One could be inclined to say that this week’s “WWE SmackDown” was one other example of phoning it in for the go-home to an enormous show, but this has been a recurring theme specifically with the blue brand over the past nonetheless many months: there was legitimately no reason to tune into the show, and the fundamental event was yet one more predictable, boring, and truly quite choppy match.
Rhea Ripley reunited the Terror Twins alongside Damian Priest for a mixed tag team match with Zelina Vega and Aleister Black, as one could have surmised was the plan when Vega was first factored into the Priest-Black feud – a feud that began in September, over three months ago, may one add. And to be honest, while the actual storyline, if that’s what it could actually be called, has been probably the most diluted of weak sauces, the match itself never stuck out as something that would have been bad.
Leave it to WWE to try, nonetheless, and the match itself was each boring and messy within the worst versions of those flavors. Obviously, it’s hampered by the undeniable fact that it is a tag team match that, by design, forces each members out of the ring with a tag, thus eliminating any sense of explosiveness or spontaneity that makes tag team wrestling compelling to start with. But then, even then, neither set of competitors really clicked with the opposite, or had the possibility to, owing to the format.
To be clear, a mixed tag team wrestling match presented as two simultaneous singles matches running parallel to at least one one other is at all times going to be limited. But even then, it wasn’t a case of limitations getting in the best way of a very stomping match. It was only a rapidly thrown together paper-chain of spots, the seams were there for all to see, and literally nobody of their right mind thought Black and Vega were walking away with the win here.
Furthermore, they were effectively squashed. They didn’t get much offense in that hadn’t looked as if it would have hurt Ripley any greater than it had hurt Vega. Black pulled Ripley off a pin simply to stare at her before getting headbutted. It was Looney Tunes levels of sticking it to the bad guy. Neither Priest nor Ripley needed this feud. Black and Vega really didn’t need a feud designed for them to lose so convincingly. Nothing actually happened on this three-month treadmill to nowhere, and there is not even a guarantee that that is the top of the feud. It must be. But that in itself is rarely a guarantee. In spite of everything, it shouldn’t have taken this long to get here in the primary place.
Written by Max Everett