20th November Edition Of The

Friday Night Smackdown & Wrestling News

The 20th November Edition Of The Friday Night Smackdown show started with Street Profits plugging Survivor Series, much like they used to plug Raw when they were the NXT Tag Team Champions. Okay fine, it’s a go-home show, and then Big E interrupts, and the three have a pretty good back and forth about their upcoming match with the New Day on Sunday. Big E then reveals that Woods and Kingston are here tonight. You know, after their emotional farewell they had about a month ago.

They then waltz down to the ring, without Big E I might add, despite Big E being, you know, right there, and then they cut a relatively unfunny promo on the Street Profits, before they’re interrupted by Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn, King Corbin and Ziggler and Roode. After an unconvincing bait and switch, the Street Profits came out to make it an 8-man tag, which the Street Profits won after Sami Zayn was tagged in without his consent, and then he was hit with a spinebuster and a Frog Splash and there’s your Intercontinental Champion everyone. The one person on that 4-man team who holds a title, and he’s the one he takes the pin. Sure. Alright.

Backstage an angry Zayn runs into Bryan, who pushes him over. Alright, sweet build to a feud after Survivor Series guys.

Definitely not the GM Adam Pearce then announces the final member of the men’s Survivor Series team, Otis. Okay. Didn’t he lose to Seth Rollins in a qualifying match? Hey do you remember at Hell in a Cell when Tucker turned on him and cost him the MITB briefcase? You’d think he’d be more upset about that. Definitely not the GM Adam Pearce then reveals to Natalya that he could also pick one member of the SmackDown women’s team, why one person, we’ll never know, and he picked Bayley. Natalya still gets a third chance to qualify though, in a singles match against Tamina, which she won in about two minutes. Bayley called herself the captain of the team, I really, really don’t care about these Survivor Series matches.

Up next was Roman Reigns and Drew McIntyre having a contract signing. Sure, have all the Raw stars on, why not. In a genius little move though, Reigns sat himself at the head of the contract signing table. I see what you did there. The pair cut very natural promos on each other, without mics, which only added to the real feel of the promos. I was already excited for this match, and I am still very excited. Nobody got put through a table this time, and I’m really glad they’re holding off on the physicality between the two until the show tomorrow. That being said, the camera cuts during these promos were obnoxious. Nothing is happening, they’re both just sitting there talking. You don’t need dramatic cuts between a wide shot and each individual expression on their face every few seconds when their expression hasn’t changed. God.

Also Michael Cole tried his best to sabotage my excitement for this match by telling us “this is about bragging rights”. Nothing kills my excitement more than being reminded that this show means precisely nothing. After this was the blowoff, hopefully, between Seth Rollins and Murphy.

Murphy entered accompanied by the Mysterios, so yeah, Rollins vs Mysterios is kind of still going on, and after Murphy held Rey and Dominik back and said “I’ve got this”, I thought this would be Murphy’s big coming out party. This will be Murphy’s big win, the time where WWE tells you to watch this man, because he is a future star. And I was sort of right. Seth Rollins absolutely dominated Murphy for this match. I mean, it was kind of embarrassing. Every time Murphy mounted some offense, Rollins shut it down. He beat up Murphy, he beat up Rey, he beat up Dominik, and then he beat up Murphy some more. There was a great spot where Murphy tried to climb back through the ropes and Rollins hit the stomp through the middle rope, but Murphy managed to get his foot on the bottom rope from the pin. Murphy then eventually came back, hitting about 17 running knees because that’s all he knows, before hitting a Murphy’s Law and pinning Seth Rollins clean! Nice! Murphy beat Rollins! That’s great! Would have been nice if he could have hit, I dunno, maybe some moves through the match, but Murphy won! Good for Murphy. Here’s hoping he continues to be treated like a star going forward. I’m not gonna hold my breath though, especially with the way this segment ended.

As Murphy and the Mysterios all gathered in the ring and began to celebrate, Sasha Banks’ music hits, we’re reminded it’s Boss Time on SmackDown and then it cuts to an ad break. You don’t get a celebration Murphy, look at Banks, she was in the Mandalorian don’t you know. After the ad break, it’s Banks and Raw Women’s Champions Asuka, who will be facing each other at Survivor Series with absolutely no build. Granted, the match will probably be great, because it’s Asuka and Banks. But they didn’t exactly make me excited for it with this promo segment. Also why did Drew and Roman need a contract signing, but Asuka and Banks didn’t? Eh, why do I even question these things. Asuka started saying other wrestlers catchphrases? For some reason? And then Banks said she was gonna win, and then Asuka said she wasn’t ready for Asuka, and then Carmella attacked Banks again, while Asuka just watched her do it. What a...babyface?

And then finally, it’s time for the main event of the go-home show for Survivor Series, it’s Jey Uso vs Daniel Bryan. With absolutely no stakes. Or any relevance to Survivor Series at all. But, this was great. After promos from them both earlier in the night, and a video package reliving Jey’s heel turn and attack on Bryan, there was some pretty significant heat between the two. And the match was incredibly well worked, with Bryan’s back and kidneys getting worked over for the majority of the match, even being put through the announce table. While there wasn’t anything overly flashy or huge spots, I really bought in to Jey’s beatdown of Bryan, so that when Bryan eventually fired up and came back, I was into it. It’s almost as if Bryan and Jey are really good wrestlers or something. And the finish managed to protect both of them too, with Bryan only just managing to roll Jey up for the win. The match felt very even, like on another day, Jey could have won, which we’ve seen already he can. But this cemented that that win wasn’t really a fluke. It felt like Jey belonged alongside Bryan, and they have done a fantastic job making him feel like a top player on SmackDown. But no time to think about that it’s Drew vs Roman on Sunday and Undertaker’s final farewell after 30 years, don’t forget to tune in, thank you for watching bye! So that was the show.

Let us know what you thought about 20th November Edition Of The Friday Night Smackdown show in the comments. The problem is that this is a go-home show for supposedly, one of your Big 4. And despite have promo segments between the champions, I’m not looking forward to the show any more than I was before. The good stuff on this show, was really good, but it also was the stuff that wasn’t about Survivor Series.

Wrestling News

New WWE TV Show?

Sometimes when I’ve finished watching 3 hours of Raw, two hours of NXT, two hours of SmackDown, and then 3 hours of a WWE PPV, I find myself thinking “I really wish there was more WWE wrestling to watch. 10 hours a week just isn’t enough!” Well lucky old me, because it’s being reported in the Wrestling News that Triple H is currently “trying to find a way to implement some type of a show that would get more NXT talent ring time and exposure. They aren’t going to do house shows but they may add something in some form.” Isn’t that what Main Event is? Now it’s definitely a good thing that stars who struggle to feature on TV might get more ring time, but you can’t help but think of all the money WWE claimed it needed to save earlier this year, which led to a reported 40% of its workforce being released or furloughed. New shows cost a lot of money, but with nearly $1 billion of profit expected in 2020, I’m sure they’ll find a few pennies to spare. They’ll just be hoping there aren’t too many more lawsuits like this one.

Huge WWE Lawsuit Settlement

A few months ago, you may remember that the City of Warren Police and Fire Retirement System accused WWE executives of deceiving investors regarding its dealings with Saudi Arabia. The lawsuit alleged that WWE executives artificially inflated their stock and that senior executives sold more than $280 million of their shares at “fraud inflated prices.” As part of the lawsuit, it was alleged that WWE did not disclose failed negotiations with the Saudi government over their TV deal and that WWE was not able to expand in that region, despite claiming otherwise. WWE has now paid $39 million out of court to settle the lawsuit, and released a statement which read: “The Company believes that resolving the matter is the right business decision and that it is prudent to end the protracted and uncertain class action process.” Perhaps they can get the money back through the Undertaker’s latest social media adventure.

Undertaker Joins TikTok

As a young and hip man myself, there’s nothing I like more than sitting down with a glass of port and checking out the latest bants vids and memes on TikTok. It seems that The Undertaker is the same, because he has now officially joined TikTok, just days after WWE announced that he’d be joining Cameo for a short time to help promote his appearance at this Sunday’s Survivor Series. His first post features the Undertaker and his wife Michelle McCool, with Michelle wearing a rubber Undertaker mask and pretending to be her husband in the hashtag Undertaker Challenge, which I’m sure will be the latest rad ting with da kidz. Head on over to his channel for some more Tikkity Tokkity goodness. I bet it will be jokes. Memes.