our main event. Daniel Bryan forces Tyson Kidd to tap out in just under eight minutes after some poor timing between Cesaro, Kidd and Natalya. Bryan and Cena celebrate to end the show.

^That was a fun main event. I would’ve preferred less promos and flashbacks during the show to make the matches a bit longer, but this worked just fine. I liked seeing four champions in the main event on Smackdown; it made things feel a bit more important.

We had seven matches in two hours, and most were not long enough. However, we saw some nice build for Extreme Rules and had a fun main event. Mix in the Neville/Sheamus contest and you have an above average episode of Smackdown here. Six out of ten for me.

Thanks for reading!

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