Holding on for Dear Life – A SmackDown Recap for 12/13/16

Tonight’s Last night’s Smackdown comes to us from Washington DC.  It’s basically the Tribute to the Troops preshow.

Are you getting sick of James Ellsworth?  Don’t worry.  With AJ’s ankle on the mend, they gave him a kayfabe flu to excuse him off of TV this week.  Even if AJ is hurt, I feel like it’s a smart move.  Taking a short break from the storyline is a relief.

On The Same Level

With AJ not being able to compete, he’s available for a lot of talking.  There’s also that little issue of no #1 contender.  Let’s have an episode of Miz TV!

AJ has beaten Ambrose.  Miz has beaten Ambrose.  Turns out, Miz thinks he’s on the same level as the greatest wrestler in the business right now.  But, as you can imagine, Ambrose isn’t too happy with that.  And neither is Ziggler…or…Luke Harper?

Sounds like we have a recipe for a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match!

Holding On for Dear Life

That’s not the only #1 contenders that we need to determine.  We need to know who’s facing The Wyatt Family next.  Time for a Tag Team Battle Royal!

I don’t really like battle royals, except for the Royal Rumble.  When everyone starts out in the ring, it’s sloppy.  There’s just too many people.  Most of the time it never gets good.  This one, was an exception.

Everyone looked strong except for the Vaudevillians.  At least they get TV time though.  It’s really too bad.  The Ascension looked great and so did FaBreeze (I still refuse to call them Breezango) actually getting eliminations.  I think the only team that didn’t get an elimination was Gotch and English.  Maybe 2017 will be kinder to them.  But at least they’re not Neville, the man who VKM forgot.

It was all about the Hype though.  When Konnor tried to take out Ryder, he turned it into a huricanrana and held onto the top rope.  Side note: Apparently, according to Reddit, Ryder has a 20% win percentage in battle royals.  That’s insanely high.

But there’s potential bad news, Ryder might have injured his knee in the match.  No official word on WWE.com yet.

The #1 Contender

It was refreshing to see Luke Harper out of the mid-card and in main title contention.  And just like the Ascension in the tag match, he looked strong.  I love SmackDown.  Too bad Zayn didn’t accept the trade for Eva Marie (I know it was a trick) because he really could use a better story.

I also appreciate it being an elimination match.  It was a good one.  Give it a watch.

And Ziggler is your new #1 contender.

And Everything Else

• Alexa Bliss was scheduled for a match against “Jane Ellsworth”, a DC area local talent.  When she tried to blow off the match, Shane McMahon granted Becky Lynch’s rematch for the championship.  It was a fine match but it ended in a count-out finish, keeping Alexa champion.
• Carmella and Natalya had a match.  I’ve been trying to remember what other match was there all day without looking it up.  I don’t remember.
• Avid wrestling fan and standup comedian Gabriel Iglesias, aka Fluffy, had a brief, pointless interaction Apollo Crews significant TV time in what seems like months.  Maybe we will see Apollo again at the Royal Rumble or something.

  On a side note, Apollo lives in Orlando with Ricochet/Prince Puma.  How Apollo is being booked can’t be encouraging to Ricochet.  Why go to WWE while you’re killing it on the indies?