Previously on Friday Night Smackdown…
Sunday pay per views went back to back with Payback! Matt Riddle & Big E got revenge for weeks of torment by King Corbin & Sheamus, Roman Reigns got vengeance for The Fiend & Braun Strowman wrecking his yard, & we got retribution… actually, wait no, we didn’t get that.
We’re officially on the road to Clash Of Champions. Smackdown started that journey by booking a rematch for the Women’s Tag Team Championships & another match to determine the new number one contender for Reigns’ Universal Championship. Let’s dive in & see how things went down.
POP: You’re The Man Now, Big Dog
This promo, you guys.
The idea that Roman Reigns is the mastermind behind all of this is just fantastic. He’s the one that recruited Heyman & not the other way around. The concept that these two had been thrown to the side by WWE for different reasons, only to find each other because of it is kind of ridiculous bullshit, but the type of ridiculous bullshit that heels can pull off & works really well in the context they presented it in. Reigns knows what it takes to be on top, but also how insanely difficult it’s been for him to stay there after getting undercut by guys like HHH or Sheamus in the past. Now it’s his turn & with Heyman pulling strings backstage like he did for Lesnar, he can lord over The Universal Championship for a long time coming.
My favorite part is them not even giving any respect to any of the potential winners of the fatal fourway match set for the main event & not even bothering to mention any of their names. I guess The Fiend & Braun Strowman don’t want any part of that match? Okay. Sure. This kind of falls apart later after Heyman & Reigns insert their own guy into the match, which we’ll get to, but my favorite type of heel is the one who just doesn’t care at all who they’re facing & wants to run though everybody. WWE likes to treat heels way too often as cheating cowards & it’ll be refreshing if they just let Reigns murder guys for a while (They still don’t address him being a cheating coward at Payback here, but FINE, I’ll let it go). A small nitpick is having Reigns say anything at all since I think it was impossible to follow up on Heyman’s promo, but that’s completely minor. We’re officially into megastar babyface turned heel territory we’ve always wanted since John Cena was on the scene & I’m super excited to see how it all plays out.
BOTCH: Heavy Tomfoolery
The clear lowlight of the entire evening belongs to Miz & Morrison against Heavy Machinery. Given all the other important goings on throughout the show, I had to go back twice & check out what actually happened in this match to remind me what went down. That’s probably not a good sign. MizMo, despite being multiple time champions at different levels & across several promotions (for John, anyway), still haven’t won a match together since this past May. I get they’re not exactly The Brothers Of Destruction or anything, but Morrison’s in-ring ability alone should steal you at least one win in four months. I am glad to see Otis getting a win with a Vader Bomb, however. At the end of the day, The Caterpillar is still just a regular standing elbow drop. I don’t care how many times you roll your belly on the canvas before it hits, it shouldn’t be pinning anyone.
For reasons still unclear, Morrison decides to steal Otis’ MitB briefcase after the match & run away to the back with it. Hilarity ensues. Miz rightfully points out that stealing the briefcase doesn’t make you the winner of Money In The Bank & apparently forgot how Otis won the thing in the first place, but this is WWE & we need to hit our quota for what passes as comedy to the out of touch seventy five year old owner of the company. Turns out Otis actually keeps the contract in his lunchbox while the briefcase holds more practical things like a stapler & sandwiches. Somebody please inform the poor guy you can use condiments to get the meat & cheese to stick to the bread & don’t have to staple them on there.
POP: The Smackdown Uso-verse
Like I mentioned in the intro, the main story for this episode of Smackdown is all about crowning a new number one contender for The Universal Championship. As there’s already a ton of history between the four participants heading in, things unsurprisingly can’t go off without a hitch & Sheamus puts Big E through a car windshield, knocking him out of contention. Some people were probably a little upset given Big E’s current push & how he looked to be in line for a big spotlight match, but I have zero issue with him not winning this. It’s a pretty safe bet Roman’s going to breeze through his first title defense, so there’s no need to feed Big E to him after his stock has risen so much this past month. You can have Big E get his revenge at a later date & then move on to greater things down the line.
That brings us to the most interesting development of the show & the arrival of Jey Uso. Last time we saw Jey, he was the host of the smash hit that was Smackdown Karaoke, so I’m guessing he’s down to be doing literally anything that’s not that. Smackdown has done really well in recent weeks remembering they have a entire roster of superstars that they can plug into stories to progress things along. Gran Metalik gets an Intercontinental Championship bout, Chad Gable tries to cash in on King Corbin’s bounty, & now Jey Uso gets a chance to vie for the top singles title, despite being a tag team specialist. I never quite understood how when half of a tag team gets hurt, WWE tends to just put the non-injured team member into purgatory while they wait for their partner to heal. That person is still there & can wrestle. Use them. Anyway, Smackdown has done a great job incorporating multiple people onto the show without just lumping them all into factions like RAW has been doing & the addition of Jey into this match makes for a lot interesting talking points.
POP: Queen Of The Ring
The more & more I was watching this match, the angrier I was getting at it. Not because it’s not great. It is. It’s one of the best women’s tag matches we’ve seen since the titles were introduced. No, I’m annoyed because of WWE’s decision to put the women’s tags on the back burner for so long & to have been doing nothing with Shayna Baszler for months since she got called up from NXT. This match easily highlights how both things should be prominently showcased from here on out. You have undeniably the best women’s roster in all of professional wrestling & there’s no reason you can’t throw four women into a match & not expect a solid outcome. Hell, Nia Jax was in this one & it was one of the best women’s tag matches to date.
Back to Shayna, though. She was the shit in this contest. Easily the best she’s looked since the Kairi trilogy in NXT. The no nonsense way she can just wreck an opponent & take apart one of their limbs is like nobody else in the division. Her taking the brunt of the onslaught from Sasha & Bayley while Nia was incapacitated from that powerbomb to the floor made her look like a huge star. That’s not to take away from Sasha or Bayley, either. They brought enough working boots for the entire show in this match. I didn’t love positioning them as the plucky underdogs fighting from underneath practically the entire match since they’ve been insufferable & deserve the beat down, but the wrestling was so great I’m willing to look the other way.
I’m really also into the way Nia Jax is being portrayed during this whole tag team run. Her being kind of a bumbling dolt who gets in about a minute of offense while Shayna does all the heavy lifting & steals the victories is a great way to position her. They are keeping the gag going of her being the glory hog & taking credit for everything, so it’ll make it that much sweeter when Shayna finally snaps & chokes her to death. Shayna & Nia are onto The Riotts while the The Golden Ones look to pick up the pieces of their partnership & regroup going forward.
POP: Evil Uno
Welp… never mind that whole regrouping thing.
Imagine if I told you five years ago Bayley would be the most diabolical heel in the women’s division? Your head would have exploded. Despite Sasha putting up one hell of a fight here, her not being the one who tapped out to lose the titles & Bayley getting pinned in this match, Bayley decides to absolutely put Sasha Banks into the fucking ground. Michael Cole could not be reached to confirm what time it is. We all knew it was coming, but I didn’t think it’d be like this. A simple smash of the title into Sasha’s back, maybe put through the announce desk & then it’s over as we book our match for Clash Of Champions.
This… was not that. The last thing I expected was Bayley going for the full Pillman treatment on Sasha’s neck. Not exactly something you can just rebound from & have the title match right away. Although Sasha’s neck has been shown to be near indestructible over the years, so maybe you can? I don’t think that’s what we’re going to get, though. Despite us seemingly reaching the fireworks factory, it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting the blow off match any time soon. The question becomes how long do we wait? Survivor Series? The Rumble? Does Sasha enter as a surprise at The Rumble & it’s pushed until Mania? That’s a long time away. And also, who’s left to keep Bayley busy while Sasha is presumably on the shelf? She’s run through basically all of the women’s division available, so I’m not entirely sure who’s left. The coming weeks are going to get real interesting for this division as a whole.
*Note: It’s been a brutal week for beloved women’s teams breaking up between this & The IIconics. I’m not sure how much more I can take. Toni Storm & Piper Niven are still friends, right? RIGHT??
BOTCH: Title Fight
I actually really do like the idea of a triple threat for The Intercontinental Championship between Sami Zayn, AJ Styles & Jeff Hardy. Hardy matches have become a bit of a slog recently given him Swanton Bombing from various heights over the decades & all the miles he’s put on his body, so I think having the other two involved helps lighten the load a little bit without diminishing his involvement. The segment gets a Botch though for being about as by the numbers as it gets. First guy enters. Gets Interrupted. Other guy interrupts them. Everybody fights. We’re on our way to a match between the three. Nothing we haven’t all seen a hundred times before.
Shout out to Sami Zayn’s character consistency & for being the only person who thoroughly checks the notes around here.
“Nope, I’m not seeing any Blue Thunder Bombs getting any victories here either.”
POP: Can’t Harley Wait
Swoon…
I mean…
Soon…
POP: Jey-Man Hustle
Finally we get to our main event. This match kind of flew under the radar given how great the women’s tag was & everything that happened after, but I watched it again & it absolutely delivers. Everybody here was flying around & getting spots in with quickness & force. There was rarely any of that “two guys wrestle while the others sit on the outside” thing WWE likes to do that we all hate. Corbin & Sheamus beating on each other is particularly fun given their size & their unfinished business from a few weeks back. The match will ultimately be remembered for the winner & not the wrestling, but it was still a really good outing by all four guys.
I think Jey Uso entering the match kind of took away some of the mystery heading in about who was going to win, but I still like that choice. With Big E involved, I could have made a case for all four guys, but with Jey, that’s too obvious a contender to not pull the trigger on. It still works in a lot of ways though, so no complaints. You get entitled Roman Reigns doing his family a solid, that you just know Jey is going to throw in his face along with his alignment with Heyman & ends up getting him run through at Clash. It’s the perfect first feud for Roman’s first defense. There’s enough of a story there that makes sense & you can work with, but also nobody actually thinks Jey Uso has a chance in hell at unseating Reigns for the title. I look forward to The Big Dog entering The Uso Penitentiary. Isn’t a penitentiary for dogs a kennel? Kennel From Hell Part II confirmed! Oh no…..
And there’s your Smackdown. Lots of things happening as Team Blue is very much looking like the best show WWE has to offer as of late. We’ll see if they can keep it going in the coming weeks. As always, feel free to speak your mind below or over on SRP’s Discord. With Sasha Banks out of the picture, let’s see who steps up to take on Nega Bayley for her title.
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🤔 🤔#SmackDown pic.twitter.com/a1Wcy667Rc
— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020
The Makeover Of Legs-alina! PREMIERING SOON.
