Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer & Bryan Alvarez recently discussed the main event of last week’s SmackDown Live – Randy Orton vs. Sami Zayn. They discussed the possibility of WWE punishing SmackDown Live stars through Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan getting involved at Clash of Champions 2017 & more.
Below is their discussion:
Alvarez: There is now a stipulation where if Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens lose to Randy Orton, Nakamura with Shane McMahon as referee they will be fired allegedly from WWE which is the stupidest storyline, but that’s what they’re claiming.
Meltzer: It’s like it was only a couple of weeks ago where the storyline was that when Shane was gonna fire them that they were just gonna go to Raw and now all of a sudden the stipulation is that he’s gonna fire them and they can’t go to Raw and who knows why that changed other than it’s got creative license to change.
Alvarez: It’s changed because they recently came up with the idea of the stipulation and now they have to make you believe it even though it’s completely unbelievable. I mean for crying out loud, he’s feuding with Hunter and Stephanie and the whole Raw brand. Like the idea that they wouldn’t hire those guys if they got fired is preposterous.
Meltzer: It sounds to me like Daniel Bryan’s gonna save them in some form at the end.
Alvarez: No, no, no. It’s so easy – They do the match. Shane McMahon gets bumped. Daniel Bryan runs in, counts to pin and the question is did he help them? Is he a heel or was he just doing the right thing as a babyface? It’s actually a great storyline because they can go either way.
Meltzer: That’s what I figure. So we’ll see how it goes down. I think that’s what everybody figures. I mean the way they ended that show with Daniel Bryan being mad about the stipulation so….I mean it’s intriguing. It’s good. That wasn’t too bad. As far as to show, Randy Orton-Sami Zayn had a good match.
Randy Orton gets a lot of very positive remarks about what a great worker he is and he is. But I wouldn’t want to ever work with that guy anywhere near a freakin’ announcers table because my god he just throws you without……….. like he forgot to clear the monitor.
I mean, Sami Zayn landed right on the monitor when he dropped him on that announcers table. I mean that was just like God come on don’t they teach you to clear out the monitors first?
Alvarez: I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist here, but he faced Kevin Owens the week before and just beat the sh*t out of him with that stick and just pounded down the guy. And then he had Sami Zayn and he dropped him right there on the table without clearing it off. So all I know is they were in trouble recently and they both fell victim to Randy.
Meltzer: You know what? If it’s like the 1970s I would just go yeah it’s exactly what it is. But I kept thinking that like it’s changed. They don’t do that stuff now.
Alvarez: Really? Vince is still in charge. People can talk about what a changed business it is, but Vince is in charge. When you’re a 72 year old guy who has been doing this forever and you grew up in that era and you’re Vince McMahon. Old habits, hard to change.
Meltzer: I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s over that situation. Here’s one for you…I mean look at the finish. I mean it’s like so Sami Zayn loses the match and then Randy Orton lays out both guys with RKOs and Nakamura lays them out with Kinshasa. I get it in the sense that this tag match isn’t about babyfaces getting revenge because the babyfaces got revenge ten times over in that post match.
It’s about making you think that they’re gonna send these guys packing even though they won’t. So that’s like the mentality of doing it. But it’s like how often do you see guys other than these guys where you lose the match and then in the post match you just get destroyed, but you’re still supposed to be like main event guys?
Alvarez: Well, it’s WWE. You’re supposed to believe that they’re gonna lose and get fired supposedly, but of course they’re gonna end up winning and so that’s why they’re taking all the beatings.
By the way what I was gonna say was you mentioned it’s a different business and all and granted this was 19 years ago, but 19 years ago this week Steve Blackman beat the hell out of Tiger Ali Singh and the Observer that week had said that – Tiger Ali had a lot of heat. They sent Blackman to teach him a lesson.
Meltzer: They certainly did that then. That’s well known that they used to do stuff like that. I don’t want to say all the time, but that was not unusual then. So I guess yeah I suppose it’s possible that they did that. But yeah, I know Randy Orton was just killing Kevin Owens, but Kevin Owens does matches like that anyway.