While Smackdown Lie’s final USA airing was a good show, there were a couple of things that stuck out, but didn’t hamper the show as much as they used to. That’s a testament to the turnaround since Eric Bischoff came on board, but also the efforts of the talent for doing the best they can.
With that said, let’s get to the chaos.
In no particular order
- Harper’s interference. While it’s a staple of heels to interfere more times than not, it’s become too predictable and is in every storyline currently. While it’s fun to see our heroes overcome those obstacles, it’d be more poignant to establish a dominate heel by having them win outright.
- Elias and Gable feud. While both are fun and have tremendous upsides, this felt off from the beginning. Having Gable come to Smackdown to complain about Corbin made him look weak as it was like he was looking for sympathy where he was sure Corbin wouldn’t come out. Elias sorta solved that problem by interrupting him with a song, but this felt just as off and the segment had no real ending. It felt like it was a spur of the moment thing without any direction or thought given on how to end it.
- New Day and the B Team. It’s not often a squash match is entertaining. Massive props to the New Day, especially Big E for stealing the show, but it was still a squash match, a time filler. Kinda makes one wonder if something went off schedule and it was thrown together at the last minute.
- Shane McMahon gets more TV time. Seriously, is there anything more to say on this? At least it appears it’s nearing its end.
- The final airing of Smackdown Live on the USA network. For many, this is the only home they’ve known for Smackdown. It’s become a comfortable place and time slot where we could schedule things around it to make sure we didn’t miss anything, and it’s over.
Final thoughts
When a show leaves a network, it’s usually the death kneel. But not for sports or sports entertainment. They find a new home and create new memories for themselves and their fans, and this will be no different. While this marks the end of an era, it’s not the end of Smackdown Live. The future actually looks bright as we’ll get to start fresh in a lot of ways. Here’s to some great memories on USA, and to many more on Fox.
