WWE SmackDown Live – June 11, 2019 (Review)

The Best of SmackDown Live

The Pest of the World

Shane McMahon doesn’t rile me up as much as he does most others. I find the Chairman’s delusional son largely palatable. On a scale of raw mushrooms to roast potatoes, Shane is a solid boiled cabbage. Passable, if mostly still undesirable.

So when a beleaguered Miz was tasked with inviting Shane and his bunch of cronies onto MizTV to start the night, I didn’t curl up into an exasperated ball on my living room floor. That reaction is reserved for Baron Corbin segments.

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Instead I rather enjoyed Shane’s smarmy smugness, Elias’ signature musical performance and Drew’s terrifying promise of violence. Despite being handed a strict script to follow, Miz soon allowed his anger to get the best of him. He called Shane “a talentless hack who won the lottery by being born into the McMahon family“. Shane O’Mac fired back with his token joke about Miz’s dad sharing half his DNA with a baked potato.

A few tense seconds later and Shane booked Miz into a match. The ‘A-Lister’ would face Elias, then McIntyre, and – if he somehow managed to survive those two encounters – he’d get a shot at Shane.

Jokes aside, I rather enjoyed this opening segment. It reaffirmed Shane as the spoilt rich-kid who surrounds himself with bigger stars in an effort to appear more important. And set up Miz as the fighting underdog with the odds stacked against him. At least, I assume, until Roman Reigns turns up… (post-match edit: Roman never turned up).

The Gauntlet of Midcarders

Elias and Miz had exactly the type of match you’d expect Elias and Miz to have. It was a carefully-paced, entirely safe encounter that ran for about 5 minutes. To end the contest, Miz hit the Skull-Crushing Finale for the 1-2-3. On to Drew McIntyre (and, frustratingly, a commercial which took up three-quarters of the screen).

As with the first fall, Miz and Drew put on a broadly okay performance. It was mostly rest holds, broken up by the occasional power move. But by this point I was just waiting for the near inevitable Miz victory, and the ensuing face-off with Shane.

Things didn’t go quite as expected though. And I’m not just talking about Miz’s out-of-character attempt at a springboard… something… that ended with Miz slipping and almost breaking his neck. Instead, some Shane interference led to McIntyre landing the Claymore and pinning Miz.

Wait. Spoke too soon. #SDLive @shanemcmahon @mikethemiz https://t.co/99hjs3rwLX pic.twitter.com/dCmZQa1vSx

— WWE (@WWE) June 12, 2019

Despite losing the second bout, an overconfident Shane decided that Miz nevertheless deserved a crack at him and so called for the bell. A brief flurry by a resurgent Miz was, however, cut off by ‘The Best in the World’ who trapped Miz in the best triangle choke in the world. Miz passed out and Shane celebrated like it was Saudi Arabia in 2018!

The Yolo County Tag Team Champions

The Planet’s tag team champions were set to face two local jobbers, billed only as the “Yolo County Tag Team Champions”, in a tag title unification match. They even had pretty spiffy-looking paper titles, labelled with permanent marker. It was excellent.

Those are some beautiful titles. 😍😍 #SDLive pic.twitter.com/LQTvKxHSaK

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) June 12, 2019

Before the match could start though, Heavy Machinery’s music hit. The team of ‘steaks and weights’ felt that they were more deserving of a shot at the SmackDown Live Tag Team title holders. Bryan however, didn’t believe that Otis and Tucker had sufficiently proven themselves and so invited Heavy Machinery to have a crack at the jobbers.

The giant duo quickly dispatched of the ‘Best of Yolo County’, before thwarting an attempted blindsiding by Bryan and Rowan. From top to bottom, this was an entertaining segment. Heavy Machinery, the Planet’s Champion and two lads holding paper championships – what more could you ask for?

The Value of Six-Man Tags

SmackDown ended with what’s quickly becoming a WWE staple: the six-man tag match.

Just a day after Raw put on a similarly entertaining contest, SmackDown closed the night with the pre-advertised bout pitting the New Day against the team of Ziggler, KO and Sami Zayn.

This was a decent match, although nowhere near as flashy as the one we saw on Monday night. Once again, the contest was bogged down by WWE’s insistence on staying true to its rigid formula: one member of the babyface team gets worked over for most of the match, someone gets a hot-tag, everything breaks down and then one team wins.

On this occasion it was Xavier Woods who got isolated by the heels. He was worn down for far too long before hitting a DDT on Owens, affording him just enough time to tag in Big E. The Biggest of E’s (seriously, the dude is buff af) then ran wild on Owens, Sami and Ziggler, leading to complete chaos. Eventually Kofi and Sami became the legal men in the match, and the WWE Champion landed a Trouble in Paradise for the win.

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It was a fun, if largely forgettable, way to end the night.

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