Previously on Friday Night Smackdown…
Smackdown showcased their new roster by having them beat people not on the show anymore, we said goodbye to The New Day as a trio, & Lars Sullivan is a FREAK, whether you like it or not.
We’ve finally hit the last stop before Hell In A Cell this Sunday. I won’t lie, it’s been a bit of a grind to get here. Even with that, only four matches were booked heading into tonight’s show, leaving plenty of opportunity to make something happen. Did Smackdown add anything to the card? Were any of the champions or challengers able to build that all important momentum? Let’s take a look.
The Book Of Job(ber)
I can already feel your confusion as to why this is at the top of the review & it’s for two reasons: First, this entire show was difficult to rank. WWE put themselves in this odd position with The Draft in between ppvs, so they weirdly tried to have their cake & eat it too by filling out both rosters, but still have “exclusive” draft picks show up on different shows. That’s made the two weeks since feel inconsequential leading up to Hell In A Cell. For tonight, everything just kind of was & the only real story development we got was from a spoof trial. Nothing was terrible, but nothing was great either, so that made putting things from best to worst a little harder than normal.
Secondly & more importantly, the match between Rollins & Murphy was really good. Easily the match of the night & it’s not even remotely close. They clocked in at around twenty minutes & that was plenty of time to remind everybody that despite this story dragging on forever, these two are great wrestlers. That’s not something we’ve been able to see from Murphy in particular these past few months. My favorite part of the whole thing was how well scouted each guy had the other. Rollins works Murphy’s left arm the entire time, which is crucial for leverage when he uses Murphy’s Law. Murphy then counters several Stomp attempts later on. That’s a nice little detail that often goes unnoticed. If these guys have spent so many weeks together, they naturally should know the other’s tricks & be able to use that if they ever come to blows.
The ensuing Days Of Our Wasted Lives melodrama continues after & there’s nothing new to report. I’m not all that interested in a romance angle involving a nineteen year old girl & a thirty two year old man while her forty five year old father & thirty fourteen year old brother disapprove. I think the worst part of everything is that NOTHING is happening for Hell In A Cell involving this group. If you asked me a month ago heading in, I would’ve one hundred percent assumed Rollins & Rey would be doing a Cell Match. Granted, Rey got banged up, while Seth & Dominik already did a Cage Match, but something’s got to give. If Rollins is just going to beat all of these guys over & over again, what’s the point? Does Aalyah finally unseat him & we can move on already? Fine. Tik Tok On A Pole Match or a Vape-Off or whatever the hell kids in college do these days. Make it happen.
Twin Magic Killer
It is absolutely hilarious that Jey Uso made a big stink a few weeks back about people not being able to tell him apart from his brother, only to turn that animosity into a ploy to sneak attack Roman Reigns. You would think Roman could tell their voices apart since he’s grown up with the guys. They definitely don’t sound alike. But I’ll forgive The Big Dog since he’s an up his own ass heel & can’t be bothered. I won’t forgive him for not liking charcuterie though, the monster.
I’m not sure how I feel about “Tribal Consequences”. When it was first announced, I assumed they were adding another stipulation to their I Quit Hell In A Cell Match, which already has too many layers as is, so I’m glad it wasn’t that. At the same time, adding fake stakes like “you’re out of the family if you lose” doesn’t really add any real weight on top of what came before. It’s an interesting talking point sure, but it’s not like we can ever see the follow up where The Usos have to spend Christmas alone if Jey loses. It just seems like the stakes are already high enough & they’re trying to outdo themselves. It’s perfectly great as it was, no need to tinker further.
I think the big x-factor in all of this is Jimmy Uso returning in earnest without his knee brace that we saw him with last time. That throws a lot of possibilities into play heading into Sunday if he tries to interfere. Maybe he turns on Jey realizing they need Roman for their family. Roman could also just start assaulting Jimmy’s injured knee, making Jey quit so it stops the attack, which would be a nice role reversal from Clash Of Champions. Or maybe both Usos come to their senses & we get The Samoan Shield. Whichever way they go, this is easily the match with the most intrigue heading into Sunday & I’m pretty excited to see how it plays out.
The North American DragOwens
Leave it to the The Kevin Owens Show to not only float the ideas of a Sami Zayn vs Daniel Bryan feud again, the possibility of a weekly open challenge for The Intercontinental Championship, as well as a tag team of Owens & Bryan all in a matter of minutes, but also scream loudly “Why?!?” when Dolph Ziggler enters the picture. Then he goes ahead & wrestles in jeans & a tie still around his neck. And it’s not like he had to, either. Daniel Bryan went to the back & changed. KO just said fuck it & rolled with it. I love you, Kevin.
The eight man tag match that happens is perfectly acceptable for a go home show (Cesaro taking a pin in a match that has Roode, Dawkins & Ziggler in it should be considered for a later episode of Law & Otis, however), but let’s talk about the prospect of Bryan & KO as a tag team. Bryan rightly points out that KO is an awful tag partner given his past with power bombing his friends onto the ring apron, but KO seems genuinely excited at the prospect of becoming a tag champion, so it’s a non-starter for him. Good guy Bryan (read: idiot), agrees, so it appears we’re off with this new team. And if Owens is just going to Owens, Bryan took a shot at Zayn earlier, so that’s in the cards as well.
I said last week that a good move would probably be to slap some singles wrestlers together to add some depth to the tag division, but I was not expecting this much firepower behind the decision. I figured maybe Chad Gable & Kalisto would randomly find each other, not these two. Now that they’re together though, it’s all I want to see in this division going forward. You’re telling me you don’t want to see a match between KO/Bryan against Cesaro/Nakamura? Get out of here, you liar. I don’t care if both teams are babyfaces currently, let them beat The Street Profits for the titles right now. I can already picture Angelo Dawkins catching a Stunner & popping up into a Running Knee.
The Fresh Princess, Belair
Bianca Belair finally (finally) gets back into the ring & my only question is what the hell took so damn long? She’s here quite literally gift wrapped for Smackdown & all I can think is how RAW decided it was a good idea to call her up from NXT just to have her sit in the back for months on end. I don’t see anything not to like about her. She squashes Zelina & I’m hoping that this was just a showcase match & not a continuance of their weird poison-based feud from Mondays.
Part of me thinks there’s still another shoe to drop when it comes to the women’s division. They feel like they’re on hold until Bayley & Sasha at the very least have their Cell Match, possibly beyond. We still haven’t seen The Riotts, Nattie, Billie or Carmella since The Draft ended & it has me wondering if any of them or Bianca play a role in what happens on Sunday. I’m not advocating for it, but everything’s a little too quiet right now.
(Okay, you caught me. I’m fully advocating for Billie Kay to rise up through the ring Sunday & end both of them. Guilty as charged.)
Signature Moves
There’s a lot of felonies and/or misdemeanors happening on the show regarding contracts tonight, so watch out.
This feud is really stumbling into Hell In A Cell & it’s a real shame given how outstanding it was up until a couple weeks ago. I love the idea of a title match not happening simply because one of the participants just straight up doesn’t agree & refuses to sign the contract. I’ve never understood why they need to sign contracts for individual matches to begin with when they work for the wrestling show, but that’s another discussion. Bayley doesn’t want to sign because Sasha has been terrible (she has), so Sasha responds by being terrible, stealing her title belt & then forcing her to sign the contract under duress while locked in The Banks Statement. Why is Bayley the bad one again?
Sasha gets her signature & we’re on for Sunday. Between that & her backstage interview, Sasha’s the heel now, right? I was leaning towards Bayley after she tried to break Sasha’s neck with a chair, but I think Sasha’s gone too far the other way & we’re back to Bayley did nothing wrong territory. Sasha’s also going by “The Boss Of The Cell” now too. I always thought that was the nucleus, but let’s not let biology jokes leave you in a state of diffusion. Her reasoning is that she’s been inside Hell In A Cell twice before, while Bayley has never been, so she clearly has the upper hand. Do your best to ignore how those two matches worked out for Sasha.
I’m still pumped to see this match, but of everything on the card, this one feels the most up in the air. Bayley should retain, but I can totally see them crowning a new major champion now that they’re in a “new season”. Plus, Sasha winning means you can prolong their feud even more & you know they want to get the most out of this that they can. Bayley winning feels like it’d put a pin in their rivalry for the time being as Hell In A Cell is the be all, end all according to them as far as blow off matches go, but who knows. This could absolutely steal the show though if they let them, so here’s hoping we get the match we’ve all been waiting for this whole year & it delivers big time.
Lamer vs. Crammer
Because one’s a loser & the other eats a lot, you see.
This is one of those things that is completely dependent on the kind of mood you’re in. I’ve moved it up & down the column three different times now. It’s utterly stupid, but it knows it is, so you can’t get too mad at it. I think I liked pieces of it more than the sum of its parts. The nod to Wrestler’s Court is nice with JBL & Ron Simmons, the ridiculous dramatic sounds effects as somebody makes a point or the cash register ding when JBL accepted Miz’s bribe made me laugh. Asuka showing up to holla holla at everybody in the earlier segment was of course great (No love for your former MMC partner Miz, Asuka?). My favorite part was probably Otis having a dictionary on his desk the entire time & his defense that he should keep the Money In The Bank Contract because he won The Money In The Bank Contract.
Again though, that’s me cherry picking out small good things about it when as a whole it’s not that great. It takes up an entire three segments of the show, just to get to the outcome that could have been arrived at weeks ago in a match between Miz & Otis for the contract. Wasn’t the whole point Miz & Morrison were like 0-35 against Heavy Machinery so that’s why they went the legal route? And if the court case is FOR the contract, why is JBL ruling that they’re just going to duke it out when he could just reward Miz the contract on the spot?
I’m definitely overthinking it, but no matter the outcome, it’s bad either way. Either Miz loses again & we wasted all this time or poor Otis gets stripped of his briefcase because WWE made him a joke winner at Money In The Bank with no direction afterward. We’ll see what happens come Sunday. If Miz somehow ends up WWE Champion standing over the corpses of Drew McIntyre & Randy Orton, it’ll be the strangest twist in the strangest year of wrestling ever.
Salute Your Shorty
If you feel the need to watch Shorty G lose for the hundredth time in a row, knock yourself out. The Freak Of All Freaks takes him out pretty handily even though I think that if Gable went on his tip toes, they’d be the same height. That’s not important (or entertaining). What is however, is that Shorty G is finally fed up with his dreadful nickname & has decided to go by Chad by god Gable once again. About damn time, guy. We all know the Shorty G stuff wasn’t very good. He’d either overcome somebody making fun of him, only for nothing to come of it or completely get squashed over the course of the last year. A soft reboot could be just what Gable needs. I personally thought they should find him a new partner & stock up the tag division, but I’m definitely okay with him in a singles run without the Shorty G bullshit attached. Whatever gets us away from the short jokes.
Now please tune in next time where instead of “Shorty G is short!” we get “Gable? More like un-Gable to ride that roller coaster!”. Wrestling is fun.
Overall
Worth Your Time: Rollins vs. Murphy
If You Have Time: 8-Man Tag, Reigns/Uso Closing Segment, “Law & Otis”, Bayley & Sasha’s Brawl
Don’t Waste Time: Zelina vs. Bianca, Lars vs. Gable, The KO Show
Well, that’s your Hell In A Cell go home show for Smackdown, everybody. I think we can all admit we’re happy the show is finally happening. I’m excited for the actual matches to go down, but with The Draft, the show crossover & some of these feuds going on for months now, here’s hoping that show finally puts an end to some of these stories. I’d be perfectly happy with a nice reset after, given they’re in a “new season” now. If nothing else, the show looks good on paper. I mean, it can’t be any worse than the past two Hell In A Cells at least. *Shudders*
What did you guys think of tonight’s show? Hyped for Sunday? Any new champions on the horizon? As always, feel free to drop us a line in the comments or over on our Discord. Stop by again this Sunday & we’ll have results from the show & the review the next day. Until then, get hyped for the pay per view where hopefully (mercifully) these feuds can finally end & something… anything new happens after. The power of positivity!
