Smackdown Review – 04/10/2020

Smackdown Review 04/10/20

Hello! Welcome back to this weeks Smackdown review. Tonight’s show coming to us from the WWE performance center is the WrestleMania post-show and is sure to be a interesting episode as we hear from the brand new universal champion, Braun Strowman, as well as the new women’s tag team champions, Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross are set to defend their newly won gold in a WrestleMania rematch against the Kabuki Warriors. All that, and I’m sure some more surprises along the way. Lets get started!

Live from the WWE Performance Center

Braun Strowman
We kick things off with Braun Strowman walking out to the ring, which leads us right into a look back at his WrestleMania match against Goldberg. As we cut back to the ring, seeing Braun Strowman cutting a promo. He says he took everything Goldberg had, but he still put Goldberg down for good. He says this is the greatest moment of his career, but it’s quickly interrupted by Shinsuke Nakamura. Surprisingly, alone. No Cesaro or Sami Zayn in sight. Shinsuke cuts a promo saying Braun said when opportunity knocks, he must answer the door. Well, he’s knocking on Braun’s door. He reminds him that last time we saw Braun before WrestleMania, he lost the intercontinental title. Braun says he doesn’t wanna talk anymore. Later tonight, Shinsuke will get these hands. Cesaro suddenly appears but Braun takes him out, only to get a kick in the face by Nakamura. Cesaro and Nakamura leave, Braun staggers in the ring. I guess we will see more of this later!
My Thoughts
I enjoyed this. I love the thought of Shinsuke becoming the universal champion, and even if he doesn’t, it’s cool to at least see him in the world championship picture once again, so it seems.

Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Kabuki Warriors –
Women’s Tag Team Championship Match.
Kairi and Alexa kicked off the match and right from the jump, Kairi was all over her. Fast pace and quick tags in and out from Asuka and Sane, staying all over Bliss. I throughly enjoy when a tag team match starts off hot and that’s exactly what we got here. They were so dominant, that Asuka went and hopped onto commentary mid match, which ruled. But, suddenly Nikki Cross had enough and things started to break down heading into the commercial break. When we returned, Nikki Cross was the legal teammate but suffered the same fate as Alexa, Kabuki just all over her. After a few minutes, Cross finally got her bearings back and started to fire back. She made the tag to Alexa, who came in hot but was quickly shut down by Kairi with a nasty spear. Some quick back and forth and tags in and out, until Asuka caught Nikki in the Asuka lock. Just as you think that’s it, Alexa breaks it up. Things get a little wild but it comes to a halt when Alexa hit the twisted bliss onto Kairi and Asuka on the outside. Not long after, Cross was the legal teammate and hit the twisting neck breaker on Kairi for the finish. Tag team titles have been retained.
My Thoughts:
I actually really enjoyed this. Even with kabuki dominating nearly the entire match up until the finishing moments, i think I enjoyed this more than the WrestleMania match. Afterwards I expected the return of the iiconics, just wishful thinking though, because it didn’t happen. Overall, really good though.

⁃ Elias is here. He’s up on the same perch that Corbin tossed him off before WrestleMania. He says he’s happy he ended the king at WrestleMania, and he wrote a song about it all. He ended off his song basically proposing that he should be in the money in the bank match, and he would turn the briefcase into a guitar case. Would be cool if you ask me.

⁃ We take a look back at the feud between Otis, Dolph Ziggler & Mandy Rose, including their WrestleMania match.

Dolph Ziggler, who was accompanied by Sonya Deville, walks out and starts telling off Michael Cole. They screamed in his face about how the exposing footage from last week was all fake. Suddenly, he was interrupted by Tucker who told them he had some pictures for them to see. He showed them pictures of Mandy and Otis together, then told Dolph while Otis is busy, they have unfinished business. We have a match. I’d also like to point out that we went into commercial break with a promotional commercial that in two weeks on Smackdown, it will be Triple H appreciation night.

Dolph Ziggler w/ Sonya Deville vs. Tucker
This started off hot as a very visibly fired up and furious Tucker went right after Dolph. Sonya causes a distraction, leading to Dolph getting the upper hand but it didn’t last long. It broke down quickly into a decent back and forth brawl with the edge leaning towards Tucker. It spilled to the outside with Tucker slamming Dolph onto the announcers table. It’s all Tucker now. The match made its way back into the ring and stayed all over Ziggler. Suddenly, he got caught when he went for a corner spear, but ended up going shoulder first into the ring post, followed by a super kick. Dolph gets the pin and the victory.
My Thoughts
Similar to the first match, a dominating performance from one side up until the end. The match was basically all Tucker until Dolph got a lucky reversal and picked up the win. This match was okay. Nothing that will blow you away. Also, Otis and Mandy never came out, so nothing new with them as of now.

The Dirt Sheet
We see a look back at the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship Ladder Match from WrestleMania. If you didn’t know, it was a triple threat singles featuring Morrison, Kofi and Jimmy Uso, due to Miz being injured. Morrison won that, and up next, Miz and Morrison are here with The Dirt Sheet.
The Dirt Sheet starts with The Miz and John Morrison sitting in the ring talking about their WrestleMania victory. They then tell us what the good news was coming out of WrestleMania. They ended with saying their song “Hey Hey” is such a big hit, and they will preform it live. Which they do. Their performance was cut short with a interruption by the Usos. Jimmy and Jey point out that they’re supposed to defend both tag team titles and the usos want the championships. Miz explains that he was injured and is still injured and he can’t compete. The New Day then makes their way out to the stage. Big E says the original WrestleMania match didn’t happen, and it was only one person from each team in the match. So, it only makes sense that the other half of each team should have a match for the championships. Miz tries to once again say that he isn’t cleared, but Kofi cuts him off and says that he already talked to management. Next week, The Miz will defend the tag team championships against Jey Uso and Big E next week.
My Thoughts
 This was a solid segment. No brawling or any physical altercations took place, but the promo battle between each team was good and it did the job to set up next weeks championship match. Good job.

We see a vignette for NXT’s Forgotten Sons. They’re here next.

The Forgotten Sons vs. Lucha House Party
If you didn’t know, The Forgotten Sons consist of Jaxson Ryker, Steve Cutler & Westley Blake. Blake and Cutler are in this match, while Ryker watches from ringside. Metalik & Lince are in this match, while Kalisto isn’t here. Cutler and Lince kick off the match. Back and forth and quick tags between each team, the Lucha House Party kept the pace quick in the beginning, but Lince was shut down by Blake and Cutler. Forgotten sons kept good control of the match until Metalik was tagged in and started turning the tide in his favor. Metalik kept the ball rolling for a short amount of time until he went for a handspring cutter but was caught and hit with a brutal clothesline by Blake. Cutler was then tagged in, they hit their tag team move and win the match.
My Thoughts
I expected this to be a squash, but it wasn’t quite that, Lucha House Party got more offense than i expected, but they still took a loss. Solid debut from The Forgotten Sons.

We see Alexa and Nikki backstage talking about their win from tonight. Carmella and Dana Brooke interrupted them and said since they didn’t get their WrestleMania moment this year, they want to challenge for the tag team titles. After a bit of pandering, Nikki Cross accepts their challenge.

Bayley & Sasha Banks
Sasha Banks and Bayley are here. Bayley, who is still champion, says that it was just a few weeks ago when Paige put Bayley in a five way match and tried to get her to lose her title. But, she didn’t. Bayley says her defiant victory was her best moment yet. She says that her and Sasha are the ultimate role models. Sasha says no one will ever understand their friendship and no one from the past, present or future can touch them. Tamina interrupts. A very visibly scared Bayley starts blurting out compliments towards Tamina, but Tamina tells her to shut up. Tamina says it took everyone to eliminate her, and Bayley can’t beat her alone. She challenges Bayley one on one for the title. Sasha denies her before Bayley could, Bayley then says Tamina can have her match, only if she can beat Sasha Banks. Sasha didn’t seem happy about that. Tamina tells Sasha that her bestie just screwed her.
My Thoughts
Right off the bat I must say that I’m very surprised that Tamina is continuing on in the championship picture, and I can’t say I’m mad at it. Something new, something fresh, and hopefully her and Sasha put on a good match next week.

We have a special look at Jeff Hardy’s career, it’s being billed as “Jeff Hardy Chapter One: The Rise”.

Sheamus vs. Cal Bloom
Cal tries his best to get a head start going after Sheamus but quickly Sheamus battled back and set Cal Bloom up for the ten beats on the ropes. He followed it up with a brogue kick, and finished it all. Quick. Sheamus stares down the commentary team afterwards.
My Thoughts
Not much to say here, a quick squash match. Sheamus looked good.

We now see the career look back on Jeff Hardy. A cool look back at the early Hardy Boyz with little interviews mixed in by Jeff himself and other WWE Superstars talking about how great Jeff is. We will see part two next week.

Next week we will have money in the bank qualifying matches including; Daniel Bryan vs. Cesaro and Dana Brooke vs. Naomi. Mandy and Sonya face to face was also announced for next week.

Braun Strowman vs. Shinsuke Nakamura w/ Cesaro
Nakamura tried to come out of the gate with a big kick but missed and got kicked right in the chest by Braun. This started a beat down on Nakamura by Strowman. Braun continued to stay in control, but also continued to get distracted by Cesaro at ringside. Once Braun finally took his attention off of Cesaro, he struck. A uppercut from Cesaro while the ref wasn’t looking, caused Nakamura to get in control of the match. Short back and forth battle between the two ended when Nakamura hit the Kinshasa, but Braun kicked out, got up and power slammed Nakamura for the win. Not a long main event, but a decent one. After the match, Braun was interrupted by Bray Wyatt in the firefly funhouse. Bray starts off by taking a jab at John Cena, saying he guesses we can’t see him. Bray then turns his attention to Braun. We see flashbacks of Braun in the Wyatt family. Bray says that Braun turned his back on him. He turned his back on his creator. Bray says he will forgive Braun if he says sorry. Braun says he will not play Bray’s games. Bray says he will teach him a new lesson. This lesson is about sharing, because he wants what Braun has. He wants back his universal championship. He says since he brought Braun into this world, he will take him out. Braun cuts him off and says he just wants bray to know, that he is willing to let him in. Strowman then mocks Bray by saying “Bye! See ya later!” As a stare down between the two ends the show.
My Thoughts
The match itself was good, but once again nothing special. I’m more excited about what happened after the match. I would’ve enjoyed Nakamura being the next challenger very much, but after he lost clean, that’s clearly not happening. But, luckily, I’m on board with a Braun and Bray feud. Bray tackling the objective of taking out the monster he created is a great idea and I really love the thought of that story, and it seems that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Very excited.

Overall Thoughts:
Tonight’s Show was pretty good and i thoroughly enjoyed it. Match wise, the women’s tag title match was the only match i was super into, while everything else was just okay. Not bad though. But, what i was really into was the progression of all the storylines. Next week we will see Uso vs. Big E vs. Miz, which continues that feud, we also have Sasha Banks vs. Tamina which could very well be the start of Tamina going after the women’s championship. Also, Mandy and Sonya will be face to face for the first time since their team broke down at WrestleMania. And of course, we see the new feud of Bray Wyatt going back after the universal champion against Braun. So, some solid stuff feud wise coming out of Smackdown, as well as the money in the bank qualifiers starting next week. So, overall I thought the show was good and did a good job building up for the future, and especially building up for next week, which looks like it’s going to be a good show, and i can’t wait! See you all next week.