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LAIMAN'S LINKS Marissa's Blog Support In Laiman's Terms on Patreon Marissa’s podcast Inciting Incident Facebook Page DaWrestlingGuy.com Twitter - @RisMcCool Email - [email protected] Order The PC Lie Order False Start: Releasing 4-21-17 Or at http://www.wyrmwoodpublishing.com/books/ IN LAIMAN'S TERMS #287 - Thoughts on SD Live - Superstar Shakeup 1. Oh wow, Kevin Owens got drafted to Smackdown. Who saw that coming? And he wants to be the new face of America? I think the face that runs the place might have something to say about that? 2. Nope, instead the villain from Ferngully and his entrance take over the arena. Corbin has facial expressions and a smile. What is this sorcery? Interesting heel/heel combination to kick off the show. 3. KO is afraid he's got some baaaaad news. He's over-emphasizing every word like Patton Oswalt talking about people who say b-words. 4. Ohai Sami, good thing you kissed up to Kurt Angle. Sami must be responsible for the clean shave, because KO cannot believe it. It's real, it's damn real. Wait, whoops? 5. Next, we've got AJ Styles, possibly to make this into a tag team match, playa. Does anyone ever at least sometimes expect AJ to do the Diamond Cutter logo when he raises his hands like that? 6. Yeah, can't keep him heel with reactions like that. Reactions are only irrelevant to John Cena and Roman Reigns. 7. Daniel Bryan's next to show everyone what a ubiquitous pop sounds like, and is he gonna Teddy Long this shit? I bet he is. 8. Whoever wins the match at Payback becomes a Smackdown Live roster member, so the title can't be defended. They're making this up on the fly, aren't they? AJ Styles is just the latest recent former world champion to suddenly be fighting for the Intercontinental title chance. Weird. 9. Dolph Ziggler just came on the screen, so there's unintelligible yelling coming from the Peanut gallery. 10. Erick Rowan's mask is somewhere between Kane return 2011 and Freddy Kruger. He's facing Orton, who liked walking down that sperm at WrestleMania so much that they kept it. It's an Orton match, so I'll be mostly tuning out. Especially since Bray's gone, so Rowan got the jobber entrance and doesn't have much of a chance. 11. JBL calls it vintage Orton when he does the transitional ropes DDT. Though he now points at his temple... to show how smart he is? Then the Wyatt stinger goes off, and he's living out his fantasy of being an e-fedder who gets to have promos in the middle of matches. 12. Orton gets out of the ring, and attacks Orton with the stairs. All right then. How will he overcome this one? Apparently not right now. Rowan's music hits, and for a minute I thought it was Christian's theme. How strange would've that been? 13. Tag team champs get the jobber entrance too. Smackdown has no time for your shit, Usos. Shame Alpha weren't sent to RAW. I'd love to see them mentored by Kurt Angle. 14. These guys are so much fun to watch. I can't wait until they get more experience and start getting taken seriously. 15. Jordan is the face in peril after a commercial break. That's a reversal of the usual trope. That's right Jason, you get to be the Ricky Morton for once! Know your role! 16. Very nice moonsault from Chad Gable for a nearfall (NEAR-FALL!). 17. Remember when the Usos finally winning a tag title was such a big deal? 18. That pinfall attempt with Chad Gable really seemed like a three-count. Must've been the ref hitting the mat. Jey makes the safe after their super high-inverted bulldog thing. 19. The Usos attempt a high spot and they both get caught in suplexes! That was fucking awesome! 20. Looks like Usos are gonna retain. Lame. Great match, but damn. 21. Wait, are you serious? The Shining Stars have jumped to fill a silence void on the other show now? JBL says "I love it." That's officially more times than anyone has ever said "I love it" in regards to any incarnation of this tag team. The crowd chants "delete." Agreed. 22. Smackdown got Jinder Mahal too? Good JBL, someone in a comment was making a joke last night about how "at this rate, Smackdown was gonna get the Shining Stars, Jinder Mahal, and TROOF." I swear, if TROOF is the other "big" switch, I'm gonna break something. And what did I do to deserve having to watch a Jinder Mahal match two nights in a row? I couldn't have jinxed myself that badly! 23. Now we've got Mojo Rawley so they can brag about how much they love Gronk again. He's facing Jinder, JBLDammit. Mojo wins. And speaking of... Nope, not discussing my hatred of the Patriots. 24. JBL has a great line in there. "Spilling a beer is just wrong." Or as my dad would call it, "alcohol abuse." 25. They're so desperate to find something to talk about Jinder that they mention his body fat percentage. Riveting. 26. Oh goodie, let's re-enact the thing. Another beer gets spilled because it's HIL-ARIOUS! Celebrating with the sports guy. Yawn. 27. Now we've got ourselves some Naughty By Nature, and he's here to discuss the Women's Division and how he, unlike his sister, won't condescend to all of them with a sneer. Rinse and repeat for all the other divisions too. 28. This was just an excuse to have Naomi's entrance, wasn't it? 29. Ellsworth speaking makes me wonder what will happen if Enzo and Cass come over. Will they save us from their over-shilling appearances and from Ellsworth promos at the same time? Carmellsworth? KMN. I want Naomi's eye shadow. 30. Just announce that it's Charlotte already. Gee, I wonder if it's Charlotte. It's Charlotte. 31. Tamina? She's still on the roster? Will her push finally work this time? (Hint: No.) 32. Okay, now it's Charlotte. Nice swerve there, Shane-o. Peacock Shamrock is here, live and in color. 33. "Sami... Hey, Sami! You're on screen! Prepare for your match! Yeah sure, grab the tape, whatever, just do it!" 34. Sin Cara goes to Smackdown and nobody notices. Rusev has fallen so much that he's become an also-ran. One of the Vaudevillains are also out. So much wasted potential with that team. Does that mean we can put Jack Gallagher with him like he belongs? Or he could face Tye Dillinger and fill the irreplaceable void that Curt Hawkins has left within us all. Yeah, Tye wins. This feels like an extension of RAW last night. 35. I'm not sure if that's Lana or someone else, but it looks like she's about to tell some poor shmuck that he had it comin'. 36. Zigglesworth gets the jobber entrance, and there's suddenly a lace of obscenities behind me. Ziggles says "everyone's talking about the Superstar Shakeup," because Vince really needs to hear it again and be convinced that it has Jedi Mind Powers. 37. SHINSUKE! Please tell me he gets to do more than power orgasm at ringside this week. They should've saved this moment for this week. This is the only move that feels like a super big deal. I always hear how people don't know the NXT people and how they can't do it on the main stage, but it sure seems like a lot of people singing along with that theme. Interesting... 38. Shinsuke's smile alone is a contender for HAM this week. Can he repeat? 39. I swear I just saw Happy Gilmore in the crowd. 40. Listen to that crowd continue to sing the theme song! This is awesome! And he's gonna talk instead of make suggestive grins this time! Ziggles tries to kick, it doesn't work, and Shinsuke HAMs it up to the max. 41. Oh, Byron's here? Does that mean Mauro went to RAW? Please tell me we don't have to deal with Otunga as a freaking RAW announcer... 42. Corbin gets a hype video where he quotes Metallica lyrics. 43. I guess they sent Saxton to Smackdown so he could have a field day with the Booty'Os cereal. Now we have a Sami hype video. At least they're making the main event they're running out of time for seem like a big deal. 44. Corbin has made a lot of strides. I still think the poor guy needs a different hairstyle, and the fewer lines he has in promos the better, but he's grown on me. And we're about to get Zayn and Styles, and I am down with that. Sami doing the highspot is what's going to take us into break, and he would make the most sense to get this shot, all things considered... But that would mean we'd also have to see Zayn/Owens... again. 45. Is this a Kevin Owens match? Because we're hearing some of the wrestler commentary, and it's just not as fun without him. 46. Shift your weight, Corbin while you hold out your arms for the world's biggest Carlton hug. It's what you do. 47. For a televised match, this is pretty damn good. Great pace to it, everyone's shining, so there's still some of the good old Smackdown we know and love. Has AJ done that running knee to someone on the outside before? I like it! 48. Thought we were getting an indy spot there, but it swerves the expectation! Thank you! AJ bails, then the other two duck the Forearm. I like that spot. Or lack of spot. Spot Remover. Thing. 49. Sami hits the Helluva Kick on Corbin, and then AJ wins with the Forearm. So... He's truly making up for Ambrose. I mean, great match and all, but the logic makes no sense. 50. Not a terrible show, but pretty much an extension of last night with a great main event. Hopefully we can get back to real shows again next week. IN LAIMAN'S TERMS #286 - 6 Years Ago I swore back in 2011 that as long as I had a public forum, I would write something about him every year. It hasn't changed. I'll be back on this thread tonight with Smackdown, but this needs to be written, for my own sake if nobody else's. 6 years ago today, I found out the news. The news that our friend Larry Sweeney; wrestler, manager, and all-around tremendous human being; had died. This struck a lot of us hard; anyone who ever had the pleasure of being around him remembers him as being the life of the room. There was a sad darkness to counter that though, and it ultimately got the best of him. It also started a streak that I'm hoping finally breaks this year of someone dying in my life between the dates of April 6-14. That's one streak I'm in favor of being broken. I first saw Larry Sweeney in 2006, and I admit it, I didn't get it at first. He looked like some combination of Ric Flair and Koko B. Ware, though I later found out that was pretty intentional. But the more time I saw him, he became infectious. He had this unique presence about him that made you regard him as a person, even if you didn't care for the character. I became enamored with the latter first. Regardless of crowd disposition, he would always come out and meet the fans, shilling merchandise, taking pictures, and always be willing to have fun. Here's a video he did for the sake of a silly little LiveJournal community I was running at the time. |
