SMACKDOWN 04/10/2016 - No Mercy for Going Home Bad

Going into this show I was expecting something great, especially considering it was the go-home show leading into No Mercy this Sunday. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed with there only being two really great moments. I am going to be blatantly honest when I say this was a pretty crap show on a whole and I am going to be showing No Mercy in this review.

Bray Wyatt VS Kane
I think I speak for everyone when I say you never want to start any kind of show, whether normal or PPV, on a bad note and unfortunately that was the case right here. Not only was this match already seen at the Backlash PPV, but it was short, crap and Bray Wyatt lost by count out. I have mentioned it before, but I am pretty sure that the percentage of people actually invested in the rivalry between Bray and Randy Orton are very, very low. This match did not help matters at all and in fact did not need to even happen. WWE should rather have made Bray do a promo in the ring before Randy appeared on the titentron hoaxing Bray backstage.
Winner: Kane (via count out)
Rating: 2.5

Bray-Orton Backstage
I might as well just get this out of the way now as, very much like last week, we saw a whole lot of backstage segments, this time with Bray trying to find Randy. They were all really bad as Bray got locked in a crate by Randy. The only significant part of the backstage segments was the final one when Bray spoke out and asked Sister Abigail to take him away. That really is the only significant part of the whole thing and people are likely more interested in knowing who Abigail is than the feud between Bray and Orton.
Rating: 3.5

Nikki Bella VS Alexa Bliss
WWE what in the hell were you thinking when you decided to do this? So I don't have any problem at all with these two going head-to-head. What I do have a problem with is how the match went. Firstly, it was under 5 minutes and ended because of Carmella interfering in the match. We then saw Nikki getting beaten down and Becky Lynch coming down to save her. This would then transition into a tag team match.
Winner: Nikki Bella (via disqualification)
Rating: 3

Nikki Bella & Becky Lynch VS Alexa Bliss & Carmella
As I mentioned before, the previous match turned into a tag team match between the four women and it ended up being less than 5 minutes too. I hate to be so pissed off with this as I had been really enjoying seeing the Smackdown women before this. There was absolutely no need for this to happen. Like the best way to have played this if you wanted all four women to be featured before the PPV would have been to allow Nikki and Alexa to go a full 10 minutes or so before Carmella would get involved and then Becky could come out to make the save. This way all women still look strong heading the PPV. Instead what we get are two crappy women's matches and Becky Lynch looks weak heading into the PPV because she got pinned in the tag team match.
Winner: Alexa Bliss & Carmella
Rating: 3

The Hype Bros VS The Vaudevillians
So this match wasn't necessarily a bad one, but I think because of the way these teams have been featured over the last few weeks, it was just quite difficult to get behind them. Now this was actually a decent match and it looks like we could be seeing a feud between the Hype Bros and the Ascension which I am very hopeful will be able to show the Ascension as a team to be reckoned with like they were in NXT.
Winner: The Hype Bros
Rating: 7.5

Miz TV feat. a Dolphumentary
Very much like with Chris Jericho on RAW, every time I see Dolph Ziggler and the Miz together in a segment or match on Smackdown, I get excited because I know I am about to experience something great - this week was no exception! The Miz was very quick to call Dolph out and then showed a "trailer" for a WWE24 special featuring the failures of Dolph Ziggler's career. We then saw another emotional promo by Dolph which was great. This was followed by Miz calling out some old friends of Dolph's in the Spirit Squad (Kenny and Mitch). They would then spell out Dolph's name before Dolph would lose it with Miz and try and hit him. Unfortunately the Spirit Squad members stopped this from happening by attacking Dolph from behind. Dolph fought back and would ultimately look like he's heading into No Mercy with the momentum.
Rating: 9

Jason Jordan w/Chad Gable VS Jey USO w/Jimmy USO
I'm not going to talk too much about this match because it feels like they're just trying to beat a dead horse with a stick with this because it doesn't feel like they're really emphasising on the feud the USOs are meant to have with Heath Slater and Rhyno. This was an ok match that actually saw Jason Jordan get the victory. In what can be considered a repeat from a few weeks back, we would see the USOs attack American Alpha out of frustration after the match and would target Jordan's leg. They were about to do a splash onto Jordan's leg before Heath Slater's music hit and him and Rhyno ran out for the save. Unfortunately, if the USOs are going to get the win at No Mercy it doesn't feel like it will really mean anything because the story between the two teams have been pretty much non-existent.
Winner: Jason Jordan
Rating: 7

Jack Swagger VS Baron Corbin

If you think about it, this was actually the main event match of the night, which I think is great because it features my guy Baron Corbin. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very stellar match. I really hate to say that especially because I am such a fan of Corbin, Thankfully we haven't seen Corbin in a meaningless role yet which means WWE could still have some big plans for him looking forward. This was a very weird end to the match as we saw Corbin hit his wrist on the ground while trying to reach the ropes which the ref somehow saw as a tap-out - how you can make that mistake I have no idea. It's obviously just a work though, as I see the match has been added to the No Mercy card.
Winner: Jack Swagger
Rating: 7.5

Face to Face to Face

I admit that I was originally not so keen on this segment and honestly thought it would be a total flop, but thankfully they proved me wrong. We saw no talking from John Cena as we first saw AJ Styles talk over Cena saying what he was gonna say and all that. Cena was then about to say something else when Dean Ambrose cut him off saying what else Cena was going to say and even said that he (Dean) was real life while Cena just played a character on TV. Cena was finally able to say something as he said "talk is cheap" and took down Dean Ambrose. We saw him also take down AJ Styles and then deliver an AA to Ambrose. Cena would hold the world title above his head before Styles would deliver a phenomenal forearm to him. Styles then got out the ring with his title and also held it up, but not before Ambrose took him down and delivered his own finisher and then proceeded to hold the title above his own head. Now this was a really good segment because it allowed for all superstars to look strong heading into No Mercy and makes you unsure exactly who will walk out champion.
Rating: 8.5

Overall Show Rating: 6

As you can see, I really, really, really did not enjoy this week's show, although apparently some people actually did. I am very disappointed and hope that Smackdown will be able to pull of a spectacular show.