Smackdown Live (4/18)

OK, I guess?

The highlight, and inexplicably not the main event, of this week's Smackdown was a six-pack challenge to determine the #1 contender to Randy Orton's WWE Championship, in another move that makes me wonder if the US Title and WWE Titles are swtiching places, with the WWE Title being the secondary belt.

We all know Randy Orton's going to retain, assuming the Payback match is even for the title anymore, which I guess it is but they never mention it. So none of the three faces in the match (Sami Zayn, Luke Harper, or Mojo Fucking Rawley) were going to win. That left Dolph Ziggler (nope), Jinder Mahal (what), and Erick Rowan as the heels. I figured it'd go to Rowan to follow on with the Wyatt Family thing, but no, thanks to the help of the maybe called up, maybe guest starring Bollywood Boyz, Jinder Mahal earned the right to lose to Orton at Backlash in May.

Now, I could get behind this. An Indian heel stable with Mahal at the helm? There are worse ideas. ANd WWE implemented two of them. First, by having Mahal call himself "THE MAHARAJA", because really, WWE? And second, having him be from a rich famil, a trope stolen from generations of Arab wrestlers, some of whom, as you'll see on 205, are apparently still using it. Ugh.

Charlotte, meanwhile, became the #1 contender by beating Naomi clean in a non-title match while the other heels in the SDWD executed Natalya's brilliant plan of staring at her backstage twice. Good plan, Natty, Carmella, and Tamina. That'll really teach her to come in and be better than you.

The Shining Stars are now "The Colons", so I assume when Primo and Epico wrestle in singles matches, they'll be "The Semicolons". ZINGO! Anyway, they beat American Alpha to make us try to forget tje ;ast twp uears pf timeshare-shilling jobbing and it's not really working yet.

Kevin Owens beat Local Talent in a US Title Open Challenge, and in the main event, AJ Styles beat Baron Corbin in a decent match over them being mad at each other from the AUS Title A#1 Contender's match last week. See what I mean about the WWE belt being the midcard belt? And that's it.  couple video packages for Nakamura and Dillinger and that somehow filled two hours of show. Not very interestingly.