There’s something to be said about WWE’s methods when it comes to naming tag teams of late. Unfortunately that something is that it’s immeasurably terrible.
Fresh on the back of April’s ‘Viking Experience’ fiasco, SmackDown Live has provided a new wrestling debacle to grease the wheels of debate. Its contribution to our shared societal lore?
The Kabuki Warriors.
Good God, man. Is it too late to get Road Dogg back in the writer’s room? All is forgiven.
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Let me clarify up front, I don’t necessarily hate this name for Asuka and Kairi Sane. I certainly don’t like it – frankly it’s ridiculous. It sounds like something you might call the villainous exchange students on an episode of South Park. But it’s not anywhere near as offensively generic as The Viking Experience. I do hate what it represents though.
And that is WWE’s apparent reliance on naming tag teams using a combination of their most superficial characteristic and whatever noun a random word generator spews out. That’s how we arrived at The Viking Experience for the tattooed, hairy lads who like Viking things. It’s also why SmackDown Live took a long, hard look at the two colourful Japanese ladies – one a ‘Pirate Princess’, the other the ‘Empress of Tomorrow’ – and came up with The Kabuki Warriors. It’s derivative, unoriginal and borderline culturally insensitive. Asuka and Sane deserve better than a silly name.
But anyway, those are just my thoughts on the issue. Let us know your feelings on the new name for Asuka and Kairi Sane. On to the good from SmackDown Live!
The Best of SmackDown Live
The Most Fatal of Four-Ways
Simple yet effective promos from Randy Orton and Andrade preceded a match I was fairly excited for heading into last night’s SmackDown Live. And that was the pre-announced fatal four-way contest between Orton, Andrade, Ali and Finn Bálor.
As you might expect, this was a fast-paced, high-octane encounter, with each wrestler gaining the ascendency at different points. The finish came after a thrilling twenty minutes, when Randy Orton countered a misguided 450 splash from Ali into an RKO, Bálor cleared the ring and Andrade landed a hammerlock DDT on the Irishman for the pin.
☝️ to the 💼
@AndradeCienWWE is VICTORIOUS in a huge #Fatal4Way on #SDLive! pic.twitter.com/71vNno6fI6
— WWE (@WWE) May 15, 2019
Andrade, having presumably seen how well it went for Baron Corbin the night before, then decided to demonstrate how to properly climb a ladder to retrieve the Money in the Bank briefcase. Completely unexpectedly though, Wild Carder Ricochet ran down, knocked him off the ladder and scampered off with the briefcase. So I guess he’s definitely not winning on Sunday then.
This obsession with climbing a ladder to get a briefcase with nothing in it is strange. I don’t get it. It’s like running the London marathon three days before the actual race and celebrating as if you’ve won. But post-match tomfoolery aside, the fatal four-way was excellent. A great way to kick off the show.
‘The Queen’ vs ‘The Man’
If there’s one thing WWE can never be accused of, it’s producing sub-standard video packages. That is something the company really excels at, and this week was no different.
SmackDown featured a video package highlighting the rivalry between Charlotte and Becky Lynch, chronicling their divergent paths to Money in the Bank, from best friends to bitter rivals to their WrestleMania headlining match last month. The package hit all the right notes and omitted the murkier ones – like Lynch’s initial heel character and the half dozen matches the pair has had in the interim. This was a truly excellent hype package that everyone should go out of their way to see.
I’ve been particularly critical of the repetitive promos Charlotte and Becky have exchanged in the latter stages of this never-ending feud, with everyone involved seemingly spinning their wheels for months. But this video package, interspersed by interviews with the respective women, felt like the shot in the arm this feud needed heading into Money in the Bank.
Lacey Evans followed it up with a decent direct-to-camera promo of her own.
A Standoff over the WWE Title
A lone Kofi Kingston came out to accept his invitation to the Kevin Owens Show, only to find his title challenger nowhere in sight. Owens however did appear on the Titantron to run through a highlight reel of his early successes on the main brand.
The two men then exchanged a few pointed words via the medium of teleconference, before Owens decided to make his way to the ring. Kofi cut him off on the ramp though, only for Sami Zayn of all people to jump the WWE Champion from behind. I guess KO and Sami are best friends again? There was no effort at explaining this rekindled alliance.
Regardless, Xavier Woods came down to save his fellow New Day stablemate, but he was quickly dispatched by the two bad lads. Incidentally, has that become part of Xavier’s gimmick yet? ‘Well-intentioned guy who tries to save his friends but always gets beaten up himself’?
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KO and Sami piled on Kofi for a bit, before Kingston made his brave babyface comeback, first dodging an Owens cannonball and then landing a Trouble in Paradise on Zayn. And that was the final angle heading into Money in the Bank. A thwarted attack leading to Kofi and KO yelling at one another from afar. Nothing special, but decent nevertheless.
The Worst of SmackDown Live
Return to being the B-Show
The Wild Card Rule was ostensibly introduced as a vehicle of allowing WWE’s biggest stars to float between both Raw and SmackDown. It’s a tactic the company has used before with some of its truly transcendent stars. The best of the best, like John Cena… and the Bellas.
Somehow though, with the same names appearing on both brands each week, it’s simply devolved into the same angles playing out on consecutive nights. Remember when we started Raw on Monday with Roman Reigns and The Miz in the ring, before they were interrupted by Shane McMahon? Then Shane used the powers bestowed upon him by the gods of the mid-card to summon Elias and another random goober to attack Reigns and Miz? Only for the babyfaces to fight off the dastardly heels? Well, that’s almost exactly how SmackDown started this week, except in addition to Elias, Shane was somehow able to lure Daniel Bryan and Rowan to join his cause.
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I have no idea why the tag team champions felt compelled to join forces against Reigns and Miz. Surely the B-Team would have been the obvious choice, given that they recently helped Shane beat up Miz. But anyway, it was what it was. Eventually The Usos intervened to help Roman and Miz chase off the ragtag group of villains, setting up a four-on-three handicap contest for later in the evening. Why four on three? Because The Miz had been inexplicably banned from the building by ‘definitely not authority figure’ Shane McMahon… I’m sure we won’t be seeing him again for the rest of the broadcast.
SmackDown is not helped by being a simple rehash of angles we saw one night earlier on Raw. If this is how the Wild Card Rule is intended to play out on a weekly basis, then colour me apprehensive.
The Dutch Procrastinator
Aleister Black again turned up last night to deliver some more spoken word poetry. As we’ve become accustomed to seeing in recent weeks, the ‘Dutch Destroyer’ sat in a poorly lit room and endlessly rambled about darkness, his enemies and eternal torment. Or at least it was something like that; admittedly, I stopped listening about three weeks ago.
Trying to get into @WWEAleister's head? Not wise. #SDLive pic.twitter.com/bbiMlhGp9b
— WWE (@WWE) May 15, 2019
He should be kicking people’s heads off. Not auditioning for a role in an off-Broadway production of The Dark Knight.
The Ups and Downs of Handicap Matches
As had been set up earlier in the night, Shane, Elias, Bryan and Rowan took on Roman and The Usos in a four-on-three handicap match. This match ticked every handicap cliché in the book. The majority systematically isolated and wore down every member of the disadvantaged team. Then Jey Uso tweaked his knee after landing awkwardly, reducing their chances of winning even further.
The match did heat up towards the end, as it descended into chaos (as they generally tend to do), but it was too little to recapture my interest by that stage. The Usos superkicked everyone for a bit before Shane tagged himself in and hit the coast-to-coast on Jimmy Uso.
Then The Miz – who had been banned from the building earlier – immediately ran down with a chair to prevent any further attack on his comrades. Apparently, had he interfered before the match ended, Shane would have cancelled their cage match at Sunday’s pay-per-view. I’m not sure why Shane would want to do that. No one forced him to accept it in the first place. But regardless, if he’s feeling trepidatious now, what’s stopping him from simply calling the match off anyway? From what we’ve seen in recent weeks, he has the power to make matches, award titles and add stipulations. Surely he can cancel any match he chooses.
This was a fairly bland encounter with nothing on the line and a strained premise.
The Kabuki Warriors
See the introduction above. This name is ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact that when Paige finally managed to cough up the new name, it was met with a collective “huh?” by both the crowd in attendance and the collection of FIVE commentators at ringside. Even The IIconics were left speechless.
#KabukiWarriors? We're guessing they're probably not I I C O N I C…#SDLive @BillieKayWWE @PeytonRoyceWWE pic.twitter.com/y0mveAV5pA
— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) May 15, 2019
The Women’s Tag Division
The… oh man… Kabuki Warriors took on Fire & Desire in what was destined be a perfectly serviceable match. And for the most part that’s what it was, particularly from Kairi Sane and Asuka’s end.
Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville (as much as they’ve improved in recent times) just looked to always be a step behind their more established counterparts. Every move seemed a bit out of sequence. Each exchange slightly off kilter.
Overshadowing the match too were The IIconics on commentary. Look, I enjoy the Australian pair, I really do. But I don’t need them screeching into my ears throughout every tag match on SmackDown Live. They are purposely annoying, I get it, but their incessant whining completely overshadows the match playing out in the ring.
Crowning off this turd omelette of a match was the finish, in which Asuka rolled up an overconfident Mandy Rose, leaving an exasperated Deville on the apron. The supposedly surging Kabuki Warriors couldn’t even win decisively, instead playing second fiddle to the next chapter in the Rose / Deville disfunction.
Overall Rating for the Show (From best to worst: SmackDamn, SmackTastic, Smack Bang in the Middle, SmackDowner and A Smack in the Face)
I came away from last night’s show feeling like I had just watched a fairly decent edition of SmackDown Live. But upon reflection, I realised that the show as a whole really only contained one good match and perhaps two intriguing angles. Everything else felt largely derivative, unimportant and overbooked.
Shane McMahon, in particular, once again felt rather lacklustre. He seems to exercise his power entirely arbitrarily – booking matches in his favour one second, only to shoot himself in the foot with silly stipulations the next. It’s also entirely unclear how a handicap match against Roman Reigns and the Usos is intended to build towards his encounter with The Miz on Sunday. Or why Bryan and Rowan suddenly find themselves roped into this feud, like Bobby Lashley was the night before.
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And the women’s tag scene isn’t any better, with mediocre matches and ill-advised rebranding. Was last night’s match supposed to be the start of a push for The Kabuki Warriors, or the next instalment in the breakup of Fire & Desire? What sort of a name is The Kabuki Warriors?!
The video package for Becky and Charlotte, and the fatal four-way were so good that I’m tempted to overlook all of SmackDown’s faults. WWE have an incredible talent of getting me invested in a feud with just five minutes of video. It truly was incredible. And the fatal four-way was an excellent showcase for the MITB contenders.
But ultimately, I just can’t shake the disappointment of last night’s show. Or how poorly it handled its middle hour. So, on that basis, this week’s SmackDown is Smack Bang in the Middle.
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