WWE SmackDown 02/13/18: REAL Brothers
About Last Night is a quick reflection on the matches and segments, or random observations, from a wrestling show that sticks out to us the morning after we watch them. If you would like to get your comments featured, chime in below in our comments section or tweet us. You can also help support us on Patreon.
About The United States Championship Open Challenge…
Bobby Roode is trying to make the United States Championship relevant again by restarting the Open Challenge that John Cena established years ago, but he’s running into one little snag – he’s not John Cena, he’s a boring face that is only put on television for his entrance and theme song. Not only that, but right after he announced the challenge he went into a talking segment with Randy Orton and Jinder Mahal about the nonsensical SmackDown Top 10 where they spend ten minutes comparing their dick sizes.
The midcard title picture is a bit of a mess right now, as they don’t seem to want to build any new heels for Roode to face. They already red Mojo Rawley to him at the Royal Rumble and now they’re rehashing the Jinder vs. Randy feud that clogged the WWE Title picture all summer. This is making me think the open challenge won’t actually happen every week, similar to how AJ Styles failed to do it months ago.
About Not Liking Pancakes…
Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, which had for the perfect opportunity for The New Day to do a silly segment with pancakes. This time they had Big E attempt to get the world record for pancake eating… except he ended up with 0 since he didn’t fully eat any of them. Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin came in to be the fun police, but then crossed the line by saying waffles are better than pancakes. They GREATLY upset the crowd, and me. Pancakes are great, and even saved Kofi Kingston in the Royal Rumble. I witnessed it with my own eyes.
The point of this segment and match was to call out The New Day as not being serious competitors, so they answered by doing the thing that helped them keep the tag titles for over a year – they cheated. With The Usos dealing with the Bludgeon Brothers, this crusade by Gable & Benjamin seems a bit aimless. So hopefully they can get back after the belts on the road to WrestleMania.
About Daniel Bryan’s Boys…
The show opened with everyone most anticipated rematch – Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin. Fortunately we were saved from this by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn attacking them before the match even happened, but this then turned into a show-long story of those two beating Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in singles matches to make the WWE Championship Match at Fastlane a Fatal 5-Way. The Owens vs. Corbin match was weird as Corbin was positioned as the face while still being a shidhead. but at least he was selling his injuries from the earlier attack. Ziggler vs. Zayn was a good match, but it also suffered from the issue where you don’t know who to root for. Of course the result of both were the challengers winning to be added to the match.
The only interesting part of this was the backstage segment with Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan. Shane calls out Zayn and Owens as “Bryan’s boys” and how them doing the attack wasn’t showing them as championship material. It feels like Shane is getting closer and closer to turning full heel and wanted what’s “best for business” and Bryan is just sitting there silently preparing to snap.
About This Month’s Booking…
With Elimination Chamber and Fastlane both quickly approaching as the last stops for each brand before WrestleMania, they’re both suffering from the same problem. It seems like everyone needs to be involved rather than building up solid one-on-one stories. Notice there’s SEVEN people in the men’s Elimination Chamber, the WWE Championship is now a Fatal 5-Way, there’s an additional women’s match outside the Chamber to add someone else to the WrestleMania match, and the same six women keep being involved in the SmackDown women’s division with little focus going on the actual title. This makes everything feel unfocused, and is detracting from both shows. I can’t wait to get past these two pay-per-views so we can get some actual storylines going.
About 205 Live…
Are you watching 205 Live on Tuesday nights? Well, maybe you should. Ever since Triple H took over after Enzo Amore was deleted from history, they have been running a tournament to crown a new champion with two matches every week. And these matches have been fantastic.
This week Akira Tozawa fought the UK’s Mark Andrews in a really fun match, but the second match between Drew Gulak and Tony Nese was the show-stealer. They’ve been doing away with the wacky characters and focusing more on the in-ring action similar to the Cruiserweight Classic, and these two put on the best match of their WWE careers. It was hard-hitting and a technical clinic, and it made me super sad that this happened in front of a dead crowd. I loved PowerPoint Drew Gulak, but Awesome Wrestler Drew Gulak is much more my jam. Give this show another chance.
What did you think of this week’s SmackDown? Let us know in the comments!
