Best and Worst of SmackDown Live: 25th April, 2017
SmackDown Live came to us this week from Des Moines, Iowa. On the heels of a disappointing Raw, we had high expectations from the show overall. Unfortunately, while the segments in this week’s show seemed awesome at a preview level, the actual episode taught us a rather valuable lesson. All that glitters is not gold.
While the episode wasn’t absolutely dreadful, it had more bad moments than good ones. There seems to be an air of complacency around SmackDown Live after some solid episodes immediately following Wrestlemania 33.
Where did they go wrong this week? What aspects of the show did they deliver upon? Let's mull on them in our ‘Best and Worst’ countdown.
#1 Worst: Absolutely ruining Shinsuke Nakamura
Shinsuke Nakamura is not a native English speaker. He hails from the land of the Rising Sun and makes up for his lack of promo ability with his charisma and in-ring skills. As we had speculated in our preview, an interview segment to open the show would expose Nakamura’s only weakness to the world. Sadly, all our fears came to pass this week.
While Dolph Ziggler interrupted Nakamura before he could begin to cut a promo, Ziggler’s own promo comparing Nakamura to Michael Jackson did him no favours. Nor did the new nickname of ‘The Artist’, replacing 'The King of Strong Style’, presumably a tribute to the legendary Prince.
The whole segment came off as hokey and uninspired, and the writing seemed far inferior to the usual standards of creativity that SmackDown is known for. We hope that ‘Creative’ realises that you do not book Nakamura like you book the rest of the roster!