We are in the presence of greatness.
Sasha Three Shows and Bayley Three Brands. Bayley talked about a phone call she received from Undertaker, or Taker as she gets to call him. Taker called her and was embarrassed that everyone paid tribute to him last week, when Bayley is clearly the greatest champion in WWE history. He implored WWE to have a tribute to Bayley and Banks. Bayley said with the Last Ride documentary over, Undertaker is finally finished and Bayley throws to a tribute video.
Bliss Cross Applesauce came out after and had some interesting facts of their own, which was kind of a dud on the whole segment, but it got better when they got in the ring. Nikki said she can’t wait to take the Women’s title at Extreme Rules, and Bayley and Sasha laughed at her. Nikki attacked Bayley and THIS TIME, Sasha made a match for Bayley! What a great touch to finally have those tables turned.
Bayley forced Bliss to slap herself, and obnoxiously taunted Nikki. F’in hilarious! The match was quick and ended in a DQ as Nikki attacked Bayley after attacking Sasha.
Bayley and Sasha were absolutely incredible for this entire segment. Holy shit. I mean The Taker obviously fake phone call to the tribute video and the undeniable fact that they are the workhorses of WWE right now, wrestling on all three brands and with reason! This is no triple feature Charlotte Flair stuff folks. They are the women’s tag team champions. They should be on each brand, because all women’s tag teams should want to be champion. Now, you could argue that they haven’t defended the tag titles on each brand and they each have their own stories with the top champions, but… semantics. They are a true joy every show. Never ever turn Bayley back into a babyface. Never.
By the way, did you notice which title Sasha had around her waist after that match? She’s a pro at this.
Frostbite Bro
Michael Cole interviewed Riddle in the ring. Matt said that he loves being on SmackDown now and loved celebrating his win over AJ with all the SmackDown wrestlers. Cole asked him about wrestling barefoot, and Riddle goes on about how when he was a kid he got frostbite and when he wears shoes, he still feels a burning sensation. So Bro doesn’t wear shoes anywhere.
Lame ass Baron Borebin interrupted of course and said he was an idiot. He said that no one wants him on SmackDown and he will always be around to make Riddle suffer. Vomit. Vomit to all of this.
Boy they didn’t give Bro any help for that opening promo. For the record, I don’t know if that story about his feet is true, but if it is, it was not delivered in a believable way. A bit overuse on “Bro” buddy. But clearly that’s going to be his thing so we’ll have to deal with it dot gif.
Now the match, that was really good. Morrison has not had one bad match I can recall since returning to the company. He hit a sick corkscrew cross body splash and Riddle kicked out. Riddle hit Borebin with a flip flop because of course. I need to see Riddle’s Bro-mission on Lesnar one day. Come on, WWE. Roll ups were exchanged but Riddle got the win.
If they were going to have Morrison be Riddle’s opponent tonight, why in the hell would Borebin have to be there? Miz is a great talker and could have interrupted instead. WWE’s insistence on dragging out this boring, annoying, and overdone gimmick makes me so angry. I hate King Corbin. Stop. Goodness gracious. I 100% tuned out commentary here so if anything interesting was said, I wouldn’t know. And please for the love of God don’t make Miz and Morrison his new lackeys. My God I don’t need yet another group of guys to bend over backwards and do Borebin’s bidding.
I have declared a new name change for Baron Corbin here and I think it’ll stick around for a while. If he can change names, so can I! Bow down, Borebin.
The Rest
AJ Styles def. Drew Gulak - Someone else who can’t have a bad match is Drew Gulak! Daniel Bryan said it best in one of his Zoom interviews about Gulak - you can never count Gulak out. AJ was so shook by Gulak, that he needed to put him away with both a Styles Clash AND Phenomenal Forearm. Gulak rolled through a calf crusher and locked in the cross face. Styles hit a mean snap suplex. AJ also hit an awesome brainbuster. A Michinoku driver and superplex wasn’t enough to put AJ away. This was a, pun intended, phenomenal match. I wouldn’t mind running this back again and again. In fact, any time WWE thinks about putting Borebin on TV, I’ll take a Gulak/Styles match to counter it. Hell, I’ll take a Gulak/Anyone match any day.
Shinsuke Nakamura def. Kofi Kingston - One of the best pieces of continuity every week is Big E and Kofi throwing their jackets at Corey Graves. Kofi ran Nakamura into the plexiglass and Big E, being the treasure that he is, howled with laughter for a solid minute. Cesaro got a cheap shot in on Kofi and Big E ran him off. Kofi hit a flying forearm and a standing dropkick, and tried to hit the Trouble in Paradise, but Nakamura hit the Kinshasa for the win.
Cesaro and Nakamura have had enough and they want change! And it’s about damn time! For the entire time that Sami Zayn has been out, The Artists floundered about and became Borebin’s lackeys for a few weeks. A legitimate tag team never in title contention until now. They’ve been a team for months! So finally, next week, they get themselves a title shot. Thank you!
Sheamus and Jeff Hardy continues - And it’s the drizzling shits. It’s stupid. It’s now become very uncomfortable for me to even watch anything involving this angle. Shame on you, WWE, for dragging this bullshit out even further and not ending it at Backlash. This is an incredibly uncreative and disgusting storyline. FOX shouldn’t even allow this bullshit to air. It’s not worth being featured or given any attention to. This segment is graded as a big fat F all on its own. For the rest of the show, see grade below.
The main event put me in a foul mood. It’s such a shame that WWE can do things so right, and then do things so stupidly wrong. WWE deserves all of the negativity they get for putting Jeff Hardy through this terrible angle. Bayley and Sasha were the MVPs and win everything in my mind. After tonight, I cannot wait for Morrison’s singles run. I am not ready for Bro vs. Borebin.
Grade: B
Safe and happy 4th of July, Cagesiders! What were your thoughts on SmackDown?