You might know that I like talking wrestling. I have a very love/hate relationship with it and find it frustrating just as much as (or more than) I find it exhilarating. I like reading about it but I just don’t see the type of analytical writing about wrestling that I see for other corners of pop culture, so that’s what I’m going to aim for here. I doubt I will be able to write up every single wrestling show that I watch, but I’ll take it week by week and see where this takes me. Here’s how the column is going to work:
I’ll accumulate 12 talking points about the show, and assign a plus (+) or minus (-) to that point. At the end I’ll do the math and give you guys a SCIENTIFIC RATING of the quality of the show, with the top rating being 12 and lowest being -12. It’s like the Meltzer rating but extending beyond in-ring work and into stories, characters, promos, company news, and every other peripheral part of the show that could possibly be worth talking about.
Ok, formalities are out of the way. Here’s the dirty dozen for the very first WWE SmackDown on Fox back in front of a live audience since early 2020: