Russo is joined on today’s show by Big Vito.
Russo gets right into his Clash of Champions analysis by giving credit to WWE for avoiding the predictable finish in the Triple Threat US Championship match. Russo points out that the obvious finish was Bobby Roode pinning Dolph Ziggler, but WWE swerved us all and put the Title on Ziggler. However, if Baron Corbin doesn’t get that belt back soon, Russo wonders what WWE did to get him over as Champion during his run.
Vito thinks WWE booked Corbin to lose here to please the marks, pointing out that the hardcore fans have been critical of Corbin since day one. Vito agrees with Russo that WWE didn’t do much to get Corbin over during his US Title run, but Corbin didn’t do much to get himself over either. He suspects that Corbin will be a mid-card talent from this point on.
Speaking about the 8-man Tag Team Title match, Russo says he noticed several kicks to the face in this match and he absolutely hates that wrestlers kick out after those shots to the head. He remembers a time when HBK would deliver the Superkick and the match was all but over. Nowadays, kicks to the head have become a joke.
At another point in the match Chad Gable delivered a series of suplexes and dropped Aiden English and Rusev right on the back of their heads. He mentions that after Rusev took that suplex he didn’t appear in the match again, and he just hopes that Rusev is okay.
He also points out that WWE has been pushing English and Rusev lately, so he doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t go all the way and put the Titles on them last night. The Usos do not need those belts and Rusev/English could have really benefitted from that win. He admits that WWE may be planning on giving them a Title run in the near future, so he’ll wait and see before criticizing this booking further.
Russo says that Charlotte is in a league of her own in the Smackdown Women’s division right now. All of the lumberjacks on the outside of the ring were exposed in last night’s match and he has no idea how most of these women were elevated to the main roster so early on in their careers. Vito agrees entirely and calls most of the outside physicality during this match ‘terrible’.
Russo says that he has experience working with professional announcers in the past, and Smackdown’s current commentary team absolutely sucks. He urges them to go back and listen to people like Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, because this commentary team’s work on Sunday gave him a headache.
Russo points out that the squash match between Bludgeon Brothers and Breezango served it’s purpose, but it didn’t really need to be on this PPV. He also suspects that a 10-year old wrote the terrible promo that was delivered by the Bludgeon Brothers at the end of the match.
He says that he gets a lot of backlash for his criticism of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, but they proved again on this night why they are not professionals. They were acting like goofballs the entire show and even during the match, and that’s simply not the way anyone would act if their careers were legitimately in jeopardy.
He thought having two referees in the ring was ridiculous and a ‘cluster’, but he’s going to wait and see where WWE goes with it before really criticizing this angle. As it’s shaping up right now, it sure appears that we’ll be seeing Shane McMahon vs. Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania.
Russo thought A.J. Styles and Jinder Mahal had a great match in the main event, but he thinks it’s a shame that Mahal didn’t win the Title back. He still thinks Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar played the political card prior to the Survivor Series event because they were afraid Lesnar would have a bad match with Mahal, and this resulted in Styles winning the WWE Title and facing Lesnar.
Russo says that WWE has to put the Title back on Mahal because if they don’t they’ve wasted an entire year. He knows they’re stupid and they don’t have a clue how to book wrestling shows, but he doesn’t think anyone’s that stupid.
That sums up today’s episode of Vince Russo’s The Brand. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!
