WWE SmackDown Smacks and Downs: Bayley vs. Charlotte furthers Sasha Banks feud

WWE SmackDown advertised a loaded show with two more Intercontinental Championship Tournament matches, a mixed tag match, and a champion vs. champion match pitting SmackDown’s Bayley against NXT’s Charlotte Flair. Here are the “smacks” and “downs” for May 22.

First, condolences to the family and friends of the late Shad Gaspard, who died earlier this week. I haven’t seen one negative word about Gaspard, and he seemed to lift the spirits of everybody he interacted with. A true father, he directed lifeguards to save his son first, ultimately resulting in his untimely death. Rest in Power, King.

Second, we all woke up to more unfortunate news this morning that wrestling wunderkind and Stardom star Hana Kimura died. No cause of death has been released, though many are pointing to the rampant cyber-bullying she endured mostly for her time on the Japanese show Terrace House.

Kimura was just 22-years-old. She wasn’t a part of WWE, but she was a part of the wrestling word. Condolences to her friends and family, including her mother in former pro wrestler Kyoko Kimura. Rest in Power, Queen.

Now, moving to SmackDown, after last week’s somewhat lackluster show coming off Money in the Bank, last night’s show was advertised to be better. The interesting thing is WWE didn’t advertise Braun Strowman, the Universal Champion, for the show (though he was on the show).

The major draw (even though it’s a match we’ve seen many times) was a champion vs. champion match as Bayley looked to defend her turf (and pride as Women’s Champion) against the interloping NXT Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair, making yet another jaunt through SmackDown. Was Bayley able to win one for the “blue brand,” or was Flair able to prove that she’s “genetically superior” to Bayley?

“Mr. Money in the Bank” Otis and his “peach,” Mandy Rose, teamed against Dolph Ziggler and Sonya “Daddy” Deville in a mixed tag match. As I wrote last week, Deville is on fire and carrying the feud between her and Rose, tangentially roping in Otis and Ziggler. Which pairing came out on top, and what does this entail for the future of these feuds?

We also saw two more matches in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament as AJ Styles faced long-time rival Shinsuke Nakamura and “The Charismatic Enigma” Jeff Hardy faced the perpetually angry and current rival Sheamus. Who will wrestle in the finals for the (illegitimately) vacant Intercontinental Championship?

Lastly, just what was that opening segment? Maybe it was a wise decision not to advertise Strowman, The Miz, and John Morrison for the show because that…that was something.

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 includes 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.

Smack: a great match and great story

At this point, I think we all expect a great match when any of Bayley-Flair-Sasha Banks-Becky Lynch are involved in a match together. Those expectations are well placed considering the many memorable matches involving the four (going back to NXT). Last night was no different.

Bayley and Flair played their respective characters well and Bayley continues to bring a little more edge in the ring each week, something that ultimately paid off for her in this match.

Flair yelling at Bayley in the early stages of the match that she’s going to “teach (Bayley) how to be a champion” and that “there’s levels to this” irked me at first, but that’s also what Flair is supposed to do with her “genetically superior” character.

Flair saying those words to Bayley seemed misplaced considering Bayley is the first Grand Slam Women’s Champion in WWE and their recent track record against each other.

Heading into last night’s match, Bayley defeated Flair in two of their last three televised matches, including the two trading the Women’s Championship Bayley currently holds. Then again, that’s Flair’s character: no one could possibly measure up to her greatness.

I was a little unnerved by Flair showing a masochistic side as she kept smiling, laughing, and begging for more chops and strikes from Bayley, who was happy to oblige. It’s almost as if Flair felt the strikes and thought to herself, “That’s it? Wow, this is laughable!”

I malign Flair for many reasons (over-rotating on her moonsault every time, her melodic promos, her needing to be in every major angle, etc.), but her character work last night was fantastic.

Bayley, having told Banks to stay back in the locker room (seemingly to Banks’ chagrin), needed to win and wrestled the match as such. With these two knowing each other so well, their counters were warranted and I appreciated how different some of the counters were from previous matches.

I also appreciate how Bayley didn’t erupt in a tantrum after Flair kicked out of her flying elbow drop finisher, merely just nodding her head and saying, “OK, OK,” as if she knew beforehand that wouldn’t be enough to put Flair away.

Side note: did anyone else notice that just before the first commercial break in the match after Flair sent Bayley over the barricade outside, Flair rolled back inside the ring to pose to the hard camera but didn’t break up referee Drake Wuertz’s count? They went to commercial right after he counted “9.”

Did Bayley somehow jump the barrier and make it back inside within one count? Did Flair quickly head outside to restart the count, or instruct the ref that’s not how she wanted to win? They came back with no mention of this, so Wuertz must have stopped his count after the break. This is a nitpick, sure, but it’s also a shining example of the lack of detail we’ve come to (sadly) expect from WWE.

The finish worked for me because it put Bayley over strong while keeping Flair strong. Bayley showed great ring awareness by using the ropes for leverage on her pin she used to counter out of Flair’s attempt at her Figure Eight.

Flair, who probably was more dominant in the match, shouldn’t lose very much steam (if at all) for losing to a rope-assisted leverage pin. After all, she is in the number one contender’s triple threat match on Monday’s RAW against Nia Jax and Natalya to see who faces Women’s Champion Asuka at Backlash.

(By the way, did you know the tagline for the PPV is “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever,” and not just for Edge and Randy Orton? As my colleague Chris Jeter said, “Every match will be 10 stars!”)

WWE also furthered the story of the tension between Bayley and her best friend, Banks. As the WWE on FOX Twitter account noted, many fans saw their hearts skip a beat during the backstage interaction when Bayley asked Banks, “You didn’t think I could do it, did you?” and Banks’ face looked like, “Well….” only for Bayley to say she was joking.

What will next week hold for the duo? Who will be Bayley’s challenger at Backlash? I, for one, am intrigued to see what happens next.

Also, did they ever clarify if this counted as Flair’s second of four Brand to Brand Invitationals after appearing for a promo last week? Does RAW Monday make it a third? Is it only for matches wrestled, meaning last night was her first and Monday is second?

I know they’ll completely forget about their own rules (see: Wildcard Rule), but I just like to keep track so I can call them on misapplication of their own rules.

Smack: Sonya Deville continues to shine

Down: the luster is gone from Otis and Mandy Rose

Sonya Deville really has found her niche as a character. She’s become much more no-nonsense and fierce since she turned on Rose. She also is portrayed as an intelligent, if not conniving, individual as she seems to be the one pulling the strings in this feud with Rose and Otis.

It started with her match against Rose several weeks back where she was just beating Rose. I like when Deville puts Rose in the body scissors and just starts facewashing her with forearms and her fists, something she did in their first match and last night. The trash talk while she did this only added to her ferocity.

Her ring IQ seems to be improving right along with her physical abilities. There was one point when Otis made it back to the ring apron, reaching his hand out to Rose for the tag. Rose and Deville were maybe 10 feet away; Deville quickly jumped over Rose and in between Rose and Otis, then basically tackled Rose further away from the corner. Well done.

I’ve consistently pointed out in this column week after week that Deville’s sliding/running knee is a thing of beauty. Last night’s knee to Rose was a pure spectacle of beautiful viciousness as she planted that right on the back of Rose’s neck.

Also, give a hand to Deville for making Ziggler feel relevant while not forcing us to hear him do his patented yelling promos. His superkick to Otis as he was checking on Rose after the match was, as his usually are, “sweet.” This is the most I’ve been interested by Ziggler since his Intercontinental Championship feud with The Miz several years back.

Now, is it just me, or is the luster, the shine, the honeymoon period for Otis and Rose diminishing? Last week, Rose played what some thought of as brainwashing mastermind and others as a supportive partner; there was no real follow-up this week to last week’s brief escapade with Strowman. We hardly heard from either Otis or Rose outside of their exchanges during the match.

Maybe it’s the lack of a crowd/response?

Further, Otis was incapacitated for half of the match after being driven into the steel steps. Really? How many times have we seen wrestlers driven into steel steps and continue with their match? I mean, Roman Reigns would be driven into the steel steps at least once every match after all.

I know: the spot was meant to convey his confidence in Rose’s abilities to win the match even though he was injured. It was meant to convey just how much they care for each other. It just wasn’t realistic even in the kayfabe world of professional wrestling.

There just wasn’t any coherence from last week to this week.

I wonder if the best thing to do with Otis and Rose would be to have them shoot some vignettes together while removing them from appearing live. This could be a simple way for fans to connect more with the two through their on-screen relationship, strengthening the bond between characters and fans.

We all knew the height of their WrestleMania moment was the apex, but it’s been a precipitous drop for the two (at least to me). Here’s hoping the next few weeks brings a rekindling of the connection from fans to this story.

Smack: two good matches and a new roster member

After initially including AJ Styles in the tournament through the Brand to Brand Invitational, it was confirmed on last night’s show that Styles is officially back in “the house that AJ Styles built” in a trade for future considerations (the wrestling version of baseball’s player to be named later/PTBNL).

This is great for both Styles and SmackDown. Quickly on the latter, the show is lacking a bit of star power on both the face and heel side. Adding someone the caliber of Styles, one of the most respected and recognized wrestlers in the world and someone who’s shown he can play a face and heel well in WWE, immediately adds some oomph to the show.

For Styles, he was caught in a tough place after literally being “buried” by The Undertaker at WrestleMania. His position was only exacerbated due to the untimely releases of his The O.C. brethren in Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson.

Even if they weren’t the top faction on RAW, they at least had a definitive role and potential angles. By himself on RAW, particularly since it wasn’t like he was going to be thrust into the WWE Championship scene soon, he was in a veritable no man’s land.

A switch to SmackDown may be exactly what Styles needs. He also has yet to win the Intercontinental Championship, so he has as much motivation as anyone in this tournament.

The dividends were evident immediately. Reviving their WWE Championship feud from a few years ago, Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura had a wonderful television match in their first round match in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament.

As mentioned earlier in my discussion of Bayley-Flair, their knowledge of each other (going back to New Japan) led to some nice, different counters than we saw in their previous matches.

It also looked like a fight at times. I’ve written before that it’s fine if things don’t always look so smooth and polished as long as it looks realistic, and the moment that exemplified this most was when Styles hit Nakamura with a modified Faith Brea- I mean Styles Clash.

He was countering Nakamura’s triangle choke by lifting him up and transitioning, but because of the position of his left arm being trapped by Nakamura’s legs, he had no choice but to hit a Styles Clash with only one hook.

It also made sense that Nakamura kicked out since it wasn’t a full-fledged Styles Clash.

In the end, Styles won with The Phenomenal Forearm and will face Elias next week in the semi-finals.

To the other match, it was the classic brutal heel dominating the match only to lose to a leverage pin from the face (the second leverage pin of the night). Sheamus, as he yelled to Michael Cole during the match, really does look to be in the best shape of his life.

He just decimated Jeff Hardy throughout the match, relishing in sadistic pleasure at toying with his opponent. Hardy, of course, is legendary for his ability to take a beating and make it look like he is absolutely being demolished.

Case in point: Sheamus lifting Hardy above his head and just throwing him onto the commentary table at ringside.

Hardy being the winner here makes sense in the macro-booking; why hype his return so much only for him to lose right away? In the micro-sense, it does lead to a face-face match between Daniel Bryan and Hardy next week, but the lack of a crowd has allowed WWE to pivot from their traditional booking to have more face-face and heel-heel matches (like with Styles-Nakamura earlier).

I picked Hardy to win based on his return videos and his own assertions that his time as a wrestler may be winding down. It’s an interesting match with Bryan, a man who only relinquished the very Intercontinental Championship they’re fighting for due to his forced retirement.

These two will also tell a great story in the ring, and having that backstory for Bryan and Hardy seeking to win a title he last held over a decade ago only adds more layers to the match.

I’m guessing we see a Hardy-Styles final. We’ll find out next week.

Down: a cringe-inducing, channel-turning opening segment

Can someone please try to explain to me how the opening segment was any good? It was downright horrendous.

I’ll give credit to The Miz and Morrison for playing their roles as grating heels well. Even when given literal crap like last night, they wholeheartedly buy into their characters and segments, doing their best to sell it to the audience.

I think I may have seen the most genuine, authentic reaction from The Miz ever when he exasperatedly muttered, “Damn it,” under his breath after Strowman agreed to face The Miz at Morrison’s behest all while The Miz was trying to talk Morrison out of the challenge.

Besides that, everything else should have been edited out (it was a taped episode). The horrid skit revealing the puppets that were rejected for the “Firefly Fun House” but still favored over Strowman was just another example of a certain higher-up (*cough* Vince McMahon *cough*) just loving fart and poop humor. It was just bad.

I thought it would improve once Strowman interrupted, but then I remember he’s a stiff actor. Stiff is probably underselling his acting in the segment last night. At least they’re giving him the space to succeed or fail.

It took 15 minutes before the first bell rang for a match, and that match lasted about three to four minutes. Strowman handily beat The Miz (as he should) with his running powerslam.

Does this do anything for either act? No. We expect Strowman to have little issue with someone booked as a middling singles wrestler turned tag team specialist in The Miz. Sure, The Miz had some offense, but we all knew it was a futile effort leading to an inevitable end.

What’s worse is that we now know Strowman’s match at Backlash won’t be against Wyatt/The Fiend, but instead the duo of The Miz and Morrison in a handicap match for the Universal Championship. I mean, just…

Remember the last time Strowman defended a championship in a handicap match? He lost the now-vacant Intercontinental Champion in a match against The Artist Collective in Cesaro, Nakamura, and rightful champion Sami Zayn.

Unless this turns into a long-term story of Strowman constantly losing championships or major opportunities in handicap matches because of his arrogance as the “Monster among Men,” then I don’t know why this match was booked.

Here I thought them bringing up Wyatt after completely ignoring him last week was a step towards Strowman facing The Fiend. I guess we’ll have to wait.

If you made it through the opening segment without turning the channel or doing something else, I applaud you. It was backbreaking work to watch those first 12 minutes. At least the rest of the show was (mostly) an entertaining watch.

Next week sees the semi-final matches in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament when Hardy faces Bryan and Styles faces Elias. See you next week to see if my predictions came true!