Smackdown Live Review 08/02/2016

It’s that time of the week again, Smackdown Live. WWE promises an exciting second edition of Smackdown Live, with AJ Styles’ message to John Cena and the Smackdown debut of American Alpha. Plus, what’s going to happen next between Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose? Where does Bray Wyatt go from here? Also, will Lesnar pay a visit to Smackdown to return the favour of the RKO Orton left him with on last nights Raw? Let’s find out!

---

Smackdown comes to you live on the USA Network and Fox Sports 2 for Latin America, from Nashville, Tennessee at the Bridgestone Arena.

This week’s show opens up with Shane McMahon, Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton watching a video of Randy’s attack on Brock Lesnar last night on Raw. Shane is basically reprimanding Orton and tells him there are going to be repercussions for his actions. Randy asks if all of this was necessary and a group of security guards is revealed, Shane and Daniel tells him they are necessary and instruct the guards to prevent Brock Lesnar from entering the arena at all costs.

As Randy walks off, The Miz and Maryse show up and complain to Shane and Bryan about not having the roster celebrating with him at Battleground and Bryan not being happy when he picked The Miz in the Draft, finally, Bryan announces a Triple Threat number one contender’s match for the Intercontinental Title between Kalisto, Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin. The Miz just thanks them and walks off.

Dean Ambrose shows up and tells Bryan and Shane he will be opening the show to talk about his new challenger.

Dean Ambrose makes his way to the ring and talks about Dolph Ziggler, reminding the fans he won the 6 pack challenge to challenge Ambrose at Summerslam. Dean invites Ziggler to the ring. Ziggler comes out and starts off by saying he is a big fan, he thinks they are very similar, to which Ambrose replies they are now as Ziggler is just show and Ambrose clawed his way to the top. Ziggler says they both got up the same way as Ambrose made it with The Shield and Ziggler with a group of male cheerleaders. Ambrose says Ziggler is only felling sorry for himself as Ziggler only lost time complaining while Ambrose proved everyone wrong about him. Ziggler is only worried about his hair, his looks, his name, what the office and what the fans think of him, “You are going to steal the show, but you are going to lose.”  Ziggler then gets really intense talking about being the Cleveland 5 year old fan and being overlooked, disrespected and undervalued for 7 years. Ambrose says his problem is that he is not as good as he thinks he is.

Okay, I don’t normally write every single thing people say to each other but his was really good, really intense with a divided crowd, I really enjoyed that word trade and didn’t want to leave anything out.

Bray Wyatt appears in the ring with Ziggler in his arm in position for Sister Abigail. Wyatt hits it and tells the crowd to look at him. He tells Ziggler he stole something from him and he wants it back. He challenges a knocked out Ziggler to a match tonight, if Ziggler wins, he proves to every one he deserves to be the number one contender, but if he loses, Wyatt takes his spot in the Summerslam Title match.

A graphic is shown hyping an AJ Styles message for John Cena.

American Alpha debut graphic.

Dolph Ziggler is backstage with Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan to tell them he wants the match with Bray Wyatt. Both ask him why and try to talk him out of it but Ziggler is determined to prove everyone wrong, Shane gives him the match.

1) Kalisto vs Baron Corbin vs Apollo Crews.
In an energetic, fast paced match, Apollo Crews defeated Baron Corbin and Kalisto by pinfall when he pinned Kalisto with a roll up.

After the match, Baron Corbin attacks Kalisto until Apollo Crews gets back to the ring to make the save. The Miz gets into the ring and hits Skull Crushing Finale to Apollo and Corbin hits End of Days on The Miz. Hopefully a fatal four way at Summerslam comes out of this.

Becky Lynch makes her way to the ring followed by Eva Marie’s entrance.

Before the match started, Eva Marie started selling a thigh injury and after being checked on by a doctor, the match was called off and Eva was helped to the back.

Renee is in the panel with Carmella and asks her about Eva’s injury, Carmella says it looked pretty serious but she is from New York so she can tell she is faking it. Natalya shows up and says Renee should be interviewing her because she in the on who has been carrying the division. Natalya and Carmella get into an argument where Natalya makes fun of Carmella for being the last Draft pick and Carmella calls Natalya a crazy cat lady.

American Alpha’s debut is up next!

Vaudevillians are in the ring as American Alpha make their first Smackdown entrance.

2) American Alpha vs The Vaudevillians.
In a really solid match, American Alpha defeated The Vaudevillians by pinfall after Chad Gable pinned Simon Gotch with Grand Amplitude. This was a really good way to debut American Alpha as they showed what they are about and looked like a million bucks. The Vaudevillians deserve sooo much better.

A video showing John Cena hosting the Teen Choice Award is played.

AJ Styles makes her way to the ring. One reason and one reason only. After saying this, John Cena’s music interrupts Styles and Cena comes down to the ring. AJ and Cena trade some words, AJ reminds Cena he has beaten him, AJ tells Cena he doesn’t want him here, AJ makes some heel comments about Tennesse, about the kids and the parents and then comes back to Cena. Styles gets really intense about him being a winner after he defeated John Cena. Cena says he says he is here for love. After a really weird and confusing insult trading, AJ Styles challenge Cena to a Summerslam rematch and Cena accepts. Finally.

Fandango and Tyler Breeze are in the ring as Randy Orton’s music hits. The group of security guards surround the ring.

3) Randy Orton vs Fandango.
In a regular match, Fandango defeated Randy Orton by disqualification when Brock Lesnar rushed to the ring and hit Randy Orton with an F5. Brock was then taken to the back by Shane McMahon and the security guards.

A video with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman leaving the arena is played.

Heath Slater is in Daniel Bryan’s office and tells him he got in by the back door. Bryan offers him a match to earn a contract and Rhyno then Spears him.

Renee Young interviews Dean Ambrose about Bray Wyatt possibly facing him at Summerslam, Dean only says he is surprised about Dolph risking his match.

Carmella makes her way to the ring until being interrupted and attacked by Natalya. Natalya locks in the Sharpshooter at ringside and leaves Carmella being checked by referees.

Shane and Daniel try to talk backstage to Dolph to convince him to not put his shot on the line, Ziggler says they both don’t believe in him, so he leaves. I’m writing this as it happens in real time, my guess is Ziggler loses, turns heel today or next week, and out of frustration attacks everyone and gets back in the title match somehow.

4) Dolph Ziggler vs Bray Wyatt.
In a surprisingly good match, Dolph Ziggler defeated Bray Wyatt by pinfall after Dolph hit Bray’s head with the exposed turnbuckle followed by a super-kick. This was a very story driven match with the elements of Ziggler being focused on proving himself. Ambrose was on commentary.

After the match, Erick Rowan attacked Dolph Ziggler while he was celebrating which led to Rowan and Wyatt attack Ziggler with Ambrose just watching.

Ziggler looked far more aggressive than usual, and even though I thought we would have a triple threat at Summerslam, WWE made Wyatt look like a chump by talking a big game and then losing clean like they usually do. It was still a great match and hopefully Wyatt goes on to a big feud for Summerslam. I’m now genuinely excited for Ambrose v. Ziggler.

Just as a note, Alberto del Rio was not on this week’s show, which I think is unbelievable. He deserves to be in a top spot in WWE and he is not even on the show.

That’s it for this weeks Smackdown Live for you guys. A really enjoyable edition of Smackdown in my opinion. We didn’t get as many matches but it was still a really entertaining show. When we say we loved a show, people generally hate it so we want you to tell us what you thought of the show, we want your feedback, comment here or on our Instagram with your thoughts. This week we give Smackdown Live a 8.5 out of 10. Hopefully the ratings reflect this.

Remember to come back to us, we are @WammysWrestlingUniverse on Instagram and we’ll be back next week.