There are times in WWE where everyone's a jerk. Tonight, the entire first hour of Smackdown was dedicated to showing how everyone, not just the good guys as has been their wont, acted the part. First, The Miz berated and belittled Fandango despite the fact that Monday, the dancing phenom handed Miz the winner's share of the purse.
Then, when Fandango attacked Miz and cost him the Intercontinental Championship, thus relieving him of his mandatory rematch clause in the process, Barrett showed gratitude for being allowed to retain by landing a Bullhammer right between the eyes. Daniel Bryan lashed out at Kane for his own insecurities. Damien Sandow set up a task that set out to intentionally humiliate another man (sure it was Matt Striker, but he deserves dignity, right? Right? GUYS), and Sheamus one-upped him by coming out to pick a fight because he would be bested in a match of wits.
Then, when Fandango attacked Miz and cost him the Intercontinental Championship, thus relieving him of his mandatory rematch clause in the process, Barrett showed gratitude for being allowed to retain by landing a Bullhammer right between the eyes. Daniel Bryan lashed out at Kane for his own insecurities. Damien Sandow set up a task that set out to intentionally humiliate another man (sure it was Matt Striker, but he deserves dignity, right? Right? GUYS), and Sheamus one-upped him by coming out to pick a fight because he would be bested in a match of wits.
Then, the tide turned, subtly, but surely. After Big Show did the most comedically awesome bump off a Codebreaker ever (over the barricade!), he did the first really heelish thing by trying to attack Chris Jericho with a chair. Then, in the setup for the main event when The Shield was about to descend on Kofi Kingston, Randy Orton and Sheamus made something of a rarity in WWE. They did the babyface save to set up a Teddy Long Special. Good guys acting like good guys? Bad guys doing villainous things? GET OUTTA HERE.
I don't know at all what it's like to be a writer in WWE, but just from watching this show tonight in particular (but there's a pattern), it feels like there are a billion different hooks in the body pulling in each of their own directions. The Sheamus character in particular has been a case study in this schizoid booking process. There are times when he shows a feint glimmer of being the homespun, folksy, cornfed heroic arse-kicker that I, as a parent, would feel good if my son was a fan. There are others where you might as well put a fedora on him and let him talk about how the Divas friend-zone the shit out of him, because that's the last piece of the puzzle to him being a complete and total entitled manchild.
There needs to be a unified direction on character. They can't pretend that they're running an old school company one segment and then going on like it's the Attitude Era still in another. There was a glimmer of a really good show tonight, but they didn't know where they wanted to go with it. I'm not saying that white hats and black hats are the direction that is automatically good, but it feels like they're better at the simple good guy/bad guy dynamic.
But there I go again, ranting about alignment when I'm not sure it matters to writers as much as I think it does or should. Smackdown tonight was still a really good show, if just for the foreshadowing of Daniel Bryan's dark, sadistic future. If his neuroses lead to more reverse curb stomping and vicious mauling of opponents, especially hapless dorks like Jack Swagger, then maybe it doesn't matter whether alignments are kept hard and fast. The kind of Bryan that I saw seemingly previewed tonight is the type of character that can save entire shows. That's what I'm salivating over.
