21th August Edition Of The Friday Night Smackdown & Wrestling News

The show opened with the epic reveal of the Thunderdome set up - which would have been great if it wasn’t for pictures of every possible angle leaking before the show. Mr. McMahon was there to talk about branding or some such thing, before he gets interrupted by the lights cutting out. The Fiend comes on down to partay, and he plays a little game of cat and mouse with McMahon, not letting him leave, before he Thanoses away as Braun comes out to make the save. The two stare each other down for a while before Retribution - wait no sorry, the group that calls themselves Retribution - come out and surround the ring. The Fiend and Braun look at each other and smile, and then they team up to fight the bigger evil. Just kidding, The Fiend vanishes under the cover of darkness, because magic I guess, and then Retribution mauls Strowman. The rest of the locker room pour out to attack Retribution and manage to chase them off. Retribution continues to be a bit pants. Interestingly, The Miz was shown to come out at the very end, after Retribution had been chased off. Miz the leader of Retribution confirmed?

Big E and Sheamus were part of the locker room that came out to defend SmackDown, but they get into an argument and have their scheduled match, which was pretty good. The rest of the locker room stayed at ringside looking out for any more attacks from Retribution, which was a nice touch, and Sheamus and Big E had a pretty physical match. The finish came when King Corbin and Matt Riddle got into a brawl on the outside, prompting others to get involved, which distracted Sheamus who was gearing up for a Brogue Kick. Big E took advantage with a rollup and won. It’s a shame because I want to see both of these guys win clean, but also be protected in defeat, while also building both of them, and you can’t quite manage that. But Big E winning is a good thing. I’ll take that at least.

Up next was the SmackDown Tag Team Championship match between Cesaro and Nakamura and Lucha House Party, which started at 11 and did. Not. Stop. Spot, spot, spot, spot, spot, it was an insanely fast paced match, especially towards the end. Cesaro managed to counter a rollup from Lince Dorado into his own rollup for the win. I would have preferred a finisher and pin win from Cesaro, but this time I think a rollup worked well as he outsmarted LHP at their own game. Dorado and the recently returned Kalisto got into an argument after the match, so it looks like it might be their trio’s down to two.

Can you feel the lo- Mandy Rose cut an impassioned promo backstage next, saying that she believes the good in Sonya Deville is still out there, and she wants to put everything behind them, to which Sonya had a scathing promo later in the night. After slapping Dana Brooke backstage for daring to show support after what happened to Sonya this week, Deville came out on the stage, and said that they should raise the stakes for SummerSlam, because everyone knows she doesn’t care if she has no hair. This should be a no DQ match, and the loser leaves WWE. This took me a little by surprise, but perhaps one of them needs time away after what happened this week as they were both present at Sonya’s house. It should be a great match regardless.

Banks & Bayley came out to the ring with Corey Graves next, with them claiming that Asuka couldn’t beat them before disagreeing about the order they should face her at SummerSlam yet again. Naomi came out to quell the argument by saying that they should both face her tonight instead. Graves suggested it should be a Beat the Clock challenge, insinuating Naomi couldn’t beat either of them, which she seemed to love, and it was set. The person who lost the challenge would face Asuka first at SummerSlam. Banks was up first, and beat Naomi in 3 minutes and 39 seconds with a Bank Statement. Thanks for coming Naomi. Bayley rushed into the ring and was putting the hurt on Naomi, before she hit a Rear View from outta nowhere on Bayley and pinned her in about 2 minutes. What?! After Bayley has held the title for nearly a year, she’s losing with much more frequency, and it was in 2 minutes to the goddamn Rear View. To quote Adam Blampied “she hits people with her bum.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see Naomi getting more screen time, but if she’s going to beat the SmackDown Women’s Champion in 2 minutes, clean no less, she needs a proper build from the enhancement talent she’s been presented as for ages, instead of losing to Lacey Evans, to only winning by rollup, to pinning Bayley. I’m privately hoping that this means Bayley retains at SummerSlam with Naomi as her first challenger post-SummerSlam, but from the more overt teases of dissension lately, they may be pulling the Banks vs Bayley trigger at the show. Asuka came out afterwards and beat them both up, because she can.

Up next was the Intercontinental Championship match between AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy, which had a pretty good show-running storyline this week. During the Retribution attack at the start of the show, Styles attacked Hardy in the chaos, injuring his knee. Hardy was eventually cleared to compete, by a doctor that said he looked “stable enough” and he could wrestle if he “could tolerate the pain”. That doesn’t sound like medically cleared to me, but what do I know. The match itself also told a very good story, with AJ targeting the injured knee pretty much through the whole match. It looked like AJ was going to win with a Calf Crusher, but Hardy fought his way out, hitting Styles in the face with his knee brace accidentally, hit a Twist of Fate and a Swanton to become your new Intercontinental Champion. They told a great story through the show and in the match with Styles and Hardy, but...I’m just not invested in seeing Hardy as champion. But that’s a personal thing, and they did tell a great story.

After a sit-down backstage promo from Nikki Cross saying the Alexa she spoke to isn’t the same one, maybe you send it back to Amazon then Nikki, we got a Firefly Funhouse from Bray. Bray was interrupted in his promo about The Fiend by Braun himself, who assaulted Bray inside the Funhouse. I’m never a fan of when people find the Funhouse itself, it breaks the immersion somewhat, and it means that Bray’s just been cutting weird promos from the backstage area, which of course is exactly what’s happening, but it breaks the mystique of the character a little bit.

Bray and Braun’s brawl, try saying that five times fast, continued backstage, with Braun chokeslamming Bray off a little ledge onto the “concrete” floor. An ambulance quickly reversed in, lucky that was on hand, and Bray was stretchered into it. After looking like it was going to leave, it started reversing back, before the back doors opened up and The Fiend was standing there, red lights and all. And that was the show? They went for a cliffhanger big angle to hook you into SummerSlam, which is exactly what they should have done, I’m just not quite sure what the cliffhanger was. Is it that The Fiend is strong? Because, we kind of know that. Let us know what you thought of the friday night smackdown show in the comments. So, the Thunderdome. I think it’s ok. The thing I miss about crowds is the noise. The immediate feedback you get from spots and promos when somebody does something incredible is my favourite part about wrestling. I don’t miss the crowd’s faces. None of the Thunderdome crowd had any noise, it was all piped in. So for me, nothing’s really changed. But it does look better than the plexiglass in the PC, that’s for sure. It was good, there was some solid stories, and I am looking forward to SummerSlam. It just wasn’t quite the killer go-home show for your second biggest show of the year.

Wrestling News

With SummerSlam just one day away, you’d think that everything would be in place for the show. Well, you must be new here, because this is WWE, and last minute decisions are part of the furniture at this point. The winner of the WWE Championship match between Randy Orton and Drew McIntyre is yet to be determined, and it’s this match in particular that seems to have divided creative forces backstage in WWE. According to the Wrestling Observer, an oft-reported plan of Randy Orton defeating McIntyre for the title, leading to a championship match against Edge at WrestleMania 37 is still potentially on the cards. However, there is reportedly another contingent of people who believe that Drew should hold on to the title, instead of dropping it to someone who has been around for a long time. Drew won the championship at WrestleMania 36, and while he has had a great run as champion, it does feel like it’s only really just begun. Which camp do you sit in? Do you want to see Drew retain, or would you rather Orton takes over? Let us know in the comments Regarding SummerSlam, the ever-reliable WrestleVotes has tweeted out to say that WWE has things planned that are “different but pretty cool”, and that we should “expect a return or 2 along with some new storyline ideas.” New storyline ideas that might include Shane McMahon taking over creative control of Raw? Maybe not.

In yesterday’s Wrestlings News, we covered the report from Alex McCarthy on Sportskeeda that Shane McMahon could potentially be taking over creative control of Raw from Bruce Prichard. Dave Meltzer has now weighed in on this story, stating on the Wrestling Observer forum that “of those asked, none believed the story”. He went on to clarify that Prichard isn’t really involved in creative that much, which is instead driven by Ed Koskey. Prichard's job is to regulate the group, execute orders from Vince McMahon, and ensure that various divisions are advised with respect to plans for stock, arrange accomplices and limited time individuals. Prichard also reportedly deals with TV networks USA and Fox, but Kevin Dunn has also been stepping in to do so, and Nick Khan, who was recently hired as WWE’s new President, may end up doing that too. So no more sexy dancers for you on Raw Underground!

But something that is returning is Talking Smack - which WWE announced yesterday and will be on the free version of the WWE Network, hosted by Kayla Braxton and Xavier Woods, which in fairness are really good substitutes for Renee Young and Daniel Bryan. Also as it’s NXT TakeOver XXX tonight, but it’s also SummerSlam tomorrow, and Payback next week and we’re in lockdown, there won’t be any TakeOver livestream reactions, but I will be doing a full review of the show tomorrow morning. On a Sunday. On my day off. Thanks All.