SmackDown Live, Dec. 5 review: 3 takeaways

On Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live, the blue brand’s GM may have come to a disturbing revelation about the commissioner. That, and much more. Here’s what we learned.

San Diego played host to SmackDown Live Tuesday night. The blue brand had been in a rhythm lately. Tuesday night’s episode had a chance to keep that streak going. In some spots, it hit. In other spots, it missed. That’s the way that it goes sometimes, but it is a little bit unfortunate.

Before we get to our takeaways, here are a few quick observations.

SmackDown Live operates much better when AJ Styles is around. I’m guessing that since Tribute to the Troops was filmed earlier, he was used then and held out tonight. Same goes for Jinder Mahal. The video package they aired for the title match was A-grade material. But, yeah. “The Phenomenal One” is the straw that stirs the drink.

We took steps forward in the U.S. Title program. They primarily revolved around Dolph, who took out both Bobby Roode and Baron Corbin. Conceptually, nothing was really that wrong with this. It’s just difficult, in 2017, to really care about Dolph Ziggler. Bobby’s the best personality of the three, and I’d hazard that we’ll probably end up seeing him win the U.S. Title at Clash of Champions. At least that’s probably the smart play, because unfortunately, Baron’s getting a bit lost in the shuffle right now.

The Bludgeon Brothers won again. They squashed some dudes. It was a hoot. I’m not sure where they stand in the tag team division. As for who they beat last week, well, we also did hear from Mojo Rawley. Everything about it was pretty logical. Hopefully, Mojo gets a good run as a mid-card/upper card heel. I do think he’s got it in him, and Tuesday night’s promo showed that.

And now, onto the takeaways from this episode of SmackDown Live.

A Riott is snuffed out

Credit to WWE. For the last few weeks, they shied away from their usual missteps in booking the women. Both factions have looked very strong. Both got their kicks in, taking out much of the women’s roster on both shows.

This past week on RAW, Absolution was heavy in attacking their counterparts. Then there’s what happened on SmackDown Live tonight.

Before we get into the Clash of Champions decision, let’s talk about what happened here. Riott Squad intervened with the entity formerly known as the Welcoming Committee. Nattie, in her own way, tried to butter Ruby, Liv and Sarah up. They seemed to take it and then walked away. After that, Tamina wrestled Women’s Champion Charlotte, and Charlotte proved victorious.

Following a spiel by Nattie, the Riott Squad went down to the ring. Ruby, Sarah and Liv seemed ready to pounce yet again. And then… Tamina threw a right hand at Sarah. Then… Tamina kept dishing out punches, and Liv and Ruby skated over to… break up the fight. Charlotte and Nattie walked away unscathed. And nothing happened after that.

What on Earth?

With the way that things looked, it seemed evident that the Riott Squad was about to wreak havoc again. They beat the crap out of Naomi two weeks in a row, sent Becky Lynch packing and put Naomi on the shelf last week. That made them look really strong, and that’s totally fine, too. It was great booking for the newbies to take out two former SDL Women’s Champions in consecutive weeks. It made them look legit. Now, this week, the three come down to the ring, circle it like sharks, and only Tamina’s couple of punches get dished out? They don’t even go after Natalya, who was so obviously full of it while she was trying to brown nose them. The Women’s Champion somehow walks away from the scene without any damage? None of them even attack Carmella?

There’s almost no sense in this whatsoever. The trio had rampaged everything for two straight weeks. Now they come out, and instead of having chaos ensue, they break up the fight to try and save their partner. They didn’t go after Tamina. The girls merely pulled her away. Before, they made a fuss about starting a riot and controlled the situation before it could get out of hand.

I get trying to protect them and build toward a bigger match. And you have to try and make your new girls look great. This segment didn’t hit at all, and it doesn’t seem to be working well, either. It would be one thing if all the girls revolted against them. But that wasn’t what happened. Furthermore, the three of them didn’t even get to Lana, Tamina or Carmella. And when they had the opportunity to, Tamina punked Sarah out with punches, and Ruby and Liv didn’t bother to go after her or the other two.

Meanwhile, back to Clash of Champions, where Charlotte will be facing Natalya in a Lumberjack Match. Nattie and Charlotte’s feud has been pretty hit-or-miss so far, and with the inclusion of the new ladies, it doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything to distinguish themselves. Instead, they’re inviting more chaos. And it will be difficult for Ruby, Liv and Sarah to break out. Especially if we have situations like tonight, where they aren’t able to get in anything at all.

RAW is doing this stable business right in having Paige be the focus and Mandy and Sonya doing her dirty work. They’ve also done a good job in having everything revolve around them for the last three weeks. RAW has also gotten EVERYONE (with the exception of Nia Jax, who looks like she may be involved with… Enzo?) involved. SmackDown Live had the Riott Squad be the focus the last two weeks. But tonight, they were merely just faces in the crowd, and are now part of a lumberjack match where they won’t even be the focus there, either. They took a significant step back in terms of their havoc-wreaking ways.

I will give the benefit of the doubt in saying that there’s a lot of time left of this angle. Tuesday night was a definite whiff for these ladies, though. Hopefully, it’s not a sign of things to come.