April 17, 2015
WWE delivered SmackDown on Thursday night from the same site of Raw on Monday – the O2 Arena in London, England. We were gifted an excellent tag team main event, a great Mizdow promo, and a pretty good, albeit short, Divas match. WWE returns to the U.S. for Monday Night Raw in Albany next week, and the go-home show to Extreme Rules should be a good one.
Here are the main stories coming out of SmackDown Thursday night:
It must be John Cena week in the U.K. as, for the second time this week, Cena once again kicked off a WWE television program. Cena addressed his upcoming Russian Chain Match against Rusev at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view when he was interrupted by the WWE tag team champions, Tyson Kidd and Cesaro. The champions ran down Cena before Cena challenged one of them to a match.
Daniel Bryan, the WWE Intercontinental champion, then joined the party. He took umbrage to the fact that Kidd and Cesaro called themselves the best champions in WWE and challenged them to a tag team match against himself and Cena. They accepted and we had ourselves a massive internet favorite [minus Cena] main event.
#USChampion @JohnCena and #ICChampion @WWEDanielBryan stand tall with a big win to close out #SmackDown @TheO2 pic.twitter.com/AoepaVOJ8I
— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) April 17, 2015
Bryan was sent home from the European tour after SmackDown due to his poor health, according to a report from PWInsider.com. Bryan barely got in on any offense during the SmackDown main event, so it’ll be interesting to see how WWE uses him in the future. WWE officials have asked him to change his in-ring style so he doesn’t get hurt further after missing most of last year with a neck and elbow injury, but Bryan hasn’t obliged their requests. This may be WWE’s way of sending Bryan a message to change his style to protect himself from getting injured further moving forward.
What did we just see?! @WWENeville did SOMETHING off the middle rope, and it was spectacular! #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/3DR7ZyVUcq
— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) April 17, 2015
We’re getting our second ever “Kiss Me Arse” match as Sheamus challenged Dolph Ziggler to a match at Extreme Rules after Ziggler saved Neville from Sheamus’ ... well, arse-kicking I guess you could say. The first match with such a name [the American version] was between The Rock and Billy Gunn all the way back at Summerslam 1999. The loser of the match has to kiss the other one’s, well, you know ...
The Big Show came out on the stage and basically said nobody could stop him, and that includes Roman Reigns -- which is pretty much the same thing he always says when he’s a heel. There couldn’t be a blander superstar in WWE right now. Show showed footage of him chokeslamming him through the taxi cab on Monday night and said he’ll face Reigns in a Last Man Standing match at Extreme Rules. He promised Reigns won’t be the last man standing.
The feud between Damien Mizdow and The Miz just got a lot better. In a backstage promo, Mizdow began doing his stunt double gimmick again in front of Miz and challenged him to a match in which the winner gets the rights to Miz’s name, entrance music and wardrobe. Miz accepted, and that’ll probably be the most interesting match we see Monday night on Raw. I’m pretty pumped for it.
England certainly knows how to "Fandango" at @TheO2! #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/1oSK7iLFeJ
— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) April 17, 2015
Fandango is back, and so is Fandango-ing.
Here’s your current card for Extreme Rules next Sunday:
Steel Cage Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship
• The RKO is banned
• Seth Rollins (c) vs. Randy Orton
• Russian Chain Match for the United States Championship
• John Cena (c) vs. Rusev
WWE Intercontinental Championship
• Daniel Bryan (c) vs. Bad News Barrett
• Last Man Standing Match
• Roman Reigns vs. Big Show
Kiss Me Arse Match
• Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler
Divas Championship
• Nikki Bella (c) vs. Paige
• Bray Wyatt d. R-Truth by pinfall via Sister Abigail.
• Bad News Barrett d. The Miz by pinfall via the Bull Hammer elbow. Barrett interrupted Miz’s promo, which led to the match.
• Neville d. Sheamus by disqualification after Sheamus threw Neville into the announce table. Sheamus kept attacking Neville before Ziggler made the save.
• Kofi Kingston & Big E d. Los Matadores by pinfall via a double-team Big Ending into a DDT.
• Triple Threat Match: Cameron d. Alicia Fox and Natalya by pinfall after Fox nailed Natalya with a scissor kick and Cameron threw Fox out of the ring and pinned Natalya.
• Fandango d. Adam Rose by pinfall via a rollup. Rosa Mendes, who Fandango broke up with on Monday night, ran down to try to distract Fandango, but distracted Rose instead.
• John Cena (c-US) and Daniel Bryan (c-IC) d. Tyson Kidd and Cesaro (c-Tag) by submission after Bryan got Kidd to submit to the Yes Lock.
