The One From The Red Stick – Smackdown Live Recap (1/10/2017)

Smackdown Live for January 10, 2017, comes to us from LSU country, in the heart of Baton Rouge.  The liberal media had me under the impression that the only building in Louisiana with a roof was the Superdome, but apparently I was mistaken.  So let’s get to it the only way a Smackdown from the Bayou could…..

Welcome to the Ambrose Asylum

The new Intercontinental Champion has replaced the now seemingly forgotten Mitch with a ceramic gator head he bought at a truck stop, but he’s welcoming special guest The Miz and Maryse to his show to gloat.  Miz announces his bid in the Rumble match, and then after a lengthy rant about The Miz’s legal team bringing action because he should still his title, Ambrose awarded Miz with a Certificate of Participation.

Miz attacks Ambrose and then holds him so Maryse can get another slap in, but Ambrose dodges, getting up and landing Dirty Deeds.  This was the only time these two got on the show, which is odd.  It was a decent segment, and Miz is still absolutely killing it.  Miz and Maryse looked great tonight, like particularly great.

My Time Is Now….Again

If you haven’t watched the first episode of “Bring it to the Table”, the roundtable featured a discussion about John Cena, during which guests JBL and Paul Heyman both agree, which can hardly be contested, that John Cena has had the absolute greatest total run in the history of professional wrestling.  It is a great segment, and a great show.  I highly recommend it.

John Cena is driving hard on the road to “The 16 Time Champ is Here”.  Tonight, the white hot Baron Corbin gets a piece of The Face.  Both cut great promos leading up to the match, and AJ Styles was on commentary.  Corbin puts on a good show but ultimately this fire that has been lit inside Cena to prove he’s not over the hill has reinvigorated him.  Cena defeats Corbin with an Attitude Adjustment and stares down AJ Styles to close out the show.

John Cena will get 16.  If he doesn’t take it from AJ at Rumble, it’s coming at Wrestlemania.  And good for him.  He’s definitely put in the work to deserve to be in the same conversation with the King of Space Mountain.

The Women’s Division…Kind of

On tonight’s episode of Smackdown, we were given:

• Nikki Bella getting jumped in the back by Natalya just before her match against Lady Hart.  The match doesn’t actually start as they just brawl around on the outside and ramp areas.  Natty locks in the Sharpshooter then finally lets go and taunts the crowd while Bella screams in pain.
• They are seriously going with this Carmella-James Ellsworth thing.  I don’t understand where it is going, but he helped The Princess of Staten Island (who is from Massachusetts) get a win over some weird 1930s looking Jobber.  JBL had quite the time talking s*** during this one about both Ellsworth and the Jobber.
• Becky had a conversation with Daniel Bryan in the back, which Alexa interrupted.  They still haven’t told us who the Luchadora was, but next week, to prevent the Luchadora from interfering in Becky’s title opportunity, Lynch-Alexa Pt. 987 will be inside a steel cage.  Becky should put on quite a show in that one.
• Did Naomi piss someone in creative off?  They were feeling the glow like crazy for a while there and now I can’t remember when I saw her last.
• Daniel Bryan did mention Eva Marie as a potential suspect as Luchadora.  It’s unlikely, but that’s the first mention of her in a while that wasn’t Mick Foley trying to trade Sami Zayn for her.

Smackdown Women’s Division Creative…..You just made the list.

Heel Ziggler will save us all

Last week, Ziggler turned heel by Superkicking Kalisto after the Luchador had come to his aid because he “doesn’t need anybody.”  Tonight’s episode of Smackdown would solidify this heel turn, as Kalisto’s demand for a match against Motley Crue’s biggest fan would end with a retribution victory for Kalisto, but Ziggler would beat the living hell out of him with a chair afterwards.

Apollo Crews appeared to be coming to save Kalisto, but Ziggler just beat the hell out of him too.  I’m going to have to get used to this Heel Ziggler, but I think it’s going to be great for him.  Character arcs are so important.  I look forward to what he’s going to give us in 2017 after being one of my favorites in 2016.  His work with Miz closing out the year was great.  His Twitter feed is also pretty amazing.  Conveniently enough he already had @HeelZiggler.

American Alpha are national treasures and should be asked to perform during the inauguration

American Alpha would defend their new Tag Team Titles against the previous champions, The Wyatt Family with Randy Orton.  I’ve discussed my love of Alpha at length, so I’ll skip it tonight.

Both teams looked strong in this one, but ultimately Luke Harper on the apron would open the door for Chad Gable to get the roll up on Orton for the win and American Alpha retain.

Following the match, Orton and Harper would get in a shoving match that Wyatt broke up by….shoving both men away from each other.  Harper would go for a big boot but Wyatt would seem to inadvertently take the force of it.  Orton and Harper would then just kind of stare at each other until Wyatt gets back in the ring and seems to talk them down again.

I’m going to close tonight’s recap with a hypothesis:  Orton and Harper are going to turn on Wyatt.  The common idea is that they’re going to leave Harper the odd man out.  But after tonight, I think Orton may have infiltrated the Family in order to break it apart from the inside, but he and Harper have bonded on the idea of bringing down their oppressor in Wyatt.

And that’s our show.

I enjoyed it.  The last two were really good so they were going to have a rough time keeping up the pace, and I think they were up against Obama’s Farewell Address but Sports Entertainment waits for no man, even POTUS.

Keep an eye out this week, we’ve got a lot of year end-first of the year stuff coming your way, and we’re kicking the podcast back off in the next week or so.