smackdown

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania will play host to Smackdown Live this week. Kurt Angle is backstage in his hometown and this week’s show will set up the blue brand’s Road to WrestleMania.

Opening Segment

Before the show started they played an amazing promo package depicting the set-up which led to the outstanding AJ Styles and Shane McMahon segment that happened after Smackdown Live went off the air last week.

Once the show starts, Daniel Bryan is on the phone. He said Miz has a great Miz TV planned, Mickie James will face Alexa Bliss, and then AJ Styles walks up and interrupts him. AJ said the next person who tells him to calm down is going to get slapped in the face. Okay, we’d like to see that.

He is really butthurt over last week and isn’t letting it go. Styles said he can do something to Shane McMahon and he’s going to go out to tell the WWE Universe what’s on his mind. Daniel told AJ that Shane still isn’t there, and AJ didn’t seem to like that response. D-Bry said AJ needs to think about his career and Styes replies that is exactly what he plans on doing.

There’s only two men on the broadcast booth this week. Tom Phillips and JBL. Where is Mauro and Otunga? Apparently, David is filming a movie, and Mauro is stuck in the snow and can’t get there.

AJ Styles comes out and he doesn’t look happy. He says he is sick of being messed with. He said he should have had a red carpet laid out for him so he could walk to WrestleMania. He compared himself to a circus monkey jumping through hoops to get a match at Mania. He said John Cena didn’t have to jump through hoops to get a title shot.

AJ said he didn’t get his rematch, instead, he got a triple threat match that he didn’t lose. After that, he got an Elimination Chamber match and then he got screwed out of a battle royal match and that match against Harper. He said Randy Orton burned down a house and didn’t get arrested, he got a title shot.

He said he put Smackdown Live on the map and he put everyone’s butts in their seats. He seemed to have the crowd behind him to a good degree. He said he wanted to slap the kale chips out of Daniel Bryan’s mouth, but Bryan is just a puppet. He concluded his promo by saying he was going to have a talk with Shane McMahon about his career, “if I even have one.” He threw down the mic and left in a real huff.

Becky Lynch vs. Natayla

These two ladies have huge grudges against each other. Natalya has been running through as many women as she can get her hands on so it would seem with a gas tank full of jealousy and the ticking clock of her career in the back of her head.

The Steampunk Princess and The Queen of Harts took it to each other in a big way to start off this match until Natalya asked for a timeout and offered a handshake. Becky responded by slapping her in the face. That was classy.

Natalya hit Becky with a Michinoku driver on the outside to Lynch and rolled her inside to continue the punishment. Becky turned it around rather quickly and caught Nattie with the Dis-Arm-Her and got the submission win.

Suddenly Carmella came from behind and hit her. It was kind of awkward and it should have probably meant more. James Ellsworth walked up the ramp rubbing the back of his neck like he was still hurt from last week’s John Cena match.

They aired a video package of the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards where John Cena hosted the event. That was a quite fun night of cross promotion for sure.

Backstage Segment

Carmella and Ellsworth are backstage. Carmella is questioned as to why she just jumped Becky and Nattie. Carmella then said that D-Bry said any woman on Smackdown could be in the match at Mania, and she’s taking the hippy literally. So, that really opens up the playing field. Thinking we might see more than just Carmella throw their snapback hat in the ring.

Miz TV

This segment was pretty awesome and it ended in booking a major WrestleMania match. Therefore, it got its own article. We know you’ll want to read it. Just click here and all of your dreams will come true.

Backstage Segment

AJ Styles is seen backstage waiting very impatiently for Shane-O Mac. He doesn’t look happy.

Mickie James vs. Alexa Bliss

This match might be awesome if they give it some time. Both of these ladies are two of the best in the Smackdown women’s division. They used to be buddies, but we all know how long those types of things last in WWE… just ask Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho, or Trish Stratus and Mickie James.

These two ladies locked up and rolled around the ring, that was nice. They traded shots and neither one really got too much of an advantage because it flip-flopped a bit during the bout. This match looks like it got a little bit real for a second when Mickie went for a baseball slide and Alexa caught her, spun her around, and James clocked her head on the LED ring post. Little Miss Bliss then grabbed Mickie’s legs and sent her twisting onto the floor below. That looked brutal.

Once they made it back to the ring Mickie never appeared to get her senses back. She was fighting and doing her spots, but there was something about her that didn’t seem all there. Someone probably needs to run a concussion test on her after that bump to the outside.

But, in spite of that awful looking bump, Mickie James won the match with a Mick Kick. Alexa Bliss loses a lot for a champion. She’s like the Rey Mysterio Jr. of the Smackdown women’s division.

The Backstage Assault

AJ Styles is backstage in the parking garage. Renee Young asks him what his intentions are with Shane McMahon. He starts to answer her just as Shane McMahon pulls up. What great timing.

AJ jumped Shane and beat the living crap out of him. He threw Shane into a car very hard, then pinned him against an ice machine and kept kicking the ice out of him.

Styles then threw Shane’s head through a car window as Fit Finlay ran in to break them up. Renee said Shane was bleeding and McMahon couldn’t even get a word out.

Shane sure looked like he was bleeding hard way on the top of his head. Then again, he’s no stranger to breaking glass the hard way, of course, that was 15 years ago and a lot has changed since then.

Brutal segment, and it all looked very real. AJ Styles is a freaking mad man. Well, that’s one way to get us to give a crap about this feud.

After the break, Smackdown returned and Shane was shown being treated by the trainer where he said he had a scalp laceration. Although Shane’s face was covered in blood he did a great job keeping blood off of his white shirt. You know this is serious because JBL said Shane needs to go to a hospital and not a “medical facility.”

AJ Styles was backstage packing up his stuff where The Usos and Curt Hawkins told him how crazy he is for attacking Shane. Daniel Bryan met AJ in the hall as he left where Bryan told AJ “what you did was the act of a coward.”

AJ asked, “what are you gonna do, fire me?”

“Damn right I’m going to fire you,” Daniel replied. “Get out.” The Bearded GOAT pointed toward the door and AJ Styles left the building, apparently without his job.

Mojo Rawley vs. Dolph Ziggler

Mojo and Ziggler are out next to try and get our minds off the fact that we just saw Shane get destroyed in a parking garage and AJ lost his job in the process.

Mojo is great, but what will really help him is when Rob Gronkowski finally jumps to WWE and joins him in a tag team. He spent a good amount of time beating Ziggler around the ring. Rawley threw Dolph over the top rope a couple of times to remind him that he could eliminate him from an over-the-top-rope battle royal and to remind us how their little rivalry started.

Dolph eventually decided he didn’t want to mess with him anymore so he just left and took the 10-count in stride.

Neville is shown backstage hyping 205 Live and the #1 Contender’s match on the purple-rope show tonight which will take place after Smackdown. That should be fun

Randy Orton Segment

The Viper is in the building and he looks like he’s got a lot on his mind. He said that you can learn a lot from a viper because they lie in wait and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. He said an RKO would have been too easy, so he figured out how to hurt Bray Wyatt the most. He said he devised a plan to get close to Bray and join his family. Seriously, this sounds exactly like what Daniel Bryan said in 2014, only WWE’s favorite hippy didn’t burn down Wyatt’s compound. Therefore, Randy Orton gets an “A” for originality and arsonist.

Bray Wyatt appeared on the screen and while using a sea of creepy analogies he said Sister Abigail still lives within him. He said Orton thought he burned her soul, but she’s the spawn of Satan so her heart still beats. Bray said his duty is to purge all of the world’s infidels and he would start with Randy Orton. Neat!

Then Bray looked like he rubbed the dirt from her grave all over his face. Creepy and badass, Bray looked like he was having a great time playing in the dirt. Randy Orton obviously hasn’t broken Bray Wyatt just yet. At least Randy looked really cool posing outside that burning building.

Backstage Segment

Baron Corbin is interviewed about what he did to Dean Ambrose last week. Corbin cut a pretty mean sounding promo and said he sent Dean to the hospital. They keep throwing that hospital word around like they’ve never heard the term, “medical facility” before.

American Alpha vs. The Usos

The Samoan Twins didn’t look like they were out there to play games. American Alpha talked some smack to the Usos before the match, but it didn’t look like they did half as good of a job as Jimmy and Jey did.

However, once the match started, American Alpha took over pretty quickly. JBL announced they were in Kurt Angle’s hometown so that probably takes away the possibility we’ll be seeing him.

The split screen shows Shane McMahon walking like a zombie backstage surrounded by agents all trying to get him to go to a hospital.

The tag match continued in the ring and these two teams were really bringing it. It’s just a shame the focus of the show wasn’t on the match in the ring. Instead, it was all about Shane McMahon.

The Usos isolated Jason Jordan as the crowd chanted “We want Gable.” Jordan had a really good look on his face like his eyes were about to pop out of his skull during a rest-hold headlock as the screen split to Shane McMahon once again walking backstage. An agent could be heard saying, “You need to rethink this Shane,” as Tom “Snapchat” Phillips said Shane-O-Mac was on his way out to the ring.

Usos got the win over American Alpha marking the second time a champion lost a match on this episode of Smackdown Live.

Shane McMahon is guided to the Gorilla Position by Jamie Noble and Fit Finlay, he walks past Adam Pearce and enters the arena.

Shane said, “AJ Styles says he doesn’t have an opponent for WrestleMania, he does now.”

Then the broadcast shut off immediately and we were thrown directly into an awful episode of “Crisley Knows Best.” That was a sudden, abrupt ending and seemed like a production flub. But apparently AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon is now officially announced for WrestleMania 33.

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