{"id":12149,"date":"2019-04-17T21:43:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T20:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=12149"},"modified":"2019-04-17T21:44:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T20:44:00","slug":"smackdown-live-16-04-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/17\/smackdown-live-16-04-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Smackdown Live 16\/04\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Smackdown\nLive 4\/16\/19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Superstar Shakeup has come and gone\nand the landscape of Smackdown Live has changed a little bit. The men coming on\nover to Tuesday nights are Finn Balor (and his Intercontinental Championship),\nElias, Buddy Murphy, Chad Gable, Heavy Machinery, Apollo Crews, and Roman\nReigns. Joining the Smackdown Live women\u2019s roster are Bayley, Ember Moon, Liv\nMorgan, Mickie James, Nikki Cross, and Kairi Sane. Things have definitely been\nshaken up so let\u2019s take a look at all that happened on the blue brand this\nweek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big\nO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Owens opened the show with the Kevin\nOwens Show, including speaking Quebecois and mentioning that his family was\nthere in the front row. His guests were Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods. Woods\nwas very upset that Raw now has most of UpUpDownDown\u2019s roster. Owens offered to\ntake Big E\u2019s place for the time being and was christened with a unicorn horn\nand crop top. While Woods\u2019 concerns about his channel are valid and Owens has\nthe same amount of rhythm as a white dad at a barbeque, this was truly a fun\nopening segment. I\u2019m also a big softie for wrestlers speaking other languages\nfluently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: A      <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finn\nBalor vs Mustafa Ali<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balor had his official Smackdown Live\ndebut, complete with his blue trunks. This was a quickly paced match with a lot\nof good offense between both competitors. Ultimately Balor won the match his\nCoup de Grace after Ali missed the 054. This was a good debut match for Balor\nand I think this could easily develop into a feud for the Intercontinental\nChampionship. Commentary was definitely hyping up Ali and getting to tangle\nwith another popular superstar can only help his upward momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winner:\nFinn Balor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade:\nA-<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carmella\nvs Charlotte Flair<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

R-Truth was ringside for Carmella. Back\nfrom her vacation, Flair slapped Carmella around for a couple of minutes before\nlocking in a figure eight and forcing Carmella to tap out. This is about what I\nexpected from the match as Flair needed a rebound win after WrestleMania.\nUnfortunately it also kind of devalued Carmella\u2019s battle royal win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the match, Lars Sullivan showed up\nand attacked Truth. He stared at Carmella for an uncomfortable amount of time\nbefore sauntering away. I guess he\u2019s going to be wrecking people on both brands\nthen? Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winner:\nCharlotte Flair<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade:\nB-<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nthe Smackdown Ladies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becky Lynch arrived and talked about\ntaking challenges. Ember Moon interrupted and said she was going to make a name\nfor herself. Bayley then showed up, said she\u2019s now a singles competitor, and\nshe wants Lynch\u2019s titles. The IIconics showed up and mocked everyone. Paige\ncomes out to introduce her new tag team but Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, who\nhave seemingly fixed their issues, said that Absolution is here and they don\u2019t\nneed Paige. Paige instead introduced the team of Asuka and Kairi Sane. All the\nwomen brawled as Lynch looked on. I\u2019m not always a fan of there being just one\nwomen\u2019s segment with all the women on the roster in it, but I think it worked\nhere and I found the constant interruptions to be kind of funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade:\nB+<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asuka,\nKairi Sane, Bayley, and Ember Moon vs Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, and the\nIIconics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the women\u2019s segment, we had this\nmatch made official during a commercial break. The IIconics\u2019 selling throughout\nthe match was hilarious, especially Billie Kay\u2019s. Sane won the match for the\nface team with her insane elbow drop. After the last couple of months, this is\nexactly the reshuffle we needed for the women\u2019s division. I\u2019m all for Paige\nbeing a mouthpiece for Asuka and Kairi Sane as we know how Vince can be when it\ncomes to superstars who don\u2019t speak English at a certain level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winner:\nAsuka, Kairi Sane, Bayley, and Ember Moon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade:\nB<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin\nOwens, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods vs Rusev, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Cesaro<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owens did the Big E intro (which got a\nhilarious response pic from Big E himself) and this six-man tag match was very\nfun. A Trouble in Paradise and a stunner won the match for the New Day. I was\nexpecting Owens to turn on Kingston and Woods but he didn\u2019t and instead we got\nthis wonderfully crowd-pleasing bout. Also I was expecting Owens to be in a\ncrop top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winner:\nKevin Owens, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade:\nB+<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nBig Dog is Blue<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. McMahon tried to fake us out by\nbringing out Elias, which is a pretty good acquisition in and of itself, but to\nabsolutely no one\u2019s surprise it turned out to be Roman Reigns. Reigns then\nproceeded to beat up Elias before superman punching McMahon. Smackdown Live is\nthe big dog\u2019s yard now! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade:\nA-<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final\nThoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Owens as Big O was a lot of fun. I\nenjoyed watching him eat pancakes and learn to do the New Day\u2019s intro. I\u2019m also\nin the minority, but I actually like the creepy puppet vignettes we\u2019ve been\ngetting from Bray Wyatt. In my opinion, Smackdown definitely struck big with\nthe shakeup this year and there\u2019s potential for a lot of new matchups now.\nSurvivor Series this year is going to be stacked!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall Grade: A-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smackdown Live 4\/16\/19 The Superstar Shakeup has come and gone and the landscape of Smackdown Live has changed a little bit. The men coming on over to Tuesday nights are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":10754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,22,193,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-reviews","category-smackdown-live","category-wwe-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-39X","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/smackdown-1.jpg?fit=1364%2C768&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12150,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12149\/revisions\/12150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}