WWE SmackDown Smacks/Downs: What a tone-deaf opener

What was the purpose of that opening segment, and why was it necessary? Well, it wasn’t, but it aired on WWE SmackDown anyway. What else happened? Here are the “smacks” and “downs” for May 29.

Just…why?

I’ll delve into this more soon, but that opening segment was completely unnecessary and utterly tone-deaf. Why take Jeff Hardy’s real life struggles and use them (again) to try and further an angle?

This is more than just “it’s the wrestling business.” This left a sour taste in my mouth, and wasn’t erased at all by the rather tepid ending to the show.

Reby Hardy summed it up perfectly.

The opening segment also led to changes in the advertised semi-final matches in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament. This was spearheaded by a battle royal to determine Daniel Bryan’s opponent in one semi-final match, with the Bryan match main eventing the show. Were the IC Tournament circumstances enough to help mitigate the opening segment?

There was a special episode of “Moment of Bliss” with Bliss Cross Applesauce and The New Day, the respective Tag Team Champion of their divisions. This was billed as a tag team champion summit to discuss the state of the tag divisions. What came of the segment?

Daddy Deville has been hitting all her spots the past month or so, highlighted by her keeping Dolph Ziggler off the microphone. Her counterparts on the other hand, Mandy Rose and Otis, seemed to be on a downward slope (at least to me). How did Deville look to continue her momentum while the latter two looked to regain some momentum?

There was also a lot of chatter about a certain “bro” making the move to “The Blue Brand,” and it’s confirmed: Matt Riddle is coming to SmackDown.

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.