Ziggler’s Twitter Handle Makes Sense Again – A SmackDown Live Recap for 1/3/16

Tonight’s episode of Smackdown Live comes to us from Jacksonville, FL with a rowdy crowd.  Matt is learning about trees or something, so I’m running the show tonight.

Heel Ziggler, Hell Yeah

After an unsuccessful match trying to take down the Champ that Runs the Camp, Corbin and Ziggler fired up a new renewed their former feud.  After a hard fought match, it ended suddenly with an End of Days and Corbin left with the win.  If this was Raw, that’s where it would end.  It would have been another example of Ziggler almost getting there, but coming up short.

But it’s not Raw, it’s SmackDown Live.

After the match, Corbin wasn’t done.  He grabbed a chair with the intention of inflicting further damage on Ziggy.  Inexplicably, Kalisto shows up to defend Dolph, if for no other reason being that Kalisto is the other dude that Corbin has had 800 matches with.  But Baron gets out of there before Kalisto could do any lucha things.

As you can guess by the heading, we got a heel turn.  Dolph superkicks Kalisto, shocking the Jacksonville audience, and leaves the ring pissed.

And it doesn’t end there.  When he makes it back to the locker room, Apollo confronts a pissed-off Dolph on why he did what he did and got attacked as a result.

This is good news.  I wasn’t watching the last time Dolph was a heel, but I imagine that his character works much more naturally on the dark side.  I have a conspiracy theory that he’s actually been phoning some of it in to force the heel turn.  Sure, there were some moments of fire here and there, like with the retirement match and his entire feud with Miz, been his character has been spinning his wheels since 2015, really.

It’s going to be great for all the under utilized guys, like Apollo and now Mojo, to have such an amazing veteran to square off against.

End of the Reunion Tour

Part of the new year means resolutions and Miz had one that he wanted to share with us.  He wants to start 2017 being more forgiving.  In order to do that, someone needs to apologize.  She needs to apologize.  After threatening to hold SmackDown Live hostage until he gets his apology, Dean shows up to save the day, only to get a slap from Maryse himself.

The actual match is much what you’d expect.  It was good for sure.  I’m just sure you can imagine most of the match without me really laying it out there.  There were kickouts from the skull crushing finale and figure four attempts that didn’t quite work.

But it’s a Miz match with Maryse at ringside, so you have to expect funny business, right?

As the fight spilled outside the ring, Maryse slapped Ambrose.  Dean, thinking quickly, jumped back into the ring and stopped the ref from disqualifying Miz due to the slap.  Instead, Maryse gets sent packing.  In all the commotion, Miz grabs the belt and hits Dean on the back of the head with it and goes for the pin.  1…2…kickout.  Ambrose plants Miz with a Dirty Deeds to become your 2-time Intercontinental Champion.

I think it’s the right spot for Dean right now.  I really think he’s found a good rhythm and deserves to be near the top of the card but it’s not best for the story right now.

Everything Else

• The continuing saga of La Luchadora continues.  This time the masked luchadora was portrayed by Little Miss Bliss and tapped out immediately to the Dis-Arm-Her.  When Becky ripped off the mask, a second La Luchadora showed up to help beat down Becky.  No clues on who it is yet.
• I’ll admit it, I wasn’t super excited initially when we were getting AJ Vs. Cena III.  But with the contract signing, presided over by Cena’s virtual brother-in-law Bryan Danielson, questions of hubris and some sort of nepotism arise.  And remember early 2016 when everyone wondered if AJ had the promo skills to really succeed in the WWE?  It’s amazing how some time passing makes.  Royal Rumble is going to be great.  Oh, and Baron Corbin wants to be involved.
• American Alpha destroyed FaBreeze in less than a minute.  I can’t say I liked this.  They still could have been dominant without completely destroying a somewhat credible team.  Afterwards, the Wyatt Family showed up on the tron to say stuff.  Apparently they were invoking their rematch clause.  And there’s some increased tension between Orton and Harper.  I don’t think this version of the Wyatt Family is going to last past the Royal Rumble.  And I think that’s a shame.
• Carmella and James Ellsworth is…a thing?  Ellsworth, after giving her the shirt off his back as a gift, assists Carmella in a match against Aliyah by pulling her foot and then distracting the ref.
• Nattie and Nicki Bella yelled at each other.  There’s a match next week.