Similar to Absolution on RAW, Russo believes that the Riott Squad have basically be squandered on Smackdown. Richards points out that there are still a lot of spots in these multi-women matches that look scary, and he’s concerned that the Women’s Royal Rumble match is going to be a ‘mess’, possibly resulting in multiple injuries. Russo agrees and thinks that WWE is going to be sorry they ever booked that match.
Richards couldn’t understand the booking of multiple tag teams on Smackdown this week. The Ascension were booked to lose a squash match to The Bludgeon Brothers and with two monster teams like that, Richards doesn’t understand why one team has to be squashed. Later in the show, two babyface teams, Rusev Day and Breezango faced off for no apparent reason. He says there’s no explanation for this terrible booking, other than WWE is rushing to write it 3 PM on the day of the show.
Richards is also sick of the bickering between Corey Graves and Byron Saxton. Graves is constantly putting himself over instead of the talent according to Richards, and although he’s aware that Saxton is supposed to be the nerd that gets picked on, he’s sure Saxton would destroy Graves in a shoot fight.
Russo thought the in-ring promo segment between Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin was terrible. At one point Benjamin repeatedly asked Gable, “What are you thinking?”, and Russo wishes that they both would have thought about “…shutting the F*** up!”
