WWE Smackdown Live “Cowboy” Round-up: July 23rd, 2019

Is tonight going to be a “Smackdown Reunion”? Basically celebrating Smackdown’s storied history of recapping Monday Night Raw?

• I’m old enough to remember when New Day was the hottest heel act in wrestling in a long, long time. Unfortunately, when your heel act gets so hot that WWE turns you babyface, they take away all the edge that made you so popular to begin with. Why can’t you just be the same act, except now directed towards heels?
• Xavier booing Shane from commentary is very funny.
• The only element missing from this legendary Shane heel run is that he should bring out the gigantic golden “Best In the World” trophy from Saudi Arabia every night.
• Crowd, who thinks Shane is using old and boring tactics, starts a “CM Punk” chant.
• Idiotic crowd chants “You can’t wrestle” to Shane who has put on better matches than much of the current roster.
• Oh boy, it sounds like they are building to the “Loser quits WWE” match where Owens sends Shane on his way, gets cheered to high heavens, and the Cheetos-devouring internet has no idea they’ve been led on this path for 8 months.
• Shane stops Owens from beating him up by saying if he touches him, he won’t get the match at Summerslam. “That’s called power, folks.” Beautiful.
• This is interesting. Usually when the evil heel GM places you in a difficult match, it’s like “Your opponent, THE BIG SHOW” or some “threat” who is secretly a jobber that we all know has no chance to win. Shane books Kevin against Roman Reigns, who is legitimately booked stronger than anyone, of course. I love it. Gives the threat credibility!
• Elias named the “special guest timekeeper” for the Owens/Roman match later. “He’s not even wearing a watch”, says Xavier in a funny line.
• Pains me to say this, but Apollo probably should’ve stolen my beloved Bo Dallas’ gimmick. Not the motivational speaker, but basically so smiley and positive, yet constantly cheating to win and acting as if it’s some amazing accomplishment.
• That Olympic Slam near-fall worked on me. New Day on commentary really sold it.
• Crews put on a good match, but this trend of the champion always losing non-title matches needs to end. Nice to see the champ go over clean in one.
• Shawn Michaels will be on MizTV. “Cowboy” Bob rejects bald HBK. I hope he starts wearing a long-haired wig, not unlike Kane.
• Recap of the Raw Reunion last night. When Hogan does the “whatcha gonna do when the Raw Reunion runs wild on YOU, brother” and points at 93 year old Ric Flair, he looks at Hogan and says “Woo!” Ric is like my ex-girlfriend’s toy poodle. No matter what you did, he would just stare at you and lick you. “You’re a good boy!” Licks you. “You are being bad!” Licks you. “Want to go out?” Licks you. “Do you think The Miz is a horrible babyface?” Licks you. That’s what Flair does, except replacing licking with WOOs.
• I wish New Day were commentators instead of tag team champions. They are pretty good.
• Ziggler’s standard fare promo livened up by randomly burying Goldberg as “embarrassing” in the ring. I mean, he did almost paralyze Undertaker.
• Shawn Michaels called Dolph Ziggler a “second rate Shawn Michaels wannabe”, which is more fact than sick burn.
• Credit where it’s due. Nice “do something” promo from Miz.
• Are they really wasting “he attacked HBK” heat on Ziggler? Where the fuck is AJ and the Melrose Place crew?
• I mean The O.C.
• Up next is Ember Moon vs The Queen, Charlotte Flair. I have long said I am a big-time Ember mark, but if she gets a win over The Queen, there will be a very cranky “Cowboy” Bob for the rest of this recap.
• The Queen doesn’t get a proper entrance, as I faint like a character in a 1950’s soap opera.
• Bayley causes the distraction roll-up win for Ember. I’m shutting this show off.
• Okay fine, my journalistic integrity prevents me.
• So, in a confusing segment, Ember throws Bayley in the ring. Very heelish. Then attacks Charlotte. Which is kinda babyface? But then takes out Bayley with an eclipse, which is heelish?
• I think this is again a case of Viking Raiders-itis. You are forcing somebody to be heel that the crowd has no interest in hating. Ember Moon is cool. Great worker. Amazing finisher. Why would we boo her?
• I personally believe that Smackdown crowds are hotter than Raw crowds simply because of the 2 hour vs 3 hour time dynamic. At Raw, it’s like, “oh God, we are in for a fucking slog here. 3 hours of six-man tags? Better conserve my energy until shit actually goes down.” At Smackdown, it’s more like, “hey, we only have 2 hours. Better not waste it!”
• Kofi is here to “surprise” announce the unbelievably obvious choice of Randy Orton as his opponent. For Operation: Kofi Is a Legitimate Champion Despite All Evidence To The Contrary, this is the final step. See, Kofi has to beat an established, tippy-top dude to make him finally “legitimate”, and Randy and his 13 title reigns can take the clean loss. Kofi will drop the belt soon after.
• Finally this charade will end and Kofi will never come near the top title again.
• Again, if you don’t think Kofi is going over Randy cleaner than Shawn Michaels’ bald head at Summerslam, you have another thing coming.
• And once Adam Cole comes up, he will never come near “bay-BEEEEEE” again either.
• “Before he attacks me when I’m not looking.” Funny line from Kofi.
• “Let’s talk about the truth, what really happened. Let’s talk about real life.” I hate when wrestlers say this and send off a big blaring red siren WRESTLING IS FAKE WRESTLING IS FAKE out to the world. It takes you out of immersion.
• It’s a key component of Vince Russo’s downfall in WCW. “Everything you just watched is FAKE, but this, see THIS, is real. All that other stuff? Fake cartoony crap.”
• “Let’s be real Randy, I botched in a match and you called me stupid because I made us both look terrible on live TV.” Okay, he didn’t say that.
• “I didn’t have to fake a Jamaican accent, throw pancakes and shake my ass.” Fucking amazing line.
• Great Randy promo. Though no heel should have a catchphrase.
• Okay so here comes Samoa Job to lose yet again to Super-Kofi, who is quietly being booked more egregiously than Roman Reigns or John Cena ever was. There has to be something cooking with Joe. He is about to job clean YET AGAIN. He’s 38 years old. It has to be either wacky dancing fatboy babyface or retirement upcoming.
• Randy Orton with the run-in because he can’t bear to watch Joe job again. What a babyface move.
• Here’s Smilin’ Finn in his little blue undies and leather jacket. Didn’t he ask for time off?
• Nice to see Snookie get a job as a WWE interviewer.
• I don’t like Finn calling it “this whole new Fiend persona”. Makes it sound like a gimmick, instead of Bray turning into an insane crazy lunatic.
• Big pop for the Firely Funhouse theme!
• Oh shit, it’s happy Bray again! Yowie Wowie!
• Please do a dual personality!
• It’s going to be nearly impossible to get this guy booed, but whatever. I’m in.
• He’s not doing a heel bit tonight, but I’m trying to find a term to describe Elias’ brand of heel. It’s basically a brand of heel with very short-term rewards but long-term failures. Like he will come out and insult the Seattle crowd about the loss of the Seattle Supersonics (“Cowboy” Bob used to be a gigantic Gary Payton mark), and it will get MASSIVE heat. But only from Seattle. Everyone else watching at home finds it fucking hilarious, and thus, makes him more of a babyface to us.
• Some more great cheers for Roman Reigns. Thanks, Shane!
• “In this corner, weighing 262 pounds, the quitter and the guy who will lose to me at Summerslam, Kevin Owens!” Shane is a treasure.
• “Referee” McIntyre’s unnecessary shoving of Roman and Owens is hysterical.
• By the way, Roman completely forgets that he and Owens have hated each other for years overnight. One of my enormous pet peeves with Babyface/Heel relations in professional wrestling.
• Owens really has that stunner down.

Not a bad episode, but every single top match for Summerslam looks awful.