Smackdown 4/16/15 Review

Smackdown kicks off with John Cena cutting his usual promo where he hypes the city they are in, promotes his Chain match and issues the open challenge. Tyson Kidd and Cesaro come out to say they are the best champions in all of WWE and that everyone wants Cena to retire. They add in their trademark "FACT" to this, making it a very fun promo. Daniel Bryan now comes out because he doesn't think Kidd and Cesaro are the greatest champions today. This leads to a tag team challenge for Bryan and Cena to take on Kidd and Cesaro. It's accepted and we got a match. You know, it's a formula we've seen used a bunch but dammit if it isn't better than the Authority talking for 20 minutes.This only went about ten minutes and sets up what should be a good match.

So, you know what WWE's favorite thing to do with Bray Wyatt is between programs? The answer is to squash R-Truth. Seriously, when he has no feud, he does this. I swear I've seen it about five times in the past year. We move to clips of Naomi's heel turn and then Roman Reigns' most recent sitdown interview. Miz is in the ring next to cut a promo about Damien Mizdow getting lucky on Raw. Bad News Barrett interrupts to a massive pop and plays the face. Miz gets hit with the Bull Hammer and Barrett wins in about thirty seconds. Shouldn't be have some interaction with Daniel Bryan considering they're about to work a PPV together? Also, this did nothing at all for Miz. A recap is shown of the Seth Rollins/Randy Orton/Kane stuff from Raw. You know, where the WWE Champion looked like a total bitch.

Renee Young interviews Damien MIzdow and Summer Rae until Miz cuts in. They are having a match on Raw where the winner gets the Miz Brand. Sheamus is out to run down his opponent for tonight, Neville. Sheamus seems to be enjoying his role of the bully and this was a good match. Neville even did his second rope Phoenix Splash. He won via DQ when Sheamus slammed him on the announce table. I'm glad Neville didn't have to get pinned here. Dolph Ziggler showed up and called Sheamus a bully, leading to a match being made for Extreme Rules. Sheamus vs. Ziggler in a "Kiss Me Arse" match. Do I even need to discuss how bad of an idea this is? They took what should be a really good match and gave it a really stupid stipulation.

Next up we have New Day vs. Los Matadores and the crowd still dislikes New Day. They try to cram a lot into a short time, which hurt this. New Day wins cleanly, ho-hum. We see clips of Fandango dumping Rosa Mendes on Raw, and he officially does it backstage now. Adam Rose comforts her. Ugh, Big Show is now out for a promo. As much as I don't want him around, he is usually solid on promos. Not tonight though. This was boring as hell though the Last Man Standing stipulation has potential to not totally suck. Moving on, we get a Triple Threat Divas match between Alicia Fox, Cameron and Natalya. They all get jobber entrances, which I still don't understand since they wasted so much time on recaps and matches have been short. Cameron sneaks in and wins, which I don't get. Granted, she's a good heel, but Alicia still has a lot to offer the Divas division and should have won.

So Adam Rose and Fandango wrestle next, which brings out Rosa Mendes. She distracts Fandango, only to distract Rose later by telling him not to hurt Fandango. Fandango wins and Rosa is awful in everything that she does. Whatever. Bray Wyatt cuts a promo backstage about his next victim, but we still don't know who it is. I've heard rumors about Randy Orton, which I'd be cool with. Main event time as the Tag Champions face Bryan and Cena. I enjoyed this but thought it was a bit disappointing. It could be due to Bryan working hurt. The faces win and I don't mind the Tag Champs losing to two guys of Cena and Bryan's caliber, but that awful handicap match loss on Monday makes this hurt a bit more. Why should I take them seriously if they can't even beat one guy alone? And what does that make the rest of the tag division look like? Not a very good Smackdown. Two good matches and nothing else. 4/10.