Previously on Friday Night Smackdown…
Jey Uso punched his ticket to get mauled by The Big Dog at Clash Of Champions, Sheamus sent Big E crashing down & hurting inside, & Bayley murdered Sasha Banks to death.
An Intercontinental Championship Match & Women’s #1 Contender Fatal Fourway highlighted the action heading into the show, so let’s see how everything went down.
**Programming Note**
I’ve decided to mix it up a little & deviate from the Pops & Botches format for now. I was scrolling our main page & realized that P&Bs are roughly 90% of our output, so I thought a change of pace was in order. There’s nothing wrong with that style & I may go back to it depending on how this goes/reader feedback, but I don’t want any of our patrons to get flavor fatigue. For this “Top-Down” review, I’m going to start with the best of the show & work my down to the worst. That way, if you missed the show & want to catch up, you know what to look out for & what to potentially skip as I am clearly the authority on the matter. Again, this is a work in progress & I may change it up to something different or go back, but for now, we’ll give it a try. I promise the same smark flavor, just with fancy new packaging.
Look At Me, I’m The Boss Now
“… Do you think that I’m so naive after all these years that I didn’t know what you were thinking all along? Seriously, after everything that we’ve been through who knows you better than me? Nobody.
“…I never cared about you, and I damn sure didn’t care about our friendship. I used you every single step of the way. And thanks to you, I became 2 Belts Bayley, Bayley Dos Straps, the first ever grand slam women’s champion. And thanks to you, I am the longest reigning SmackDown women’s champion.
“But after last week, you are completely useless to me.”
SHEESH.
Look at our precious little Bayley all grows up. No lies detected. This is all I want out of my wrestling feuds. Characters that reference history, learn from their past mistakes & make decisions accordingly. Throw in some brutal violence & I’m all in. The best part is that Bayley is one hundred percent in the right about all of this. I mean, she clearly knew from the jump what Sasha is all about & took matters into her own hands before it was too late. This isn’t heel delusion either. Sasha Banks was plotting & scheming this entire time & it rightfully got her destroyed. Bayley’s been paying attention.
I don’t know if I’d call Bayley the best babyface & heel in the women’s division ever, but she’s certainly making a strong case for herself. The inevitable showdown with Banks is going to be great. With Hell In A Cell looming after Clash Of Champions, my money would be on them getting to the fireworks factory there, but I honestly hope they push it further back & let Bayley lord over this division for the rest of the year. She’s been hands down the MVP of Smackdown for 2020 & deserves to keep her run going. She also deserves to be Banks Statemented until her neck snaps too. Incredible how you can both sympathize with her, but also want to see her get rolled since she’s been such a terror for the better part of a year now. I can’t wait for this match.
Let Sleeping Big Dogs Lie
Roman Reigns doesn’t give a fuuuuuuucccck, you guys & it’s honestly great.
This is also how you do some heeling right, but in a completely different way. Roman takes credit for putting Jey Uso in a spot that will help further his career & also get him a nice payday for headlining a pay per view (all true). He also is quick to point out that he’s still Roman By God Reigns & while the money will be a nice consolation for Jey, he’s still getting trucked in a couple weeks & there’s nothing he can do to stop it from happening. That’s some great posturing right there. Yeah I love you & we’re family, but you still don’t have a chance in hell of taking this title from me. The best part by far is Roman Reigns just standing around doing nothing once Corbin & Sheamus decide to start a brawl with Jey & he just let’s him fend for himself. What an asshole. I love it.
The Teddy Long Special main event goes down & Roman pulls the same shit he did at Payback & just saunters out at the end to steal the victory after Jey does all the dirty work. I really wish they would address this as it’s the second time Charles Robinson has started a match involving Roman without him actually being present. All it takes is one line of dialogue from Paul Heyman or the announce team & it works. Otherwise, it just makes the referee & his teammate look like complete idiots. I also don’t really love Jey Uso all of a sudden being super powered & able to handily dispatch Corbin & Sheamus two on one. Say what you will about those guys, but they’re good enough in the ring that they should be able to take out a tag team specialist going it alone.
Reigns comes out & plays The Shield’s greatest hits of him hitting a Spear & ending the match ten seconds after his involvement. This is the Roman Reigns we’ve always wanted. I really like the layers with the Jey Uso family story & Reigns completely burying the thought that Jey has a chance against him (he doesn’t), so this should be a fun couple weeks until he gets a more serious opponent heading into Hell In A Cell, where hopefully The Fiend can make up for last year’s debacle.
I Am The Paulrus
First of all, RIP in peace to Pasquale The Parrot. Please do not eat his remains, Huskus.
The actual new member of The Funhouse is Wobbly Walrus, a not so veiled shot at Paul Heyman, presumably for his bullshit tactics that led to The Fiend getting his Universal Championship stolen by Roman. The Vince Puppet declared that The Funhouse will now be under Wobby’s management going forward, so we’ll see how off the rails this hopefully gets. If Mercy The Buzzard & Ramblin’ Rabbit end up getting fired & show up on Impact challenging for the tag titles, we’ll know Wobbly is the real deal.
Kiss Mat Kismet
Since we’re working from the good stuff to the bad, let’s start with the clear highlight of this match & possibly the night with Alexa Bliss’ continued descent into Blisster Abigail. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not because Michael Cole certainly doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, but there’s a point in the match where he loudly exclaims “Alexa looks to be unaffected by The Fiend here, tonight”. Cole is clearly the type of guy that doesn’t notice when a woman does something with her hair apparently also, but the words he says suddenly send Bliss into a stupor like she’s a damn Fiend sleeper agent. She starts staring off into space, culminating with her hitting a Sister Abigail on Cross & bailing on the match all while clearly entranced by the thought of The Fiend. You can argue whether or not Bliss is a solid wrestler, but she is definitely a great actress & one of the clear highlights Smackdown has to offer in recent months.
Everything after that is… not great. Cross somehow pulls out the victory even though Bayley beat her down with a chair before the match began & the aforementioned Sister Abigail on the floor. Granted her remaining opponents were Tamina & Lacey Evans, but that felt like a lot to overcome. Also, again with this? Bayley pinned Cross FOUR TIMES during their Extreme Rules feud a few weeks back. That’s not hyperbole. Some were underhanded, sure, but I think that’s enough to move on to something different. I don’t want Tamina or Lacey in her place, but where the hell is everybody else on this roster? Do Mandy, Carmella or Naomi even go here anymore? I’ll take a Dana Brooke transitional feud at this point.
Clearly, no matter who ends up facing Bayley at Clash is going down as there’s no chance she’s not holding onto that title until Sasha Banks returns. I’m guessing that match will also serve to give us the full turning of Alexa into The Fiendess, so that’s an added bonus. Cross thinks Bliss is still salvageable & oh, honey, you’re gonna get got so damn hard.
Jeff Hardy Fails The P.I.S.S. Test
We are oh so treading water until this triple threat finally goes down at Clash Of Champions. The ongoing Zayn/Styles/Hardy feud over who is the rightful Intercontinental Champion has already lost most of its luster since Zayn’s surprise return. I at least appreciate the fact that everybody has a case why they’re the rightful champion. Hardy actually won the thing in Zayn’s absence. Zayn never lost & is still super pissed about it. And Styles, while not great, has the argument that Hardy’s brace cost him the match. I’m not sure how iron clad of a standpoint that is as multiple wrestlers wear knee braces. If they were illegal, Tegan Nox would have to wrestle from her ass for the rest of her career.
The actual title match that occurs ends the only way it could with Zayn running in & beating up the other two guys. Good job by Smackdown Security. They can successfully deter attacks by a group of a dozen masked up rioters, but can’t stop one neurotic ranting dork from ruining a championship contest. There’s a hilarious moment post match where Jeff Hardy collapses on the entrance ramp (not that part), where we find out he’s just “Dehydrated”. Pump those fluids in next time, buddy!
All in all it’s not the worst thing in the world, but with still two more shows until the assumed blow off match at Clash, this has already reached a point where I’m not sure what else they can do to keep it interesting before that bout happens.
The Chumpions Lounge
The Street Profits are the dirt worst. Ford is good to great in the ring & Dawkins can fly under the radar at times, but holy hell, everything they do outside of the actual wrestling makes me want to claw my eyes & ears off. They’re the worst things about WWE babyfaces all rolled into one. Horrible catchphrases, cornball dialogue & cheap tactics that should be reserved for heels. They crash The Champions Lounge right before Cesaro & Nakamura’s match against LHP, & wouldn’t you know it, they use some lame ass hooting & hollering on The Tron in order to get Cesaro rolled up from behind by Kalisto. Nothing like a guy literally half your size pinning you after you fall down to make you look strong! That part is even weirder because before the match, Kalisto was bragging about showing Lince Dorado how it’s done & him getting side eyed by both him & Metalik, only for him to follow through. Totally consistent. Good job, everyone.
The good news is that this at least served to piss off Cesaro & Nak, which as we saw with New Day, is not a good idea. I am strongly advocating for Angelo Dawkins’ head to be uppercutted and/or Kinshasa’d from his body this coming Monday.
Mella Has Money
Totally Not Carmella is returning soon as… Still Carmella? Okay.
Well, hot damn.
I’m busy over here trying to figure out who’s in Retribution, the identity of The Smackdown Hacker, who attacked Hideo Itami in the parking lot & who pied Kevin Owens in the face. Just re-debut already.
Lunchy In The Bank
Finally, we get to the worst portion of the program & the ongoing attempt by Miz & Morrison to steal the Money In The Bank contract from Otis. Let’s ignore the depressing fact that these two probably couldn’t defeat a team of The Brooklyn Brawler & Barry Horowitz at this point, & talk about their plan. Somehow, the two believe that just by stealing the contract, that for some reason makes you the rightful MitB winner & can cash in at anytime. Miz, who just last week pointed out that isn’t how any of this works & is a former winner in his own right, so he should clearly know better, goes ahead & this week steals the lunchbox he assumes holds the contract anyway. What. The. Hell. Of course it’s another decoy lunchbox & Otis has outsmarted them again. So not only can neither of them beat Otis in the ring, but he’s clearly been shown to be the smartest guy of the bunch. Here’s an idea, maybe steal BOTH cases next time, you dopes. And I also do not subscribe to the idea that Otis eats apples.
UPDATE: Miz went on Talking Smack this morning & apparently “called in a favor” to get this to happen:
BREAKING: As revealed by @mikethemiz on @WWENetwork's #TalkingSmack, @WWE_MandyRose has been traded to Monday Night #WWERaw! https://t.co/7JG6oYiOm9 pic.twitter.com/jlXORgCxzZ
— WWE (@WWE) September 12, 2020
Again, what the hell is your plan here? Mandy hasn’t even been on Smackdown since the go home show for Payback. Never mind the fact that on this same show, The Street Profits just sauntered on over because they felt like it & Mandy could just, you know, do that too. And it’s also not like both shows aren’t taking place in the same exact arena for the foreseeable future where before you could say they wouldn’t see each other as they’d be constantly in different parts of the country. ALSO, also, there’s no clause that says Otis can’t just cash in on anybody on RAW either, so he could just as easily end up over there if he’s as smart as we’re being led to believe. Just bad all around. Come on Miz, you’re better than this.
And there’s your Smackdown. Not the best episode, but I think that’s more praise to how good the show has been the past few weeks versus this one being straight up bad. The show is very much being carried by Roman, Bayley, The Fiend & Alexa, but they’re making the most of it. Everything else could just use some minor tweaking & I think they’d have it pretty nailed down. What’d you guys think? Feel free to drop a comment or hit up The Discord & give your opinions. More importantly, let me know what you think about the new format & if you like it or if you think Pops & Botches ain’t broke, so I shouldn’t be trying to fix it. Any & all pointers/criticisms are welcome. At the end of the day, these articles are for your enjoyment. Until then, see you next week where I promise I’ll try not to fawn over Bayley, Roman & Alexa as much as I do (I will).
