{"id":139200,"date":"2022-05-09T19:09:08","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T00:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=139200"},"modified":"2022-05-09T19:09:08","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T00:09:08","slug":"wwe-smackdown-hits-and-misses-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/05\/09\/wwe-smackdown-hits-and-misses-2\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE SMACKDOWN HITS &#038; MISSES 5\/6: Flair and Rousey deliver in final Backlash hype, end Happy Corbin, more"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3656475386\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p><strong>WWE Smackdown Hits &amp; Misses<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Hits<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Charlotte Flair opening segment:<\/strong> The Flair promo didn\u2019t do much for me and having Aliyah have to come off as dumb as she did when Charlotte asked her to get closer only to get pummeled felt a bit silly. Having said that, Flair and Ronda Rousey had a decent brawl. This feud has built best this year when the two decide to get physical. I\u2019ve said before, you can\u2019t do that every week and they haven\u2019t because the returns would be diminishing but it worked here because we haven\u2019t seen them go at it since WrestleMania. Sunday\u2019s match should be a good one and I expect a title change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sasha Banks vs. Shayna Baszler:<\/strong> A solid match better Banks and Baszler. Baszler is vastly underutilized and tonight showed that off. I\u2019m glad that they had Naomi selling her bad shoulder a week later but shouldn\u2019t she be in a sling? I don\u2019t understand the weird wrapping with no sling but maybe I\u2019m just being picky here. This should be a solid match next Friday for the Women\u2019s Tag Titles. I also hope Sasha wearing the headband is a one-time thing because it\u2019s not a good look.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The New Day vs. Sheamus &amp; Ridge Holland (Tables Match):<\/strong> This was a well worked table match. There were some good spots in terms of action and table saves. I wasn\u2019t surprised to see Butch show back up here considering there\u2019s no DQs in a table match. It felt like the logical place for him to re-emerge. I still don\u2019t care much for the Butch petulant child character but this was booked properly considering the story that they\u2019re telling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura:<\/strong> These two have good chemistry and I don\u2019t think they could have a bad match with each other if they tried to. I assume this feud will help jumpstart Nakamura and get fans behind him before he heads into a feud with Roman Reigns. I\u2019m for a short-term feud between the two even if the means to get to it was a big convoluted (more on that below). I also liked the cleverness of having Zayn win the first match by count-out considering Zayn\u2019s recent history of being involved in a plethora of them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lacey Evans Chapter 5:<\/strong> So last week wasn\u2019t the bow on this but this week certainly was. Lacey talking about breaking the cycle of what had been most of her life was a good final touch here. She did lay out that the Smackdown Women\u2019s Title was her goal which was also important for her to touch upon. Much like Gunther, I\u2019m curious to see who she\u2019ll feud with first. Will we get a series of showcase\/squash matches or will she jump right into a feud? Perhaps we\u2019ll find out next week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RK-McBro and Bloodline main event segment:<\/strong> The \u201cacknowledge\u201d bit was very humorous. Why can\u2019t we get the same comedy writers for Madcap Moss? The brawl itself was done well enough. I still hate the idea of this going from a Tag Title Unification Match to a six-man tag match with zero stakes but I suppose maybe we\u2019ll get that match next month. I\u2019d love to add more here but the segment didn\u2019t give me that much to talk about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Overall Show:<\/strong> It was mostly an easy WWE Smackdown to watch despite it having some spots that were basically throw away type segments. I\u2019ve come to expect that though from most <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wwe.com\">WWE<\/a> \u201cgo-home\u201d shows. Over the past few months, Smackdown has lost momentum though and Raw seems to have picked up some momentum as the pendulum seems to have swung back the other way a bit on which show seems to be the stronger one.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-596144454\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h3>Misses<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Happy Talk:<\/strong> Let this end already. The Madcap Moss jokes are still terrible and don\u2019t land. At least if Moss was gonna keep this awful gimmick they could find someone to write him better jokes. His new entrance music is also very generic and I can\u2019t believe this is the best they could do with Moss post-Mania. I\u2019ve given up hope that Moss is going to move on from this bad gimmick.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Drew Gulak vs. Gunther:<\/strong> I don\u2019t understand what they\u2019re trying to do with Gulak here. The only role that he \u201cfailed\u201d at some was as Adam Pearce\u2019s assistant when he forgot the contract. He was fine as a broadcaster asking the tough questions and made no mistakes as a time keeper at ringside. Because he was attacked after all of these tasks by someone we are to believe that means that he failed? I don\u2019t get it. This week he was fed to Gunther. If I\u2019m the real life Drew Gulak I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d be answering my phone at home anytime soon. This feels like the type of thing that gets done to someone that will be getting the \u201cwe wish you well in your future endeavors\u201d line over the phone. Other than that, I\u2019m curious to see who Gunther\u2019s first real main roster feud will be against now that he\u2019s slowly moving up the pecking order week-by-week in terms of strength of opponent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shinsuke Nakamura interview:<\/strong> Four weeks later and Nakamura \u201chasn\u2019t forgotten\u201d what Roman Reigns did to him? Well, that\u2019s great. He\u2019s been on TV since as a lumberjack and this hasn\u2019t been even referenced in a month. This is so disjointed and doesn\u2019t make any sense. This could\u2019ve easily built to a match between Roman and Nakamura for this Sunday even if there still would\u2019ve been little-to-no belief that Nakamura could win. For the time being I guess it will lead to a quick feud between Nakamura and Sami Zayn since Zayn\u2019s new gimmick is to spy on other wrestlers that are being interviewed and then finding a way of twisting things to get in the good graces of The Bloodline.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tony Donofrio is a Contributor for PWTorch.com. You can contact Tony at TonyDonofrio@icloud.com and follow him on Twitter @TonyDonofrio.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>CATCH-UP:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/05\/06\/5-6-wwe-smackdown-results-kellers-report-on-sasha-vs-baszler-new-day-vs-sheamus-holland-plus-backlash-hype-with-bloodline-rk-bro-drew\/\">5\/6 WWE SMACKDOWN RESULTS: Keller\u2019s report on Sasha vs. Baszler, New Day vs. Sheamus &amp; Holland, plus Backlash hype with Bloodline, RK-Bro, Drew<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1117404742\"><div id=\"pwtor-4194124310\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE Smackdown Hits &amp; Misses Hits Charlotte Flair opening segment: The Flair promo didn\u2019t do much for me and having Aliyah have to come off as dumb as she did when Charlotte asked her to <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/05\/09\/wwe-smackdown-hits-and-misses-2\/\" title=\"WWE SMACKDOWN HITS &#038; MISSES 5\/6: Flair and Rousey deliver in final Backlash hype, end Happy Corbin, more\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":52291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,28,27],"tags":[72,71,117],"class_list":["post-139200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists","tag-smackdown","tag-wwe","tag-wwe-smackdown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2017\/12\/Charlotte_TeschJoel_3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139201,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139200\/revisions\/139201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}