{"id":99140,"date":"2020-06-16T14:45:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T19:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=99140"},"modified":"2020-06-16T14:45:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T19:45:02","slug":"wwe-smackdown-hits-misses-6-12-festival-of-friendship-forever-knight-and-urine-big-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2020\/06\/16\/wwe-smackdown-hits-misses-6-12-festival-of-friendship-forever-knight-and-urine-big-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE SMACKDOWN HITS &#038; MISSES 6\/12: Festival of Friendship, Forever Knight, and Urine Big Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3120036447\" 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>So when I get mad, I make a fist. \u00a0I grab my pen and I write out a list. \u00a0Of all the wrestling stuff that hit and missed. \u00a0Let&#8217;s see who&#8217;s made our WWE Smackdown Hits &amp; Misses list for the June 12 episode on Fox.<\/p>\n<h3>HITS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>\u2022Daniel Bryan vs. A.J. Styles:<\/strong> No, it wasn&#8217;t the Greatest Wrestling Match of All Time, but it was outstanding. \u00a0I can&#8217;t say the contest got both men over, seeing as they were already over before Friday. \u00a0But putting the WWE Intercontinental Title on the Phenomenal One sets up a bunch of potential storylines. \u00a0Bryan can get his rematch and continue the feud. \u00a0Jeff Hardy will be looking for the opportunity he was denied a couple of weeks ago. \u00a0Elias should be back in the hunt once he recovers from his injuries. \u00a0Drew Gulak already has a non-title win over Styles. \u00a0And Sami Zayn will eventually return, looking for the championship he never lost. \u00a0It&#8217;s as if WWE was an actual wrestling promotion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022Forever Knight:<\/strong> You might have thought, now that Otis Dozovic is Mister Money In The Bank, WWE would have Tucker Knight disappear like Chuck Cunningham after Season 1 of &#8220;Happy Days&#8221;. \u00a0Maybe you thought instead that Tucker would return as a jealous villain for a one-off feud with his former partner, much like the rivalry between Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. \u00a0We were pleasantly surprised on both counts. \u00a0Tucker is still Otis&#8217;s buddy, and his return gave us a reason for a show closing six-man tag team match. \u00a0It wasn&#8217;t an all time classic, but it set up the coming war between the Big O and King Corbin. \u00a0Plus, we had a Dolph ZIggler sighting.<\/p>\n<p>Festival of Friendship: \u00a0Under normal circumstances, the bit where the heel does a long, drawn-out celebration after winning a title is one of my least favorite WWE tropes. \u00a0Not this time. \u00a0Bayley and Sasha made it fun. \u00a0Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross played their roles well, as did the visiting Iiconic Duo. \u00a0It leads to a big match at Backlash, but that&#8217;s just the icing on the cake.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022The Results Are In:<\/strong> At least WWE had the doctor inform us that Jeff Hardy passed his drug screening. \u00a0That was a significant plot point.<\/p>\n<h3>MISSES<\/h3>\n<p><strong>\u2022Urine Big Trouble:<\/strong> In the opening segment, we learned Sheamus was paying for Jeff Hardy to take a piss test in order to prove his sobriety. \u00a0The story is that Sheamus persuaded WWE management to have Jeff submit to a urinalysis. \u00a0That right there is awful writing. \u00a0Jeff had already been cleared of wrongdoing for the car accident, and Sheamus is still a suspect.<\/p>\n<p>But if you watched Smackdown live on the East Coast feed of FOX, you got to see the payoff, which was the Charismatic Enigma throwing a jar of his urine in Sheamus&#8217;s face. \u00a0Fox TV enjoyed the segment so much that the urine toss was edited off the West Coast feed and the subsequent airings on FS1, FS2 and FS8, The Ocho. \u00a0Vince McMahon may want to spike Smackdown ratings by reliving storylines that didn&#8217;t get over in the mid 2000&#8217;s, but Fox wants a PG show. \u00a0Since Fox is paying the bills, they will get their way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022New Day, Same Old Stuff:<\/strong> Look, I&#8217;m happy we&#8217;re going to get matches between the New Day and the Artists Collective of Shinsuke Nakamura and Antonio Cesaro. \u00a0And we don&#8217;t really need to see The Forgotten Sons in the tag team title mix. \u00a0But I feel like we missed an episode somewhere. \u00a0Compared to the rest of the show, this truncated matchup didn&#8217;t feel all that important.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-209435990\" 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<p><strong>\u2022More Than Words:<\/strong> I am a little disappointed we didn&#8217;t get to hear Bayley read the poem she write for her friend Sasha. Maybe next week?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>You can find Pat McNeill of Greenville, South Carolina on Twitter at @realpatmcneill. \u00a0Listen to his weekly &#8220;Wayback Playback&#8221; watchalong podcast with Jim Valley over at <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/wayback-playback-with-pat-mcneill-jim-valley\/id1381773794\">HERE<\/a> or sign up for their Patreon <a href=\"https:\/\/patreon.com\/WaybackPlayback\">HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1782454959\"><div id=\"pwtor-393601862\"><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>So when I get mad, I make a fist. \u00a0I grab my pen and I write out a list. \u00a0Of all the wrestling stuff that hit and missed. \u00a0Let&#8217;s see who&#8217;s made our WWE Smackdown <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2020\/06\/16\/wwe-smackdown-hits-misses-6-12-festival-of-friendship-forever-knight-and-urine-big-trouble\/\" title=\"WWE SMACKDOWN HITS &#038; MISSES 6\/12: Festival of Friendship, Forever Knight, and Urine Big Trouble\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98956,"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":[],"class_list":["post-99140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2020\/06\/Screen-Shot-2020-06-12-at-2.00.22-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99140","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99143,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99140\/revisions\/99143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}