SmackDown Live review (Dec. 19): 3 takeaways
The hierarchy continues to disintegrate
It’s now clear that Daniel Bryan knows exactly who he’s dealing with. He’s dealing with a McMahon. He’s dealing with somebody who, at their core, is vindictive and won’t let anything go until they get their comeuppance. Bryan is no longer working with the bouncy, fun fan favorite that Shane McMahon was when he first started as commissioner of SDLive. He’s now working with a McMahon.
Sunday night’s Clash of Champions event proved to be tumultuous night for the hierarchy and their relationship. Shane stopped counting, on purpose, which led to a fast count by Bryan, ultimately leading to Owens and Zayn’s victory. You can’t say Shane didn’t have it coming after months of torture towards those two. And also, the many years before where he’s screwed over many others.
But on SmackDown Live, Bryan confronted Shane face-to-face. And in that conversation, Shane said the emotions got the better of him, but he kept constantly talking about all the things Owens and Zayn did to him and to the brand. There was that vindictiveness on display. There was the McMahon in Shane, talking about how he wanted to avenge all that. What was Bryan’s reasoning for his actions on Sunday? He wanted to protect Shane from himself. And you can point to Shane’s physical encounters with Owens and with AJ Styles earlier in the year as to why Bryan would want to do such a thing. Bryan can stand on that ground of morality, and you can look to his interactions with The Miz, and how much Miz antagonized him, and how little Bryan got physical with him when he had every right to.
I’ve been saying that Bryan found out that a McMahon is always a McMahon to their core for weeks now. Tuesday night, that lightbulb may have really lit up in his head when Shane was talking about doing things from a business standpoint. That set the stage for this bomb from Bryan:
“From a business standpoint, everyone. From a business standpoint. Are you saying that I should’ve done what was best … for business?”
Shane had hardly an answer for that. And Bryan, talking about how much he fought against that vantage point, told Shane to fire him if he was going to do anything. Shane didn’t have much of an answer for him and soon left the scene.
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It seems clear that at some point, this thing is going to explode. Quite honestly, this is one of the more compelling angles that WWE’s trotted out in a long time. There are a lot of layers and there’s a lot to like. The slow burn with it has been particularly well done. There’s no telling how it ends right now, but this part of SDLive is must-see TV.