3 interesting observations from this week's SmackDown Live (August 13, 2019)
From Roman Reigns giving Buddy Murphy his biggest match so far to Kevin Owens being fined $100,000 by Shane McMahon, this week's edition of WWE SmackDown Live (13th August 2019) featured a lot of contrasting moments.
Majority of the blue brand's weekly episodes seem to be operating on autopilot at this point. The "Roman Reigns' attacker" angle keeps us hooked for next week's show, but apart from that, there are not a whole lot of noteworthy moments to care for. Still, there are no awful incidences that are likely to occur on SmackDown Live, and I guess that is a good thing.
Here are a few interesting observations from this week's edition of SmackDown Live:
#3 The Shane McMahon situation feels like a nagging problem
You can exactly map out the events that will follow on SmackDown Live when a 10-minute Shane McMahon altercation (approximately) opens the show.
As I pointed out last week, a match between Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon at SummerSlam wasn't going to change a whole lot of things on the blue brand.
This is because Shane had nothing to lose going into that match, to begin with. As expected, Owens had to pay a heavy price (literally) on last night's show. It almost feels like The Prize Fighter is stuck in a powerless situation against Shane McMahon.
Unlike the late 90s, things have changed considerably to a point where you can't just stun your boss whenever you want to. Shane McMahon holds an advantage over the rest of the superstars nowadays, and it feels like a nagging problem because there is very little one can do about it until next week's show.
So basically, segments like these end up irritating fans instead of presenting Shane McMahon as a legitimate threat to look out for.