8 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Dec 18)
“Hey, f*ck me, right?” - Paige.
Did SmackDown require a "shake-up"?
Becky Lynch became The Man, and Daniel Bryan was made New, through two mea culpas: less politely, WWE f*cked up their heel turn and reintroduction respectively. But, in awesome collaboration with those acts, Becky and Bryan are the two hottest things in all of wrestling right now. WWE's much-maligned main roster is producing some of the the best content anywhere...
...and now we're being told the show isn't good even by WWE's standards. What?
More profligate than perfect, the blue brand creative regime has failed, miserably, to maximise Andrade Cien Almas, SAnitY, and even Tye Dillinger, whose jobber role provides, or should provide, reprieve from 50/50 booking. SmackDown, nonetheless, is both the Land of Opportunity and the Land boasting the best women’s scene in all of pro wrestling, the best World Champion in all of pro wrestling, and an invariably entertaining doubles division immune to stale repetition through an injection of massively creative talent.
Ultimately, to spare RAW from further embarrassment, WWE had to carry the storyline over to Tuesdays.
"RAW is particularly bad, because Vince McMahon pays most attention to it" is too honest a subtext even for this really strange exercise in atonement.
Yes, you’ll miss Andy Murray—I do too—but he returns in the New Year, and I’m his actual sensei.