SmackDown Report for 12/6/19

SmackDown on Fox Episode #10
SmackDown Episode # 1,059
Fayetteville, NC – Crown Coliseum
12/6/19

We open the show with a video highlighting everything that happened last week between Daniel Bryan and Bray Wyatt. 

The Miz will be kicking off the show tonight. Miz talks about how he was supposed to have Daniel Bryan as his guest on Miz TV, however, nobody has heard from Bryan since The Fiend got a hold of him last week. The Miz says that while he still doesn’t like Bryan he realizes how much Bryan means to both the fans and the rest of the boys in the locker room, The Miz vows to find out what happened to Bryan. 

Wyatt then appears on the screen and says that The Fiend may not be done with Bryan and that The Miz doesn’t want to know what The Fiend did to Bryan. Wyatt alludes that Bryan may not make it to TLC and asks Miz if he wants to play instead. Wyatt talks about how he used to have a family (as we see flashes of the Wyatt Family) but now he has a chance to join a new family as he holds up a picture of The Miz and his family. Wyatt then asks The Miz if he wants to play now as Miz marches up the ramp with a purpose and we go to commercial.

As we come back from commercial we see The Miz talking to Maryse on the phone and telling her to lock up the house as Bray is unpredictable. Miz tells Maryse that he is leaving the arena immediately and will be headed home. 

Match #1 Mandy Rose w/ Sonya Deville vs Alexa Bliss w/ Nikki Cross
As Alexa makes her way to the ring we see two giant 3D yellow heads that are supposed to be Alexa and Nikki that were equally cute and ridiculous looking. Also worth noting that Jessika Carr is refereeing this match and will now be a permanent member of SmackDown’s referee roster.

The two women lock up and Alexa takes down Mandy and holds her down until Mandy throws her off and tells Alexa not to touch her face. Alexa gets out of a rear waist lock with a back elbow and a drop toe hold which causes Mandy to roll outside and take a powder. Mandy moves out of the way as Alexa attempts a baseball slide and then she nails Alexa with a bicycle knee strikes that she thankfully landed this week. Mandy slams the face of Alexa on the apron before rolling her back into the ring where she gets a 2 count on a pinfall attempt. Mandy grounds Alexa and then rubs her forearm across the face of Alexa. Mandy then removes Alexa’s eyelashes as the announcers freak out as if they had never seen fake eyelashes before. 

Alexa tries to make a comeback but Mandy takes her down with a dropkick and then goes for a cover, but the referee won’t count as Mandy’s foot is outside the ring. Mandy looks to hit the Bed of Roses but Alexa blocks it and then turns an attempted bicycle knee into a roll-up that gets a 2 count. Mandy starts smacking Alexa around while talking trash and saying Alexa will never look like her, eventually, Alexa has had enough as she grabs Mandy by the throat. Alexa has a look on her face that reminds you why they call her the “5 Feet of Fury” as she slams Mandy to the mat. Alexa hits Mandy with a couple of nice right hands and follows up with a basement dropkick. Alexa steps onto Mandy’s body while she uses her foot to repeatedly bash Mandy’s face into the mat. Alexa hits the first part of Insult to Injury but then has to knock Sonya off the apron, Nikki takes care of Sonya with a crossbody off the steps. Mandy tries to pick up a win with an O’Connor roll but Alexa kicks out and then hits Mandy with a wrap-around DDT that didn’t look good at all as Mandy bumps a second before she is supposed to. Alexa goes up top and hits Twisted Bliss to pick up the win in her first match back.
Winner: Alexa Bliss via Pinfall    Match Rating: **

First off, I declare this match to be known as “The Battle of the Buns”. It was great to see Alexa back and even better she is back as a 100% babyface (I know she was a babyface before she left but it feels more concrete now than it did then) although she has always been a babyface in my heart. I liked the eyelashes spot as it was something different and actually got the crowd into the match. I was glad to see Mandy hit the bicycle knee this week as that is one of my favorite moves and more times than not she is able to hit it with perfection. I’m curious what they have planned in the future for all four women in this match as it feels like this feud is just a holdover to get through the holidays and hopefully as the new year rolls around they have something bigger planned, but then again I wouldn’t be surprised if all four of them are in the battle royal at WrestleMania.  

We go to the back where Drake Maverick approaches Dana Brooke once again and asks what Dave Bautista has that he doesn’t, this leads to Elias coming into the picture and singing a song about Drake not being able to get any nookie and then ends the song talking about Drake’s wife in his bed. Drake slaps Elias and then walks off. 

As we come back from a commercial break Drake Maverick is in the ring and is tired of everyone making a mockery of him and his marriage, he wants to fight Elias. Elias comes out and as Maverick charges toward him, Elias is able to hold him off with one hand before bending him over his knee and giving him a spanking before literally kicking him in the butt and sending him out of the ring. Dana throws Maverick back into the ring and Elias hits him with the Drift Away, Dana comes in and puts her foot on Maverick’s chest while Elias counts to 3.

I honestly don’t know what to say about this segment other than why? I have to imagine this leads to a Batista appearance in the future, I could see a segment where Maverick convinces Batista to beat up Elias and then after he does that he turns around and takes out Maverick as well leading to Batista and Dana kissing in the middle of the ring. It’s either that or Maverick and Renee Michelle are revealed to be swingers and they swing with Dana and Batista, that sounds like a crazy idea but at the rate, WWE is going right now I wouldn’t be surprised. 

We then go back to The Miz who is on his way out of the building when he is stopped in his tracks as out of the corner of his eye he sees a mysterious room with red lighting, as Miz enters the room he sees the same picture that Wyatt showed earlier only this time it was Bray in the picture instead of The Miz. Bray (who is in his Funhouse gear and not dressed as The Fiend) tells The Miz to say cheese and then lays him out with a Sister Abigail before singing a song about being home for the holidays. 

I like how they have changed things up from what we expected as I’m sure everyone was expecting The Fiend vs Daniel Bryan at TLC but instead they were able to build a side feud with Wyatt vs Miz to get through the rest of the year so they can save the big rematch between Bray and Bryan for the Rumble. I like how they are involving Miz’s family in this as it gives the viewers some reason to want to see the match despite knowing for sure that Miz is not winning the match. The most noteworthy thing coming out of the interactions tonight between Miz and Wyatt was the fact that for the first time it was Wyatt attacking someone and not The Fiend, this is a new wrinkle to the story of Bray Wyatt and The Fiend that I am interested in seeing develop.

As we come back from commercial we see a referee helping The Miz out as Miz wonders where the picture of his family went.

We see the first of two plugs for Tribute to the Troops that they put on earlier that day and I assume will be shown on TV in the next couple of weeks. 

New Day makes their way out as they will be on commentary for the next match where the winners will face New Day at TLC for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship. 

Match #2: Mustafa Ali & Shorty G vs Heavy Machinery vs Lucha House Party vs The Revival (4 Way Elimination Match)
Shorty and Metalik start the match out with some nice chain wrestling before Shorty makes the tag to Ali. If the pace wasn’t quick enough already Ali and Metalik turned it up to max speed as they did a sequence where they were countering and dodging each other’s moves, the sequences ended with Metalik cartwheeling out of a running hurricanrana from Ali. Metalik tags in Dorado and then Tucker tags himself in. Tucker shows his agility by flipping over Dorado on a drop-down and then both men hit simultaneous dropkicks. Tucker and Dorado show respect to each other which draws the ire of The Revival who come in and are quickly taken down by Tucker and Dorado with dropkicks. Tucker picks up Dorado in a back suplex position and uses him as a battering ram to knock the other teams off the apron. Dorado hits a handspring stunner on Tucker and then both men make tags to their respective partners. Dorado takes Otis down with a dropkick and then Lucha House Party hit simultaneous moonsaults to the outside onto their opponents. Dawson hits Dorado with a suplex on the outside and then Metalik springboards into the arms of Otis and this leads to Heavy Machinery hitting the Compactor to eliminate Lucha House Party and this sends us to commercial.

As we come back from commercial Shorty is working over the arm of Tucker until Tucker makes a comeback and slams Shorty. Wilder tags himself in and then cuts off Tucker before he can make a tag, Wilder takes Tucker down with a double leg only to get pushed back into the corner which allows Shorty to tag himself back in. Shorty runs into a big hip toss from Tucker and as he rolls into The Revival’s corner Dawson tags himself in. Dawson gets hits with a back body drop and this allows Tucker to finally make the hot tag to Otis. Otis slams Dawson and then gives us a striptease as he pulls his shirt off, Otis then Hulks up and suplexes Dawson across the ring. Otis hits Dawson with an avalanche in the corner and as he does Wilder makes the blind tag. Otis hits the Caterpillar elbow drop on Dawson but as soon as he does Wilder catches him with a sunset flip which is enough for the 3 count and just like that Heavy Machinery is eliminated. There is a staredown between the two remaining teams that turns into a brawl that goes to the outside. The Revival taunt New Day and try to throw Shorty and Ali back in the ring but the babyfaces counter and end up sending The Revival over the top of the announce table and into New Day. We go to commercial as all three teams are arguing at ringside.

As we come back from the break we see that Dawson has Shorty in a Gory special which Shorty turns into a roll-up for 2. Dawson makes a tag to Wilder who cuts Shorty off from making the tag, but this would end up backfiring as Shorty hits a German suplex on both men. Ali tags himself in and we get a German suplex and superkick double team spot on Wilder that got them another 2 count as Dawson broke up the pin. Shorty knocks Dawson and himself over the top rope and to the floor with a running crossbody. Ali tries for the roll-through X-Factor but is caught with a nice lariat by Wilder, Ali then tries for the tornado DDT but Wilder turns that into a power slam. Wilder tries for a suplex but Ali is able to escape and get Wilder in a pinning position only to be kicked straight into the corner where this time Ali hits the tornado DDT.  Ali goes up top looking for the 450 but Dawson pulls Wilder out of the ring at the right time but instead of crashing to the mat Ali is able to roll through it. Ali gets caught on a tope attempt and is tossed into the timekeeper area only for Shorty to take The Revival down moments later by diving off the apron. Shorty looks to hit a top rope moonsault but Wilder gets his foot up only for Shorty to catch the foot and lock in the ankle lock. Wilder rolls through to get out of the ankle lock and sends Shorty right into an uppercut from Dawson and then moments later The Revival hit the Shatter Machine to pick up the win.
Winners: The Revival via Pinfall    Match Rating: ***¼

I really enjoyed this match as it was action-packed and ever never slowed down. I really liked everything in the match involving Lucha House party especially when Metalik and Ali were in there together. I really hope in the future once they decide to split the Lucha House Party that they give Metalik a decent push as he is so good and deserves a bigger spotlight be shown on him. I look forward to the New Day vs The Revival match at TLC as I feel these two teams have yet to have that classic match that has everyone talking.

After the match, The Revival cut a passionate promo about being sick of the New Day’s jokes and silliness but that will end when they become SmackDown Tag Team Champions. The Revival vow to take things back to the old-school with some old-school tag team wrestling. The Revival tells New Day they can go back to doing their podcast so they can tell the world they just got beat by the best team in the company. 

We get a video recapping what happened last week with Reigns delivering a proper ass whooping to Robert Roode. Roman is interviewed backstage and says that he plans on embarrassing Corbin in their TLC match at the TLC PPV.

Michael Cole hypes the fact that CM Punk will be back on WWE Backstage next week.

We see another video from Sheamus to hype his return.

Match #3: Lacey Evans vs Haley Jones
Lacey’s opponent for this match must have come straight from her day job of being the ringmaster at the circus.

They lock up and Lacey tosses Haley down and then hits her with an arm drag which leads to Lacey working on the arm for a minute. Haley gets to her feet but Lacey slams her right back down to the mat. They lock up again and Lacey backs Haley into the corner which leads to Haley trying to make a comeback with some weak forearms. Lacey counters a whip to the ropes and hits the Woman’s Right to pick up the win.
Winner: Lacey Evans via Pinfall  Match Rating: DUD

After the match, Sasha Banks comes out and says that Lacey had better not lay a finger on her or Bayley again and mentions something about Lacey’s daughter which gets an instant reaction of Lacey who tells Sasha that she better never mention her daughter again. Lacey talks about being a marine and says she will drop Sasha where she stands. Lacey throws a feint woman’s right and Sasha falls back as she was anticipating the punch, but instead, all she got was an embarrassment. As Lacey is walking up the ramp she is attacked by Bayley, the Boss N Hug Connection beatdown the Sassy Southern Belle and stand tall above Lacey.

After two weeks I have to say I am liking babyface Lacey and according to tonight’s crowd, the fans are liking it as well as they chanted Nasty toward Sasha. I thought Lacey cut a really good promo and I’m happy to hear that she is talking more natural and no longer has the long drawn out cadence to her promos. I liked how Lacey got some shine on Sasha by making her look a fool while and then immediately turns around and gets her heat back as she helps Bayley beat down Lacey, as all three women got over in the segment. This is one of the matches I’m looking forward to at TLC. I couldn’t help but laugh a little when Lacey said something about not only being a mother but also being a marine because there is a commercial that I see for an attorney that is based here in South Carolina (as well as Georgia) where the main selling point as to why you should come to him is that he is a former marine, all she had to do was tell us to call 999-9999 and she would’ve just done a commercial for George Sink. 

After a commercial break, we get another video package focussing on Tribute to the Troops. 

Match #4: Roman Reigns vs Dolph Ziggler
The tights that Ziggler wore in this match looked like they came straight from Brutus Beefcake’s closet.

Ziggler tries to go for a single leg takedown but Reigns grabs a front face lock which gets broken when Ziggler reaches the ropes. Ziggler kicks Reigns in the knee and then delivers a neck breaker for a near fall. Ziggler rakes the eyes of Reigns before grounding him with a rest hold until Reigns fights back and gets to his feet only for Ziggler to slam him back down to the mat by his hair. Ziggler waits for Reigns to get up so he can hit a stinger splash in the corner, but instead, he is met with an uppercut from Reigns. Ziggler rolls to the outside so he can sucker in Reigns and sure enough, it works as Ziggler dodges an attempted Drive-By and sends Reigns into the steps as we go to commercial.

We come back from break and see that Ziggler has Reigns grounded and is working on the arm, Reigns tries for a roll-up out of nowhere that gets a near fall and then Reigns is hit with a dropkick. Ziggler then starts toying around with Reigns which only fires Reigns up as he comes back with a couple of uppercuts before he is sent face-first into the middle turnbuckle. Reigns rolls outside which allows Ziggler to throw him into the barricade and then right back into the ring where he gets a 2 count off a pin attempt. Ziggler grounds Reigns once again with a chin lock, eventually, Reigns escapes the hold and delivers a couple of clotheslines one of which takes Ziggler over the top rope to the floor. Reigns leaps off the steps looking for a Superman Punch but ate a superkick instead. While both men are down at ringside we get the arrival of King Corbin who is being carried down to the ring on the royal sedan as we go to commercial.

We come back to Reigns signaling for the Superman Punch but Ziggler dodges it and then Reigns catches the foot of Ziggler on a superkick attempt only for Ziggler to dodge an uppercut and hit a big jumping DDT that gets a 2 count. Ziggler waits for Reigns to get to his feet and when he does Ziggler goes to hit the Zig Zag, but Reigns hangs onto the top rope only for Ziggler to hit a sunset flip for a 2 count. Reigns finally hit the Superman Punch but it only gets him a 2 count. Reigns goes for the Spear but Ziggler cut him off with a kick to the head and then throws Reigns into the corner shoulder first. Ziggler is able to hit the Zig-Zag finally but that isn’t enough to get the job done. At this point, Corbin comes down from his sedan and gets on the apron to distract the referee only for Reigns to knock him back down to the floor with a Superman Punch. Ziggler tries for a roll-up but Reigns kicks out and then hits Ziggler with a Spear to get the win.
Winners: Roman Reigns via Pinfall   Match Rating: ***

After the match, the men who carried Corbin to the ring on the sedan attack Reigns and after fighting them off Reigns is attacked by Corbin momentarily before Reigns fights him off only to be hit with a superkick from Ziggler. Ziggler grabs a set of handcuffs from under the ring and with a 6-on-1 advantage, the heels handcuff Reigns to the ring post in a position where his arms are held up over his head. Ziggler then reaches under the ring once again and this time he pulls out cans of dog food and just as you would expect they poor the dog food all over Reigns and rub it into his face, Corbin delivers the final blow when he hits Reigns with the scepter. The show ends with a handcuffed Reigns covered in dog food and screaming out in anger.

I thought I was going to be able to write a review about a good episode of SmackDown, but as expected WWE screws that up as they took two steps backward by booking Reigns to be the sympathetic (and this week you can add humiliated) babyface rather than continuing on from last week where he looked like a badass. The logical booking for this week should’ve seen Reigns taking out Ziggler so that Corbin would be on his own at TLC, however this is WWE and they rarely think logically for long periods of time so instead we got Reigns handcuffed to the ring post and being covered in dog food (I guess we can be thankful it wasn’t dog shit, shoutout to the feud between the British Bulldog and The Rock back in 1999) because that is a sure way to get people to want to see this match. It sucks for both Reigns and Ziggler that people will be talking about how bad the post-match stuff was and completely forget the match they had that was good.

With the exception of the dog food part at the end of the show I think this was one of the better shows I have reviewed, there were two good matches, we got more acquainted with babyface Lacey Evans and she is doing great in that role so far, we got the first Alexa Bliss match on SmackDown since she returned last week, and probably most importantly we got a segment that added to the Wyatt character as he attacked someone not dressed as The Fiend. 

That’s it for this week I hope you enjoy the first review that I wrote from my new Microsoft Surface Pro X which was a Christmas present from my mom. 

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