WWE stopped through Greenville, North Carolina, for “SmackDown” after a big Saturday Night’s Main Event and continued to shake up the landscape. Cody Rhodes did his best to move on from Drew McIntyre, while a title changed hands. For once, it wasn’t too bad of a Friday night.
Who would have thought that a Saturday Night’s Main Event would create such a reset for WWE? Well, it appeared to have, if this “SmackDown” is any indicator.
Cody Rhodes getting approached by Aleister Black and Zelina was not on my bingo card for the night, but it was a refreshing welcome. With that said, it very much felt like a near-instant recycle was afoot. We just saw CM Punk and AJ Lee have their mini-feud with Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch. It felt like a tease of the same thing with these three plus Brandy Rhodes after Zelina slapped Cody.
The interaction was brief, as Rhodes wasted no time, calling Drew McIntyre the ultimate self-saboteur and boasting about his champ status. It all led to the main event match between Rhodes and Black.
For the most part, it all felt good and fresh until it wasn’t.
McIntyre hilariously emerged late in the match to ruin it with a Claymore Kick to the referee. A McIntyre vs. referees feud would be excellent.
The match was going as great as one would expect, but WWE TV main events still struggle to end in a quality manner. Rhodes attacked McIntyre before he was double-teamed by the Scotsman and Black, resulting in the arrival of Damian Priest for the save because he hates “BlackIntyre,” of course.
This will all be fine as long as McIntyre heads toward a match with Nick Aldis, because the “SmackDown” general manager kayfabe suspended him for his actions. They’ve continued to butt heads, and this all plays perfectly into the scenario of McIntyre unleashing his frustrations on the authority figure.
Meanwhile, let’s keep things fresh around Rhodes. A proper finish to a match with Black would be nice.
Chelsea Green is once again the Women’s U.S. Champion. Initially, the title change was so shocking that I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. However, realistically, this was perfect in every respect. It wasn’t even a match, lasting maybe three-ish minutes, and ending by a Green roll-up after outside shenanigans.
The title is a joke, and recrowning Green proves that while saving Giulia from this wasteful purgatory. Hopefully, she will now move on to enter the world title scene where she belongs and feud with either Jade Cargill or Stephanie Vaquer. There’s history with the latter, so that would be an easy choice for WWE in theory.
Who remembers when Nia Jax and Tamina were a team? Nobody? Just me? Well, good for you guys. Unfortunately for you all, you’re about to see a repeat of that, as Lash Legend appeared on this “SmackDown” to align with Jax.
OK, admittedly, that duo will be much, much better, because Legend absolutely rules which is why pairing her with anyone kind of sucks. But we’ll see how it goes, as Legend attacked Alexa Bliss during Charlotte Flair’s match with Jax. The distraction resulted in Flair eating the A-Nia-lator to take the pin.
The match itself was pretty solid and had a callback to the pair’s history, including their infamous shoot punch exchange. Most importantly, it’s nice to see WWE further invest in a women’s tag team division.
We even saw “Doc-ska!” What a time.
1. Jade Cargill made her first appearance as WWE Women’s Champion, which was short and sweet like her win over Tiffany Stratton. She literally came out only to remind everyone what happened against Stratton, stating, “I’m that b****.” This was stunningly effective, but shouldn’t be, considering how Cargill should be presented. It was great and led immediately into those continuous Charlotte Flair teases, as the tag champ made her entrance for her Nia Jax match. This was all great.
2. “SmackDown” general manager Nick Aldis announced that the next matchups in the John Cena retirement tournament will be Jey Uso vs. The Miz and LA Knight vs. a mystery opponent. Obviously, a good mystery opponent is practically the best thing about pro wrestling, so it will be intriguing to see who Knight is matched with. I’m very glad that WWE chose to go the surprise route rather than spoiling it, as it often does in this era.
Somehow, I hope Miz beats Uso, but I couldn’t care less about that match. Miz gave a pretty great, fired-up promo backstage, though. The guy still has it.
3. Talla Tonga beat Rey Fenix clean with a massive chokeslam. They put on a very solid match, and while I don’t love the continuous Fenix losses, they only give further easier reason for a Lucha Bros reunion. Also, Tonga has just been booked as a hoss, so there’s no shame in losing to him.
Springboarding off the Cargill TV time on this “SmackDown,” she seemingly set up her first match as champion against B-Fab. I think B-Fab is underrated, but this feels odd and kind of random when B-Fab has never been presented as a serious threat in any way. It’s a start in freshening up the world title scene, but not the one I expected.
Since “SmackDown” has been largely awful lately, the Uncrowned Gem of the Night will continue just to be Ilja Dragunov putting on showcase banger matches.
Introducing the dude to the main roster by immediately becoming the U.S. Champion and hosting open challenge matches was utterly brilliant. It was the perfect move for a guy this talented, and he’s shown it every week, with this “SmackDown” being no different. In the match, Dragunov put on a clinic with Johnny Gargano.
Dragunov sells pretty much any neck shot like death, and he’s a wildly believable performer. The H-Bomb is admittedly a strange finish, in my opinion, but he actually manages to make it a super badass move. To win this match, he hit it after a top-rope suplex which was nuts. This guy has future world champion written all over him.
A smaller nugget of interest emerged before the match, as Gargano’s #DIY partner, Tomasso Ciampa, was the one who requested the title match. Dragunov instead gave the match to Gargano, which led to Ciampa walking out of the arena. This felt like a potential dissension creation move by Dragunov, because I don’t know what other purpose it served.
Most of the problems with this “SmackDown” were nitpicks, so it was actually a surprisingly solid and fresh two hours. I give this show a Crown score of: 8/10.