WWE SmackDown Smacks/Downs: Celebrating 25 years of forced mediocrity

Right in the middle of the build for Money in the Bank, WWE SmackDown decided to “celebrate” 25 years of Triple H. How was the celebration? What about the continuing builds for MITB? Here are the “smacks” and “downs” for Apr. 24.

We’ve had 25 years of “The Cerebral Assassin,” “The King of Kings,” “The Game,” Triple H. If these last 25 years feels as long as one of his prolonged, 40-minute matches, believe me, you’re not the only one who feels this way.

WWE SmackDown held a celebration last night honoring the career and achievements of the man formerly known as Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Remember how bad his initial character was in the mid-90s?

Yes, his character and prominence did change (for the better), but only because of his associations (and not who you’re thinking of in Stephanie McMahon).

I’ll discuss that here shortly, but there were other events to cover from last night.

We had two consecutive weeks of building a fantastic story between Universal Champion Braun Strowman and his challenger at Money in the Bank, Bray Wyatt. WWE promised a deep dive into their history; how was this retrospect?

(I also wrote on why I think Strowman should retain over Wyatt.)

We also had more qualifiers for the Money in the Bank match, as well as a Women’s Tag Team Championship match.

As a reminder of my criteria, I’m not going to run through each match/segment. Rather, I will identify a couple of segments that either worked (“smack”) or didn’t for whatever reason (“down”).

My criteria include quality of match/segment and how it starts and/or builds stories. After all, we watch partly to be caught up in the stories. If a great work-rate match happens with no context or bearing on the stories, it’s going to be a miss.

Also, just because something is a hit/miss doesn’t mean it was an overwhelming choice. The selection could be 51 percent hit, 75 percent miss, and so on.

There are other subtleties to my criteria, but those are pretty much the parameters.

Let’s begin with the most hyped 25 year celebration I can remember.

Smack (partially): more self-aware than I expected

Down (mostly): too long, too forced, too…Triple H

Leave it to Triple H to take up the last 25 minutes of the show to celebrate his 25 years. After all, this is a man who seems to average about three hours per match.

I kid.

Still, when I saw it was 6:35 (I live in Seattle) heading into the main event segment, I couldn’t help but laugh as I shook my head.

Credit where credit is due: I was rather surprised at how self-aware HHH and Shawn Michaels were in regards to the former’s career. They showed highlights of the terrible Hunter Hearst Helmsley character, his transition to DX, his return from injury in 2002, and more.

I laughed when they highlighted his 13 losses at WrestleMania (the most in history).

That said, everything else about the segment was unnecessary, much like the last 25 minutes of a Triple H match.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect for the overall celebration (WWE is notoriously vague in these situations), and was hoping for something more akin to a roast. Instead, we received two old men talking about “the good ol’ days” while jabbing each other with petty insults.

Riveting.

We also had the appearance of Vince McMahon who one might think would have the understanding that showing his face on television after the events of last week is, as we say, not a good look. Still, there he was trying to play The Dozens with a former superstar and his son-in-law.

It was…not good.

HBK went from charismatic “Mr. WrestleMania” to that trying-to-be-too-goofy uncle that everyone in the family is embarrassed to have at a family function. His best moment came in highlighting the absurdity of having this celebration when he asked, “Remember my 25-year celebration?” He didn’t have one.

This brings me to the crux of why this segment was unnecessary. As I stated earlier, it was much too long particularly considering the format they decided to utilize in having two people talk back-and-forth for most of the segment. If we had wrestlers from the past out to rib Triple H one-by-one, that would have made for a much better, faster-paced segment.

Further, why not use these last 25 minutes to, I don’t know, actually highlight the wrestlers currently on the roster, particularly those without as much name recognition and/or who the company sees as having star potential?

(This is an issue I’ve had with what appears to be a four-part series on Jeff Hardy that ends next week.)

Let’s also be clear: his best matches weren’t necessarily because he was involved. When your opponents in your greatest feuds are The Rock, HBK, Mick Foley/Cactus Jack, The Undertaker, Randy Orton, and John Cena (yes, even Cena), then of course your matches will be memorable.

I will give him credit for helping make Batista a star.

That aside, I will never forgive the build and match he had with Booker T at WrestleMania XIX in Seattle. That encapsulated the entirety of HHH’s career: keeping himself on top at the expense of others.

This really was your standard, tried-and-true Triple H segment: overly long, lots of dead time, and overall, unnecessary. Those 25 minutes could have been used much better with a match(es) or highlighting other wrestlers.

Smack: looks like an actual, sensible story in the men’s tag division

I wasn’t sure what made Lucha House Party credible opponents to interrupt The New Day, but I was all for it. Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado are talented individuals, and Dorado seems to have some latent potential on the mic and as a character.

The former champion, The Miz and John Morrison, interrupting LHP and walking right by them like they didn’t notice them was a nice touch and coherent to their act. It also makes sense that they would want the first title match.

Out came The Forgotten Sons, who induce an immediate urge to change the channel. As I wrote two weeks ago, they are just…bad. I understand trying to make them strong, but having them decimate The New Day like that out of nowhere doesn’t move the needle for me.

Still, at least WWE is establishing more teams beyond the triumvirate of The New Day, The Usos, and The Miz & Morrison.

The match between LHP and The Miz was fast-paced and allowed Metalik and Dorado to highlight their tag team prowess. If you’ve been avidly watching WWE programming the last three years or so, particularly 205 Live, you already know how talented they are. If you haven’t, this match was a nice refresher on their skills.

I’m glad they emerged victorious with a clean victory as Metalik countered a Skull Crushing Finale into a victory roll. Even if LHP doesn’t win the Tag Team Championship, they will put on a show as evidenced by their short but intense run in the Elimination Chamber match.

After The Forgotten Sons face The New Day in a non-title match, I assume we will have some kind of Tag Team Championship fatal 4-way at Money in the Bank. Since we already had a ladder match at WrestleMania and the PPV is built around ladder matches, don’t be surprised if this turns into some kind of elimination match (maybe elimination tables match?).

After a seeming lack of vision and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants booking in the tag division, I’m glad to see we have some sort of a longer-term story.

An aside: Since I don’t discuss it later, I will say that I was completely uninterested in the Women’s Tag Team Championship match. It was a foregone conclusion Bliss Cross Applesauce would retain. I’m hoping we see some more clarity in this division heading to Money in the Bank.

Ironically, I praised the women’s tag division coming out WrestleMania for a few weeks while being down on the men’s division. It’s now flipped.

Smack: sensible choices to qualify, mostly

Down: tired, far too predictable booking

King Corbin and Lacey Evans both qualified for their respective Money in the Bank, I mean, Climbing the Corporate Ladder matches last night over Drew Gulak and Sasha Banks, respectively.

Here’s why these two choices make sense, and why Gulak and Banks being out of the match works better for them.

First, with Corbin, unlike with Triple H’s segment, his presence is necessary for the match. Out of who has qualified, only Corbin is a true heel. The others are pure faces (Daniel Bryan, Apollo Crews, Rey Mysterio) or a tweener (Aleister Black).

This could change if Dolph Ziggler defeats Otis next week, but either way, there was a glaring lack of heels in the ladder match.

It’s also poignant to remember that Corbin actually is a former Money in the Bank winner. Yes, his cash-in was unsuccessful, but he has experience that should prove useful in organizing this match. Don’t be surprised if he takes a hellacious bump or two as well.

With Gulak, it didn’t make sense for both him and Bryan to qualify unless one was going to cost the other the match. Their pairing is so wholesome and welcome that I hope that doesn’t happen for a long while.

Banks losing to Evans is just mind-boggling. However, for Bayley, does she really want to risk having (in kayfabe) “the Blueprint, the Boss, the GOAT, my best friend Sasha Banks” win the contract and have that spectre haunting her during the rest of her reign?

Thus, her “accidentally” distracting the referee while Banks had Evans rolled up for a Big E-esque five-count was just another chapter in the book that has been Bayley’s cunning, slick psychological war she is waging on Banks.

Plus, this saves Banks from taking what should be some nasty bumps involving ladders. Considering she just returned from another injury, this is the prudent decision.

Now, where these angles receive a “down” from me is in how we came to these two as qualifiers.

Yes, I said Bayley’s distraction was done well and Corbin winning was the right decision. Both matches, much like the Women’s Tag Team Championship match, had far too predictable booking.

I know, dear reader, that you might be rightly pointing out how I’ve praised predictable booking before. It’s true, I have. However, in those situations, the booking and outcomes were more coherent in a long-term sense. Even with Bayley’s tactics, it wasn’t apparent enough through commentary or reactions that there were simmering tensions between the two, leading to their (I think) eventual match at SummerSlam.

Here, we just have booking to fill the ladder matches. It’s not necessarily about what’s in the best for the winners in these matches long-term.

Of course Shinsuke Nakamura and Cesaro were going to cost Gulak the match and attack Bryan. Of course Bayley is going to do “unintentionally” cost Banks the match.

That’s the issue: there was more story and character development for wrestlers (at this point) not on the PPV card than for those who qualified for the match. Long-term storytelling is always a “smack” so to speak, but there has to be enough vision to balance the macro with the micro.

WWE tends to sway one way or the other. These matches were the epitome of that.

SMACK SMACK SMACK: arguably the best told story currently in WWE

HOWEVER, when WWE does find that balance, we have the fantastic build and story being told through the Universal Championship feud between Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt. I would argue this is the best story in WWE since WrestleMania.

I’ve gushed the past two weeks about this build and how both wrestlers have played their parts well, unexpectedly so for Strowman. That just continued last night even though both wrestlers weren’t on the show.

The advertised “deep dive” on this feud is what intrigued me the most heading into last night’s show. It did not disappoint.

We see a recap of Wyatt introducing fans to Strowman by saying, “Thank you Sister Abigail for giving me your greatest gift: the Black Sheep Braun Strowman.” This was five years ago. Then, contrary to what Strowman said last week, we see highlights of Wyatt directing the destruction wrought by Strowman as a member of The Wyatt Family, in essence, “creating” the Strowman we know today.

As I said last week, while Roman Reigns may have elevated him, Wyatt is the one who created the Strowman we know today as the “Monster among Men.”

The end of the video highlights the current rekindling of their “relationship” five years after the fact. At this point, we see Wyatt still holds an uncanny authority over Strowman. In the past, it was more as a mentor, a director, a tyrant; now it’s not just as an adversary, but as The Joker to Strowman’s Batman.

How Strowman overcomes the psychological hold Wyatt holds over him is the story I’m most invested in seeing over the next few weeks (I did say he should retain over Wyatt). Then again, what if he doesn’t overcome the mind games and falls to this “Fun House” version of Wyatt and not the eccentric former leader of The Wyatt Family?

The possibilities for this feud and the machinations of the characters keep me invested and anticipating the next show. I do have a nagging feeling that we’ll be disappointed in the final outcome, but for now, this is by far the best thing going in WWE.

It was a mixed bag of a show with questionable bookends. Not everything that happened between the opening and ending segments worked well, but there were still highlights from the show. Strowman/Wyatt keep me watching the show, but their segments being the only great segments does make the show a slog to watch most of the time.

As qualifiers end next week and we have a more concrete view of the card for Money in the Bank, let’s hope this forces WWE to focus on the details of each story more than they have for most of the feuds/matches. Until next week, please stay safe and healthy, readers!