WWE TV 1/16 - 1/22

[WingedEagle]

That was definitely the weakest Smackdown in quite some time. Not a bad show as it flowed pretty well for 2 hours, A/Miz was cut short too quickly to develop in to something special, while the rest of the show was a ton of video packages and 2 matches that weren't particularly heated and didn't offer much for the live or TV audiences to get behind. Oh well, not every week can be a home run.

[DMJ]

 

Man, I really like Charlotte and Bayley, but that segment on RAW was just awfully uncomfortable - just absolutely dreadful.

 

Charlotte is not good enough to go 10+ minutes on the mic. I think I could list on one hand the number of wrestlers that can go that long so its not a knock against her. At certain points in the segment she was mocking Bayley's photos and obviously didn't even recognize Ivory (I think it was?) in one of those photos - her insult was something like, "I don't even know what to say about that picture" which is just awkward in a wrestling promo. Same for Charlotte mocking Bayley's poetry by trying to read it off the Titantron and failing because the print was too small. There were just all sorts of "goofs" in there that seemed to be because the writers/producers are telling her to "wing it" and lining up props for her to use (like the pictures and the poetry) and forgetting that she's not The Rock and didn't train in Second City and improv'ing jokes is easier said than done.

 

THEN you have Bayley coming out after what felt like an hour of getting run down on the mic. Why wait so long to come out? Just poor, poor production choice. To make matters worse, Bayley is put in same position as Charlotte essentially, asked to speak her mind for 5+ minutes via promo instead of just coming in and knocking Charlotte's block off.

 

Still a fan of both women, but this segment deserves all the criticism in the world for its lay-out.

 

Charlotte has done 10+ minute promos before and handled them better than anyone on the Raw roster besides Jericho/Steph/HHH. I didn't see the segment, but maybe it was just a bad night/bad set up. There is no active talent on Raw outside of Jericho that I trust to fill 10-15 minutes of promo time more than Charlotte.

 

 

I'd say - watch the segment. As I wrote, I'm still a fan of both women and Charlotte is easily my pick for the best heel on the RAW roster (if not the whole company, though, I might put Miz a notch higher).

 

The set-up: Charlotte comes out to run down Bayley as being the "average fan" and then proceeds to show embarrassing photos of her on the Titantron. With the right producer, this could've been a good segment...but they forgot to write punchlines or she forgot to deliver them. At one point, she showed a picture of Bayley with Bret Hart and her put-down was "Woah, hope Nattie doesn't see this." Um, what? Is the implication that Bayley, who looks 14 in the photo, was trying to hook-up with a gray-haired Hitman and Nattie would care because that's her dad's former tag partner? Later, she made some comment about the crowd not being able to read before she herself was unable to read the poem on the Titantron - the epitome of being the butt of her own joke. In my previous post I already described another non-joke when she showed a picture of Bayley with either Ivory or Mickie James or some other diva I couldn't quite picture and Charlotte (who also seemed unable to name the diva) said, "I don't even know what to say about that."

 

And in the reality of the segment, we're meant to believe that Charlotte had PROVIDED these photos to show on the Titantron, that she'd dug them up and had been laughing about them all day...but in the delivery, it was apparent that she had probably never seen these photos before and had never read Bayley's poem before. If not, she's a better actress than I give her credit for because she played "unprepared" well enough to deserve an Oscar.

 

The only good line Charlotte delivered the whole time was an ad-lib where she called someone in the crowd "four eyes" and it was eerily reminiscent of how Flair used to call people "fat boy."

 

I know tearing up this particular promo is gonna get misconstrued into meaning that I don't think Charlotte is awesome. She is. I'm not "inventing reasons" to dislike her because I think she's infallible, but because this is the sort of segment that has turned lesser workers "average," no longer credible, or regarded as stars. I don't want that to happen to Charlotte...but enough poorly planned, poorly executed, and poorly conceived segments, like this one, will do it. Just ask 2015 Dean Ambrose.

[NotJayTabb]

Was surprised by the complete lack of reaction to Mickie James but, cripes, she's still hot.

 

Gosh I hate Seth Rollins.

I think it was hindered partly by being in a cage which would make things harder for the audience to see, and that the La Luchadora costume also made it harder to tell who it was. From a distance, it's just a woman with brown hair, and the camera focused on Becky's reaction first, then on Mickie. Slightly concerned that the Nikki/Natalya feud means there's no obvious contender to take the title off Alexa (assuming Becky feuds with Mickie), as Bliss is still not up to much in the ring.

 

I left the Rollins remark in agreement

[Grimmas]

This is awesome for SD, we have Nikki-Natalya, Becky-Mickie, Carmella doing her gimmick, plus Alexa as champion with a new feud, maybe with someone new or Naomi.

 

Alexa can be Honky Tonk man if they want, with a variety of challengers until Asuka comes up or something.

[goc]

I don't expect the Mickie/Alex partnership to last long and it'll likely lead to a triple threat match where the title either goes back to Becky or onto Mickie James.

[KawadaSmile]

I would mark out for Naomi as a champion, really. She is my favourite female wrestler in the roster right now.

[Parties]

205 Live (1/17): Cedric-Gulak was a good little match. Pretty impressive selling from Alexander, and Gulak got in some cool stuff despite being on the defensive a surprising amount of the time. He’s still being booked as kind of a schlub, but it sort of works as a heel and he can’t ask for more if he can’t cut promos. Nese-Ali had zero heat: liked Nese’s cool fireman’s carry into a gutbuster, but little else to report. I don’t find either guy charismatic, but Nese had a bit more vigor than usual this week. Gallagher-Daivari's "I Forfeit" match was quite fun, and an oddly compelling tribute to 1999’s Halftime Heat w/ Rock-Mankind. Gallagher’s character work and usage of the umbrella got over with me.