What we learned from WWE No Mercy 2016

Even before No Mercy began, SmackDown’s second exclusive pay-per-view was full of surprises. Becky Lynch was pulled from her first defense of her Women’s Championship shortly before the event began, due to an unspecified injury. The supposed main event of John Cena, Dean Ambrose, and A.J. Styles fighting for the WWE World Championship ended up going on first, likely as a response to the 900 other things that their audience was going to be focusing on later in the night — No Mercy went on at the same time as the Presidential Debate, Sunday Night Football, and the potentially decisive game of an MLB playoff series.

Despite these last-minute changes, No Mercy was an overall entertaining success that helped further the stories SmackDown is telling as the show moves toward the next major event in November, when both the RAW and SmackDown rosters will converge for Survivor Series. Let’s dive right in to the matches themselves.

Thanks to Mojo Rawley doing his usual hype thing and both of Jason Jordan and Chad Gable tearing through their opponents, the good guys took down the bad in a match that culminated in a whole lot of big moves at the end.

What we learned: American Alpha remains the cream of the tag division crop on SmackDown, and that’s going to matter in the long run. It’s not quite clear what they are going to do in the short run, though, unless they go into a one-on-one feud with one of The Ascension or The Vaudevillains until a clear path to a tag titles opportunity exists.

What matters most, though, is being able to see Jordan and Gable suplex everything in their path to get to said opportunity. So, the waiting won’t be so bad.

A.J. Styles retained, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, but the match that brought us to that expected outcome was wonderful anyway. It helps, too, that it had its share of mini-controversy: not enough to undo Styles’ being deserving of the belt, but enough to make it clear that this whole story is far from over.

What we learned: John Cena and Dean Ambrose both submitted Styles at the same time, but with the way triple threat matches work, that meant neither of them had actually submitted him. The immediate fallout from that moment was Ambrose and Cena realizing they had to wreck the other to achieve their goal, and since they both failed in that courtesy Styles — and now neither has a real claim to a rematch with Styles given he’s vanquished them both on multiple occasions in the last few months — maybe we’ll finally get Ambrose vs. Cena going one-on-one to solve their budding rivalry.

Carmella has been harassing Nikki Bella since they both first appeared on SmackDown at the same time in August. She’s clearly trying to make a name for herself, and did succeed in putting Nikki on the ropes on multiple occasions, but the veteran was too much for the rookie in the end.

What we learned: Nikki Bella isn’t done being a competitive force in the Women’s Division just because she had career-threatening neck surgery and was chased around by Carmella for a month. The longest-reigning WWE Divas Champion of all-time is putting herself in a position to challenge for the SmackDown Women’s Championship at some point down the line, but there are some other feuds that need to be cleaned up before the Queen of Strong Style can start laying forearms into the champ.

This was a fun surprise, as the expectation here was that the recently bad guy Usos would win the tag titles and then move on to a feud with American Alpha. Instead, we get to see Slater and Rhyno lord the belts over the rest of the division awhile longer, likely at the same time The Usos are figuring out they’re going to need to be even meaner in order to get their third-ever tag team championship.

What we learned: Slater and Rhyno didn’t just win the belts so that Slater could be signed to SmackDown — the duo successfully defended their championship against the team they won it at the expense of the first time, and might now be able to move on to something else.

That, or The Usos are going to spend Tuesday night kicking the pair in the back of the knees until Heath can’t work enough to support his kids or his new double-wide trailer.

Corbin should not have lost on SmackDown this past week, when Swagger put Corbin into his ankle lock finisher, but the referee mistook a desperate attempt to grab the ropes for tapping out. There was no such trouble in this rematch, however, as Corbin broke out of the ankle lock by grabbing the ring apron, distracting the ref long enough for Corbin to poke at Swagger’s eyes and then hit his finisher.

Was it a fair way to win? Nope! But Corbin isn’t a good guy, either, so “fair” isn’t what he’s gunning for.

What we learned: Corbin can beat Swagger, so long as the ref doesn’t get in the way. And while he might have cheated to win, it’s not like we have proof the act kept him from losing, either, and that’s some mighty fine heeling. Seeing Swagger wrestle with purpose again was also a good touch, and if this feud continues — and it should considering the eye poke — we could see both sides ramp up the intensity next time out.

Dolph Ziggler finally did it — he rose up against the odds set by his own history of failures as well as the obstacles that The Miz and Maryse put in front of him, and he came away with a title and his career for his efforts. Ziggler had put his career on the line against The Miz for this final opportunity, and in spite of the cheating, the assist from run-ins, and Miz wrestling his heart out against him, Ziggler managed to win.

What we learned: While the match was great and Ziggler avoiding retirement and winning the title is a good thing, it might not be the best thing. Ziggler has won the IC title before — in fact, this is his fifth reign. What reason do we have to believe that this time will be different?

We’ve seen some hints that all the reasons we began to doubt Ziggler are in the past, at least: The IC title means more in large part thanks to the efforts of Miz and Ziggler, SmackDown has managed to give us a version of the Ziggler character that people can once again care about, the existence of the brand split in the first place means there will be more opportunities to showcase the title. It feels a little bit like Ziggler should have won something bigger and newer, though, and done so after one last failure before a hiatus and some tweaks that made an eventual return special.

That’s not to say that what happened here is wrong or bad, though. If the IC title and Ziggler keep getting a real push on screen and in matches, if The Miz continues to lust after the Intercontinental title and treat it as a wonderful thing that’s been taken from him, if both characters are elevated with the crowd and with their next stories, then there are still real opportunities for success here. SmackDown just needs to follow through on them, and given what we’ve seen from them in their few months on their own, we have reason to believe that the blue brand will do just that.

This was a surprise encounter, as Alexa Bliss was supposed to challenge Becky Lynch for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. Instead, Lynch is out with an injury for a month, so Alexa wrestled against Naomi instead — and lost.

What we learned: The confrontation between Bliss and Becky might not be as straightforward as initially seemed, as Naomi defeating the number one contender could complicate things and turn the next Women’s Championship match on SmackDown into a triple threat. That would not only likely be best for Lynch — who wouldn’t have to be the focus of an entire championship match given there are three wrestlers in it — but would also help tell a story over the next month while the champ is out of action.

This was the new main event with the WWE World Championship match moved to the beginning of the show, and while it had its slow points and would not have regularly been in this spot, it still managed to help further the story being told here. Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt are equally matched, but this story is no longer about just Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt: Luke Harper is back, and he’s ready to be Bray’s lieutenant in the Wyatt Family once again.

What we learned: This isn’t the end of the feud, as Orton now has to deal with the top wrestler in the Wyatt family along with the always-dangerous Bray. This does complicate the WWE World Champion scene for a bit — there was a bit of an expectation that Orton or Wyatt would be moved into that following this match — but at least the build to this particular showoff went well, and now it has Luke Harper involved for round two.