Spain’s WWE SmackDown Report and Results for October 3rd 2014: WWE Presents “Phoning It In”

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Tally-ho, chaps. It’s SmackDown time once again, as we saunter casually towards Hell in a Cell without a single idea of what’s going to happen because…well, that’s WWE for you. I’m your reviewer, David Spain, coming at you not-in-the-slightest-bit-live from Bonny Scotland, and it’s about time to see what the Blue Show has for us.

Turns out, yep, it’s a recap. Seems like Dean Ambrose is adding workplace theft and booby-trapping pranks to his list of reprimandable activities at his place of employment: stealing Rollins’ briefcase and then booby-trapping it like a greasy and sorta schizo James Bond, albeit apparently a James Bond with more respect for women than 00-‘I Sleep With Former Child Sex Slaves’-7. I like the fact that Orton finds bad things happening to Rollins hilarious, and that it’s now statistically more likely that Seth will interfere in a match (any match) than him not doing so. Honestly, I like most things Rollins and Ambrose right now.

Oh yay, here’s John Cena. Oh double yay, he’s holding a microphone. And seriously? A ‘Keep Calm’ t-shirt? What is this, 2012? He reviews both Ambrose and his own reasons for wanting to murder Seth Rollins, and I like how Cena’s focus can be shifted from his greatest challenge ever in Lesnar to some other guy for storyline purposes. And apparently if you tell Cena to retire, he’ll refuse to: that bastard. Seth took Cena’s chance to prove himself away from him, and I am so very much on Rollins’ side, just because he dicked over Cena in such wonderful fashion. Cena tells Seth to come out to the ring so he can physically assault him, and Seth doesn’t because he’s not insane. But Ambrose does because…insane?

Ambrose tells Cena to get the hell away from the storyline before he once again ruins something potentially enjoyable. He says John got on his way on Monday, and Cena tries to pull rank. Dean isn’t backing down, though. Cena wants a truce so they don’t get Authority-ed again, and Ambrose is about to shake when Randy, Seth and Kane show up onscreen. Kane says that Ambrose said mean stuff about Cena when he was in the Shield, and this is apparently supposed to carry some weight even though Ambrose used to constantly attack Cena when he was in the Shield. Oh God, another match with Kane and Orton. Because we all really wanted to see that. And Seth is apparently having the longest, quietest continual orgasm ever.

Apparently the WWE didn’t consider that pulling down the Russian flag might be an offensive move on their part. Considering the segment didn’t involve laughing about a plane crash, I’m guessing it looked like a green light.

So Is Miz Allowed To Get Hit In The Face Yet?

So Miz and Sandmiz are here, facing Ziggler and Sheamus. And the US and IC champions teaming up should actually be really awesome, only one of their opponents is a joke, their other opponent is pretending to be a joke and one of the champions is Sheamus. At least if Sheamus and Miz fight at Hell in a Cell I can guiltlessly skip that whole match.

Speak of the match spawned by the devil: Sheamus and Miz start off. Sheamus backs Miz into a corner, but Miz ducks a punch and the men circle. Miz goes on the offence until Sheamus catches his leg and shoves him away. Knee to Miz in the corner, but Miz ducks a clothesline and tags in Sandmiz, who immediately gets bodyslammed. Kick to Sheamus, but then Sandmiz gets tossed to the apron, with Miz getting tossed to the outside. Clubbing blows to Sandmiz’s chest before Miz interferes; Dolph distracts the two and Sheamus takes them out off the top.

Back from a commercial break, Sheamus takes the back/neckbreaker from Miz, and the Awesome One tags in Sandmiz, who strikes an elbow to the throat across the apron. Front facelock from the New Miz, tagging in Classic Miz, who takes on Sheamus. Oh, and by the by, I have one last (well, maybe) thing to say about Miz’s movie career. Marine IV is direct-to-DVD. My father, who is not an actor, has a speaking part in a movie which actually had limited theatrical release in venues without all that much going on. So, I’m not saying that my Dad is a bigger movie star than the Miz, but I expect you all to say it on my behalf; I’m watching a Miz and Sheamus-heavy match on your behalves. Sheamus beheads Miz with a clothesline and tags in Dolph: his best move of the whole match.

Ziggler knocks Sandmiz all over the shop, then misses a boot before hitting a DDT and Miz breaks up the pin. Sheamus takes Miz out as Sandmiz eats a dropkick. On the outside, Sheamus gets hit with a chair by the Miz, who climbs up onto the apron and get superkicked. Sandmiz tries to roll up Dolph, but Ziggler rolls through and hits the Zig-Zag for the win.

That was a slow start, due to the fact it was Miz and Sheamus, but Ziggler’s tag brought the grade right back up. I really hope this is going to be a definitive rise for him. 2.5 Stars.

Sheamus shows up in the ring with a chair, totes pissed, but as Miz has already bailed, he hits Sandmiz. Seems legit.

Ah, here’s that new Luke Harper promo. On the one hand, I am sad that the Wyatts’ role as a trio has come to an end, and definitely without the kind of adrenaline rush that the Shield’s own time together did. But if this is a singles push for Harper, then it’s worth it: I think we’ve all seen that this guy can go. Not sure what’ll happen to Rowan, and I’m willing to go with the result in that case. Bray, I think, doesn’t actually need back-up; his presence is what sells the intimidation factor. So, on the whole, I’m looking at this fairly positively. And the video package people just continue to excel at their jobs; perfectly pitched and wonderfully creepy.

Is This What WWE Creative Think Women Are Like?

Here’s Paige with Alicia, and WWE has one of its batshit crazy heels wearing a cancer research t-shirt. I may have said this a year or so ago, but WWE is one of the only organisations who could be annoying whilst working with a cancer research company. Paige will be facing Naomi, and starts off by kicking her in the face and headlocking her. Michael Cole admits to watching Total Divas, and my respect for him as a sentient being drops evermore. Natalya breaks away from Paige, then dropkicks her twice before hitting a hurricanrana and then what looked like a headscissors DDT? Alicia tries to get involved, and Naomi throws herself out onto her. Kick to the head of Paige off the apron, who hits one right back! PTO is applied to a downed Naomi and the former Funkadactyl taps.

I’m impressed: a good Divas match only involving one of either Paige, AJ or Natalya. Of course, Naomi can do good things in the ring, but it’s nice to be reminded. Hardly world-shaking, but solid. 2.5 Stars.

Here’s AJ, looking pissed. Paige makes herself scarce, and AJ wails on Alicia, throwing her through the ropes and out of the ring. Paige is wearing JBL’s hat as she hides behind him: decent.

Here’s Big Show, wearing a suit. Boy, he looks kind of slick in that. Oh, and despite the fact that Big Show is out here to apologise, got to love that Michael Cole is all ‘yeah, Big Show’s going to destroy that filthy red this Monday!’ They’re just so fucking contrite, guys. Although, allow me to counter my point by now saying: it’s a fucking flag. What is this, the boy scouts?

Big Show is all mature and saying that people have to be responsible for their actions. Ironic, really, because I’m pretty sure Show pulling down the flag wasn’t his idea. The crowd boos at his apology, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be thinking about this. It’s only a matter of time before WWE spoofs an IS beheading video. Big Show apologises sincerely, and the crowd boos again.

Here’s Boris and Natasha, who I’m going to guess won’t accept the apology, because you can’t make Russia look good in any way, shape nor form. Lana says, basically, ‘yeah, okay, tempers got a little high on both sides, I think. Let’s just, you know, have a good fight on Monday’. Hah, the hell she does: they want a personal apology. Big Show refuses, because he apologised to the Russian people. Dude, Rusev’s Bulgarian. And Big Show says he wanted to disrespect the two of them. And…holy hell, Rusev speaks English? Did I know this? Did you? Rusev makes a sneaky reference to HBK and the Canadian flag nose-wiping incident, and I am decently impressed by that. And then he attacks Big Show with the flag. So kids, the USA’s awesome: indisputable. And the Russian people: yeah, most of them are okay. These two? They’re assholes. And yes, we know they’re the only representatives of Russia around at the moment, but I don’t think that weakens our case. Big Show gets up, and Rusev bails. Big Show starts stripping, and that really makes Rusev back off. Big Show then starts a USA chant, as a way of trying to make it look like, really, he did nothing wrong. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Is This What WWE Creative Think Funny Is Like?

Here’s Heath Slater and Titus O’Neil…and they have a midget in an alligator costume. Wow, where’s my bottle of vodka? But they’re facing the Usos, and if they weren’t I was going to do that thing where I skip the match and tell you to review it yourselves. Apparently there was something on RAW about this, but as I recall I proclaimed it ‘bullshit’ and skipped it.

Jey gets backed up by Heath, but hits a chop and an uppercut. Slater comes back with a big kick, then some punches to the face. Oh God, here’s the Bunny. They send the Gator after it, but he hops over it and the Gator runs into the post. Honestly, if the Usos just left now I’d not blame them. But they superkick the guys and hit stereo-splashes with the Bunny.

I’d like to find whoever pitched this idea, and whoever said yes, and I’d like to spend…oh, around about two minutes taking a pickaxe to their eyes, because that’s what they just did to me. 0 Stars.

Whoa, one of the Usos just pulled out a spinaroonie. Apology not accepted, but acknowledged.

Renee Young is backstage with Dean Ambrose, and asks him about teaming up with John Cena again, her tone making it sound like it’s like catching a really itchy strain of chlamydia. Dean prefers to talk about Seth Rollins, and actually gives a decent reason for his pranks before promising to destroy Seth.

An Uppercut Above

Cesaro is here, with his weird European police siren entrance music. What, did people get paranoid about the air raid siren thing? And he’s facing R-Truth, and apparently he had an altercation on the WWE App with Cesaro. R-Truth references his Milwaukee mistake, and we’re underway.

Cesaro floors the fuck out of Truth with an uppercut, then drives him into the corner and hits shoulders to the gut. Gutwrench suplex then an arm and chinlock to Truth. R-Truth fires back with some punches, and backdrops Cesaro before attempting a scissor kick; it misses and Truth attacks Cesaro in the corner; Cesaro crotches him on the ropes and hits the Neutraliser.

Fair enough. Really glad they didn’t drag this out, because I don’t care much for R-Truth. 2 Stars.

Lillian is in the ring, and introduces…whoever that is. I don’t know. Oh, Bob Uecker? I guess.

Goldust and Stardust are backstage with their plasma ball; can we go back to that Bob guy now? Oh my god, they smashed the plasma ball. What happens when you do that? I always wondered, but didn’t want to smash mine in case it killed you. I know if you touched it whilst touching metal it gave you an electric shock.

Is This What WWE Creative Think ‘What We Want’ Is Like?

Yeah, yeah: here’s Kane and Randy Orton, ready to face Ambrose and Cena in a repeat of Monday because you can’t actually use the phrase ‘starved for content’; you’ve got to demonstrate it through your programming. At least Lesnar having the title gives Orton a reason for not constantly bitching about that rematch he never got, although I’d be interested in full Psycho Mode Orton feuding with Brock.

Ambrose and Orton to start, and they lock up before Orton hits a knee. Ambrose remains in control, working Randy in the corners. Snapmare and clothesline to Orton, with Ambrose getting two off a cover. Cena in off the tag, throwing hands before hitting a bulldog. Fisherman suplex to Orton, who tags out to Kane. Why aren’t more wrestlers laughing at Kane’s hair colour right now? Cena hits a flying shoulder, and he tags in Dean Ambrose for a double suplex. Ambrose hits a running dropkick to Kane, but then gets levelled by the Corporate Machine.

Orton comes in, and tries to beat Ambrose down, but gets taken out with a clothesline. Cena comes, and he and Ambrose wrench the legs of Orton. Cena gets taken down by Orton, but Cena takes Orton down with a throw, then tosses him out of the ring. Kane gets low-bridged out as well, and Ambrose hurls himself out on top of them as we go to break.

Back from the break, Kane has Ambrose in a sleeper; he tries to fire up but a big boot knocks him back down. Orton comes in off the tag and hits stomps before throwing Ambrose out of the ring. Dean manages to knock Randy’s head off the announce table, but gets whipped into the steel steps. Michael and John sound like two old men going off on random tangents as Tom actually calls the action. Sleeper to Ambrose, who tries to work his way out, hitting the boots to Orton out of the corner, then hitting a front dropkick to Randy. He tries to get the tag, but Orton has the legs and Kane comes in to shut Ambrose down.

Kane hits strikes to wear Ambrose out before locking in a sleeper again. Dean tries to bite his way out, and JBL uses that same ‘Mike Tyson’ line again, because he was replaced with his video game counterpart and nobody’s any the wiser. Kane knocks Ambrose into the ropes, but Dean comes right back with a big clothesline. He seizures on the floor for a bit, reaching for Cena, and crawls closer and closer…and then Cena runs off to attack Rollins. What a prick. Orton goes for Ambrose, but Dean just goes nuts and tries to take out everyone. Vintage DDT puts a halt to things, and Randy calls for the RKO. Roll-up nearly gets it done; Dirty Deeds almost hits, but Kane interrupts for the big boot. This leads to the DQ, which seems like a severe ruling from the ref considering that was the first infraction of the match.

The ending was actually pretty original, and Ambrose’s flurry at the end sort of made me believe he’d get it done. Well-handled, but still not enough to convince me we needed a whole repeat. Still, 3 Stars.

Chokeslam to Ambrose, and the crowd is chanting for Cena. Yeah, because he didn’t just walk out on Dean or anything. RKO hits, and oh, here’s Cena now. Too little too late, Superman. He doesn’t even hit an offensive move, just scatters the heels. Seth, Orton and Kane taunt Cena. Randy yells ‘I thought you were friends!’ No-one thought that, Randy.

This show really didn’t have any life to it. Ambrose was probably the most entertaining bit, and that was a rematch. Needs work, guys. Needs a lot of work. Five.

David has a jaded and cynical view of wrestling, which complements his jaded and cynical view of practically everything else. He spends his time writing novels and screenplays, lifting heavy things while listening to classical music, and waiting with bated breath for his next opportunity to say "it's Dr. Spain, actually".