Previously on Friday Night Smackdown…
Sasha Banks finally retained a championship, Seth Rollins, King Corbin & Ruby Riott all made the cut for Survivor Series, & Big E won the ugly holiday sweater competition for the year, so everybody can stop trying.
Survivor Series is just around the corner as Smackdown looks to finalize their squads for next Sunday. Did anybody else make their way onto the teams tonight? Can everybody coexist? Did they finally decide on the design for their matching blue t-shirts?? Let’s get to it.
Chapter & Versus
Hey! What’s this doing at the top?! Who are you & where is our be-hated Birdman??
The “Final Chapter” (minus any epilogues, postscripts, sequels or spinoffs) between The Mysterios & Seth Rollins gets up here for three reasons: First, there was barely any wrestling on this episode & this was probably the best match overall. That’s feint praise because I think Rey Mysterio was wrestling with two eye patches given how many times he botched something here. Next, they also promised there would be no more interaction between them after this contest & that deserves a Congressional Medal if true. Finally, this episode for the most part is a giant pile of meh & I didn’t have much of a choice.
I like to think this was the match they were trying to get done around Summerslam, but Rey’s injury put it off for about ninety months or however long it’s been. I was really into the whole thing up until the finish. There were some solid callbacks to the beginning of everything & they at least tied it up somewhat coherently storywise. Unfortunately, the match itself goes off the rails once Rey starts botching all over the place. The big finish is Murphy turning on Seth (again) & Rey’s supposed to instantly hit a 6-1-9, but he just straight up falls out of the ring. He rushes back in & has to awkwardly start the whole thing over again, but by that point it’s too late. I guess when you only have one eye, that’s lack of depth perception for you.
I feel like the loss is entirely on Rollins for not seeing Murphy’s betrayal coming from a mile away. The guy openly said on live television it was all a ruse last week, Seth. Take notes from Bayley on how to pay attention to your show & snuff out backstabbing before you’re taken out. Even with this defeat, as it stands now, Rollins has won against everybody in this feud over & over again, with his only losses coming tonight & from tagging with Murphy where he’d eat the pins. Taking all that into perspective, Rollins surely can move on to literally anything else at this point.
NEXT WEEK 👀 ⤵️#SmackDown @WWERollins @WWE_Murphy pic.twitter.com/3HcfLrxf0y
— WWE (@WWE) November 14, 2020
Ugh….
THE FINAL CHAPTER PART II: THE FINALING!!
The Thirty Third Night Of The Year
Not WWE Champion Drew McIntyre invades Smackdown this week to let us know he’ll be in the main event of Survivor Series, despite not having the required shiny belt to do so. Big Dog in training Jey Uso steps up to try & protect the yard, but it goes about as well as you’d expect given the year Drew Mac has had. Despite WWE’s insistence that Survivor Series still is the only time superstars from other brands interact, here’s this match. I at least appreciate them making it “unsanctioned” even if it’s complete bullshit to try & make it above board, but you’re not fooling anybody. Even with the ending fairly obvious, I dug the match between these two. Jey Uso has really come into his own & Drew has gotten serviceable to great matches out of everybody he’s faced since going solo.
The highlight throughout everything is of course Roman Reigns, who straight up doesn’t give a shit about anything or anybody on RAW. Roman claiming he doesn’t watch RAW (quit bragging) & Heyman chiming in “You’re not missing much.” was absolutely great. How dare you besmirch Lana & SLAPJACK like that, Paul! He then comes down later for the main event & has zero interest in how that’s going as well. All he wants is for his cousin to shut the hell up & beat people down. It’s right there on Roman’s t-shirt, Jey. Pay attention.
This will be objectively hilarious in hindsight should Drew not actually defeat Randy Orton this coming Monday. He kind of has to though, right? Running an entire show around that plot point just to not follow through would be… well, pretty WWE, so you can’t entirely rule it out. It was pointed out on our Discord last night (h/t @Baron) that all of the champions matches at the pay per view are currently either heel against heel or face against face. That’s… not great planning. I think that’s why you’re seeing WWE scramble with sudden title defenses as they probably want to rectify that. At least I hope. I’m fine with either opponent for Roman as I think he rolls no matter what, but part of me wants to see Randy Orton keep having to deal with all these monster threats plus Miz chase him around for a few more weeks.
Amurrican Alpha
👀 👀 👀
"You need somebody to show you how to unlock your inner-ALPHA."#SmackDown @otiswwe @WWEGable pic.twitter.com/Qg4VZ9eD8E
— WWE (@WWE) November 14, 2020
Otis & Dolph Ziggler have a match before this. You don’t care about it. I don’t care about it. Dolph Ziggler is the wrestling equivalent of falling down a mineshaft, only to be rescued & then falling down a deeper, darker mineshaft. The only thing approaching a highlight during it is Otis scaring off Robert Roode almost as bad as a paternity test.
The heathens that run WWE’s YouTube account don’t have a video for it, but the much more interesting development is Chad Gable approaching Otis backstage & trying to enlist him to join his “Alpha Academy”. Gable thinks Otis needs a mentor to find his way again & even though Gable has a worse record in 2020 than the entire NFC East combined, Otis agrees. Otis was also one of the rare Money In The Bank holders who was actually winning matches while holding it, so maybe he should be the leader. I have no problem seeing where it goes & am all about 2020 Simon Dean, everybody. I figured both of these two were going to fade into obscurity & they’re both enjoyable, so if nothing else, we can maybe get some good comedy segments out of it.
I’ve also been staring at that gif trying to figure out what in the hell is going on with Gable’s pamphlet.
*Alexa. Enhance.*
Is that Chad Gable bulldogging a severed head while riding a bald eagle?
You bet your sweet ass it is.
Bootie Woes
Sami Zayn gets an impromptu title defense with the reciprocal of Bobby Lashley in Apollo Crews. Even though Zayn complains loudly about having to have a wrestling match when his occupation is professional wrestler, he still handles Crews rather easily with the tried & true video game method of getting a quick count out victory, so you can move on to more important opponents. And let’s not knock him for it. Everyone knows keeping your opponent down for ten seconds is more impressive than three. I’m guessing his frustration with the whole thing is that he didn’t have time to find three guys to dress in drag & pretend to be Crews’ sisters.
(Side note: Does Sami Zayn not know what “intercontinental” means? You’re not champion of all the countries, dude. That’s The World Champ. What do you think, The World Champ just gets the oceans too along with the land?)
One of the things I just kind of noticed after tonight is that outside of The New Day against The Street Profits, all these interbrand champion vs. champion matches have already been done before. Sasha & Asuka was way more entertaining a couple months ago, Orton/McIntyre vs. Reigns have both already happened, while Lashley & Zayn had one of the worst feuds in recent memory. Even if the Zayn/Lashley match is great, which it could be, they’re doing nothing to make us forget about their last go round together.
This Survivor Series build as a whole is kind of weird in general. I can’t tell if I’d rather have it as currently constituted with the infighting & barely paying attention to the other show or to have them all blindly be on the same page despite prior grudges like years prior. The actual answer is just “stop doing brand vs. brand”, but my billionaire senility hasn’t hit me yet, so who’s to say, really?
This Right Here, Is A Musical Distraction. And It Gets You Laid Out Every Time. And You Can’t Teach That.
This is literally the exact same segment from last week except instead of Bayley in the ring with Sasha & Carmella on the entrance ramp, Bayley is on the ramp with Sasha & Carmella in the ring. Same Bayley distraction. Same Superkick into a Facebuster.
I don’t have a ton to add to all of it. They clearly want to move on to the next thing, but Sasha has to pretend like her match with Asuka is important in a week & a half, so it’s got them spinning their wheels. I would like to know why Bayley just straight up left after the Carmella sneak attack. You’d think she’d at least come help & we could tease a Baymella reunion or maybe she’d interfere because Bayley did nothing wrong.
I still don’t know how to feel about the new Carmella, either. She could probably use a promo to give us an idea of what the deal is. Right now she looks like if Mattel released a BDSM Barbie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely doesn’t jive with the Rich Girl vignettes we were getting before she returned last week. Carmella can be good to great, but that entirely relies on how you present her. She had to suffer through that weird Ellsworth pairing, finally shook him & was just starting to really put it together, only for her to lose her title like a week or two later & fade into the background. I hope we’re getting more of the latter part this time & she can give us another solid women’s feud on this show.
Tough Breaks
This isn’t a fun one, everybody.
After literal months in limbo, Chelsea Green finally returned to the main roster, only for it to go about as disastrous as you could think. I say that because not even a minute into the match, she takes a dropkick off the apron from Liv Morgan & snaps her wrist in half when she goes to brace herself landing on the floor. Just brutal. It’s even worse if you’re familiar with Chelsea previously & know the exact same thing happened in her first match for NXT. At the very least from the looks of her injury, it’s a clean break & she should only miss a couple months, but that’s still such a gut punch. Here’s hoping she gets a speedy recovery & returns for good whenever she comes back.
On top of all of that terribleness, right before this match even happens, Green randomly just appears in Adam Pearce’s office & although it may just be a coincidence, it’s definitely conspicuous timing given that WWE fired Zelina Vega right before the show went on the air. Zelina’s firing is a whole other can of worms that I could probably write an entire column on, but I’ll spare you & just say WWE is absolutely garbage to people sometimes. Back to the show, I can’t even think Liv Morgan wasn’t the original plan to win the whole time either & that Chelsea was just a scab filling in since WWE loves to have tag teams on their Survivor Series teams. The RAW Women’s Team has two. The entire thing just leaves a bad taste in your mouth both in & out of the ring.
Anyway, here’s Ruby & Liv being super adorable to end on a high note. Careful not to friendship too loud, ladies. WWE is offing tag teams with reckless abandon this year.
Overall
Worth Your Time: Really nothing, but I guess Rollins vs. Mysterio
If You Have Time: Drew vs. Jey
Don’t Waste Time: Sasha’s Promo, Otis vs. Ziggler, Women’s Fatal Fourway, Zayn vs. Crews
That’s the show, gang. Not the worst episode we’ve had, but definitely nowhere near the top. Smackdown still has three slots for Survivor Series to fill, so we at least have a little intrigue heading into our go-home show next week. How are you feeling about The Blue Team these days? Looking good heading into Survivor Series or just get to Rumble Season already? As always, feel free to drop a comment here or over on our Discord. We’d love to hear from you. See you guys next week, where Natalya sneaks her way onto The Women’s Team & I pencil in an early loss for Smackdown at the pay per view.
