Two Hands, Fighting Chance – Smackdown Live 10/18/16

It’s easy to say that Smackdown has really won the battle of show quality against Raw, but as Raw brought back Goldberg after a 12 year hiatus, James Ellsworth will battle with AJ Styles tonight for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.  And if you didn’t watch Raw, I can’t recommend watching the three or four minutes of Goldberg enough.  Might be a little rusty in the ring, still to be seen, but he hasn’t missed a beat at cutting promos.

But since this is why you’ve turned on Smackdown this evening, as Ellsworth did pick up a win last week, let’s hit the meat and potatoes.  AND JAMES ELLSWORTH HAS HIS OWN SHIRT AND ENTRANCE NOW!!!

• Can we please get Ellsworth as the third man on team Beauty and the Man Beast?  They could be like the New Day, but with the Power of Desperation.  I mean, Heath’s got kids to feed, Rhyno’s got constituents to appease, and Ellsworth’s a man with a dream.  Make this happen ASAP.
• Unstable Ambrose is the special guest ring announcer as they have to maintain the integrity of the title match.  The audience chants for Ellsworth like he’s Goldberg.
• “The Chin that got the Win” takes a hell of a beating, but in line with last week’s match between the two, Dean Ambrose came heavy with the comic relief.  It was incredibly entertaining.
• And your winner by disqualification, “the man who has more wins over AJ Styles than John Cena, James Ellsworth”.

Other Notables:

• Randy Orton opens the show, following a replay of last week’s Ellsworth-Styles match and Ambrose cuts a promo in the back with the man who is the complete opposite of Bruce Campbell.
  • I feel like Orton has never been much of a talker, but for a guy who’s whole thing is “Venom in my Veins” and “I Hear Voices” sometimes it is not a bad idea to have him talk about the beast within.  Bray Wyatt sleeps in a coffin, I can only imagine how bad the Bray Wyatt fart smell in that coffin is.  He also cuts sleepy time promos from the pine box surrounded by black sheep.
  • “Stephen King couldn’t create a character like Bray Wyatt, he just gives me the Heebie Jeebies” – Mauro
  • Randy Orton has a match with Luke Harper.  Orton hits a Superplex, just in time for the lights to go out and Wyatt’s music to start.  Then he’s wheeled to ringside by the black sheep…still in the coffin.  Now Bray is at ringside, casket right up against the apron, and it pretty obviously has a false bottom….so Kane still sleeps under the ring, rising seemingly out of nowhere but the lights go out and the Family disappears before Kane and Orton can hit simultaneous finishing maneuvers.
• Alexa Bliss is back to the Freddy Kruger look from NXT when she was with Blake and Murphy.  She took on Naomi, who seems to be wearing slightly less clothing every time she goes to the ring.  Alexa won a pretty good women’s match here, then cut an in ring promo with Renee Young.  When did Renee Young become Smackdown’s Byron Saxton?

• Them’s the Facts Curt Hawkins will finally make his in ring debut, and as I speculated during the No Mercy predictions, it is going to come against Apollo Crews, because apparently this company just has zero direction for Crews other than serving him up to literally everyone on the roster.  Crews punched Hawkins mid-promo, and Hawkins left, so he still has no had a match.
• Bella-Mella, why are they not a tag team already?  Why is everyone cutting promos today?  That’s a Raw thing.  Tonight’s Smackdown….you just made the list
  • Nikki Bella plays the gender card (Daisy’s observation).  This is a giant waste of time, but not gonna lie, the cheap excuse for advertising Total Bellas did make me want to watch that series.
• Awesome Squad vs The Champs.  IC Champ Ziggler and Tag Champs Slater and Rhyno team up to take on The Miz and Spirit Squad (Mikey and Kenny….maybe?).
  • “I did it for my kids” – Slater, “I just don’t like male cheerleaders” – Rhyno.
  • As you could expect, this was a pretty solid match.  I’m not really familiar with the Spirit Squad, but they didn’t slow down the talent in this match at all.  I mean, I guess you can think of them as un-hyped Mojo Rawley.
  • I really like that Slater doesn’t just get the crap beat out of him for Rhyno to get the hot tag which was the formula for their entire title run.  But Miz with a cheap shot would lead to Kenny picking up the pin on the One Man Band.
• Doomed to Dance Forever.  I wish this was about Fandango, but it isn’t.  It’s Jack Swagger and Baron Corbin, who have yet another match tonight.  For those who care, Corbin pretty much just destroyed Swagger.  Swagger didn’t even really put up much fight.  It was almost like one of those Braun Strowman matches.
• Follow Natalya’s Cat on Instagram.  No, I’m not kidding.  2pawz.  102 K Followers.  Are you kidding me?  I can’t even get a Retweet for a Toy Drive for underprivileged kids.