Smackdown Thread

Paige is chewing Jason Ayers out for refereeing a match without her consent, to which he explains that Miz said she agreed to the match.

The Vegas Boys roll up with an invoice claiming that Miz said Paige would give them $5000 each. She rips the invoice up and shoos both them and Jason away.

Randy Orton makes his entrance and gets on the mic.

He extols the virtue of the steel chair and its manifold uses before asking for tape to roll. The technician in the video truck takes a beat longer than you’d expect and we see footage of him EVIL’ing Rey Mysterio three weeks ago. He says that’s good but he can do better, and this is footage of him brutalizing Rey with a chair from TWO weeks ago.

He questions Mysterio’s acceptance of a chairs match against him on Sunday, which leads him to believe that Rey thinks he’ll get his revenge, but Rey’s a victim-- his victim, and once a victim, always a victim. All the boys in the locker room will be worried about TLC, but Mysterio has to concern himself with R... K... OH SHIT REY’S HERE WITH A CHAIR AND WAFFLING THE MASK COLLECTOR WITH IT!

DROPKICK VAN DAMINATOR! 619! ORTON RUNS OFF!

Becky Lynch is shown walking backstage when she runs into an interview.

The Man says in her first match back she has to road test both her face and her head in one of the most dangerous matches in WWE, against not one but two opponents, and two of the best, so no, she doesn’t have an advantage... but she loves it because fighting against the odds is what she does and she doesn’t care if it makes the doctors twitchy. On Sunday, she’ll remind the world just how much chaos she can bring when The Man comes around.

New vignette for Lars Sullivan where he calls TLC a minor tremor compared to the catastrophic earthquake when he comes to WWE.

A video package for AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan follows and AJ is interviewed backstage afterwards.

He says he’s biding his time, because no one wants to beat the hell out of Bryan more than him, but if he did, he wouldn’t be able to compete at TLC, so he’s counting down the days, hours, and minutes. The new Dan isn’t new at all, he’s the real Bryan, but there’s only one AJ Styles, who will do whatever it takes to get the WWE Championship back

Shane McMahon addressing the roster backstage.

He says last night on Raw (which gets raucous boos from the SmackDown superstars) the McMahon family ushered in a new era in WWE and that goes for SmackDown as well. They’re truly listening and they owe it to not just themselves, but for the greatest fanbase in the world, the WWE Universe. It all starts tonight, and he wants everyone to rip the brass ring down!

He brings Paige out and thanks her on behalf of everyone for her enormous contributions and says she’s not going anywhere, just her role is changed, and he raises her hand and leads a “Thank you, Paige!” chant.

In the arena, Becky Lynch makes her entrance.

She gets on the mic and says she doesn’t care who’s running the show, because The Man’s in charge, and she doesn’t really do meetings, so she’s out here with the people, where the real business is conducted, and the only thing she wants from the McMahon family is that they deliver Ronda Rousey to her. She tells Ronnie to listen up and says when she got in her business she faced her down in her own dressing room and ring.

At TLC Ronda cost her the title and didn’t even have the decency to fight her, pushing her ladder over inches from victory, and she’s worked too hard for too long to let some Roddy Piper cosplayer take it away from her!

Enter Charlotte Flair.

She tells Becky to take a number and stand behind the Queen, because Ronda stole HER opportunity. Lynch calls her a cosplayer also and says her days of standing behind her are long gone. Charlotte says Becky looking up to her is a “Then, Now, Forever” type thing and if Rousey hadn’t been there she’d have become an 8-time champion.

Enter newly-minted SmackDown Women’s Champion Asuka.

She shimmies and laughs before telling them to forget Ronda because she’s champion now. Lynch tells her to prove it and Flair says she should be thankful since she never beat her. Becky calls her a paper champion--

(NO CHANCE, THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE GOT!)

Enter Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

He wishes everyone a happy holidays and congratulates Asuka on winning the title, because it’s 2018 and we need surreal moments like that in WWE. He tells Becky and Charlotte their conduct is unbecoming, making excuses for things that happened in an anything goes match like TLC. Rousey said she was going to write the next chapter in both their careers, and they need to get over it and take charge and take it out on her.

McMahon asks Asuka how she’d like to defend her title, and she’s into it. He asks if anyone is ready for Asuka and introduces her challenger... NAOMI!

Naomi says Charlotte got her opportunities and Becky isn’t The Man anymore, and she wants the title.

Rusev and Lana are interviewed backstage.

He says he’s a man of action and he proved that Shinsuke Nakamura needs to be afraid of him when he crushed him. He’s handsome, a hunk, he’s got big biceps and a handsome beard that you could shave off and sell on eBay to make sweaters for babies and sell them for thousands of dollars, but Shinsuke looks like Sonic the Hedgehog. He may run fast and far, but when he gets his hands on him, he’ll take his United States Championship back on Rusev Day.

Jeff Hardy makes his entrance and gets on the mic.

He says he heard that Samoa Joe wants to apologize, and for the last few weeks he’s said some things about him and his demons that were true. He’s been weak and made mistakes, but that was then and this was now, and Jeff wakes up every day and worships the fact that he’s alive, well, and here, so bring it on, Joe, he wants to hear this apology face to face.

Samoa most obligingly makes his entrance. He apologizes... because this is no apology, no. He’s been forced to deceive him, because this is more important, this is an intervention. He tells Hardy to look at him and he’s known him for a long time and everyone’s very worried. It’s the holiday times and a man in his fragile condition, well, it can be really rough this time of year and eventually his demons are gonna come running back.

Jeff says the more he reminds him about his past, the more he tells himself he’s never going back, and he and his demons see right through Joe. He says Samoa attacks people’s weaknesses to cover up his insecurities, so what is it? The fact that he’s been her two years and hasn’t won one championship? Joe waves him off before charging in, but Jeff is ready... TWIST OF FATE!

We get video packages for Lars Sullivan, Lacey Evans, Heavy Machinery, Nikki Cross & EC3 who are all headed to the main roster so they're apparently going to be split between Raw & Smackdown, not sure on the rest, but I would assume Cross will join the rest of SAnitY on Smackdown

The Usos make their entrance to cut a promo.

They say with all the changes, one thing stays the same, and that’s that the Usos run SmackDown and they’ve still got gold on their mind and they call the Bar out to come and get jig--

Enter the Club. Karl Anderson says week after week it’s New Day, Usos, the Bar, week after week and they’re great teams having great matches but last week they watched them have a freakin’ rap battle and the Good Brothers haven’t been on SmackDown since August? Luke Gallows says that’s four months one of the greatest tag teams of the last decade have been on the sidelines, but no more, it’s time to clean the slate, clean house, and get paid, Hoot.

The Usos say they’re not why the Club fell through the cracks, but if they don’t step up, they’ll get stepped on, and the Usos don’t back down for nobody. They welcome them to the Uso Penitentiary and referee Danilo Anfibio separates them because we’ve got a match right now!

Daniel Bryan makes his entrance (staring down a “this sign wasted paper” sign on his way) and gets on the mic, saying he killed the Yes! Movement and destroyed the House That AJ Styles Built, but unlike us, he’s not about destruction, but rather creation of something better. And here on SmackDown he’s creating a brave new world, and he understands we won’t like it because we fear change.

How else to explain all of us continuing to lead these lives of vacuous consumption despite the evidence that we’re destroying the planet that gives us life? And the people of California are the guiltiest of them all, and the city of Fresno ranks number one in pollution in the state. He then proceeds to shame the crowd by shouting “Shame!” at them a bunch, in the time-honored tradition.

He says Isaac Asimov once wrote that self-education is the only kind of education there is, and for people like him and Asimov that might work, but we wouldn’t know wisdom if it was handed to us through a drive-through window. He warns the people not to try self-eduction because they will fail (I dunno, self-education’s how I figured out my gender nonsense, Dan), but lucky for us, we have someone to teach us how to live.

Bryan’s speaking of himself, of course