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This week’s episode of Friday night SmackDown emanates from Philadelphia. Get a full preview of the show with the live blog here.
One thing I really love about Roman Reigns and The Bloodline, and the way the stories are written about Friday night SmackDown more generally, it is that they tend to serve several masters at the same time. So while Brock Lesnar waits backstage for Reigns, it doesn’t matter what happens with Finn Balor at Extreme rules, they can also work a bit on having Montez Ford show up at this week’s show without Angelo Dawkins and make it a hell of a match.
Ford disrespected The Bloodline and Reigns decided to put the boots on him in response. What resulted was actually a hell of a chance for Ford to show off his skills against the best guy in the entire company in a title, and he did pretty well.
He felt like he belonged, a good sign for the future.
Of course, that was just for Reigns to win and Paul Heyman to ask him to send a EXTREME message and Ford passing by a table outside. That’s when THE DEMON arrived to offer us this cool visual:
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There is something to be said for times like this that might not look as good on TV. It’s still cool, sure, but it’s live events and times like this are really for the fans in attendance. They probably enjoyed it all a lot more than we ever could just by being there, and that’s pretty good for them and something to keep in mind for the rest of us.
They did not do much to cast doubt on the game at Extreme rules but that would be playing a losing game anyway. All in all, that was a pretty darn good way to deal with it.
I don’t know how I feel about this turning character for Becky Lynch – she’s in a constant state of play like she has no choice but to do the dastardly things she’s doing, and in in fact, everyone is wrong. It’s not that such a strategy is ineffective as it can definitely be with the right character, I’m just not sure if it works with this particular wrestler.
Maybe I just want the badass, don’t apologize, don’t take a Lynch prisoner that I remember before she left. To be fair, she cut a promo later in the series that came back to this, so maybe there’s still hope.
Meanwhile, I really don’t like them coming back to Bianca Belair saying “I wasn’t expecting to have a match with you” to Slam summer as a defense of his loss that night. This makes everything Lynch says correct! You don’t want your babyface to apologize, and she has already acknowledged her part and promised to come back stronger. Why come back to this topic of discussion just a few days before the match?
By the way, that kind of buries Sasha Banks as well, right? Belair was prepared for Banks and therefore couldn’t face a challenge from Lynch? Are they not at the same level?
Anyway, after all of that, that segment turned into slogans and general promotion of the upcoming match which was your standard fare. Nothing in particular.
It was only really interesting once Becky pulled back and slapped her in the face after Belair offered her hand. This sparked a brief but aggressive brawl that made it clear that the focus should have been on Belair wanted to present this. “You caught me off guard before, now look at this” and all that.
It’s hard to stretch that over a month, I guess.
Mostly, I’m just glad the game is here and we can move on soon enough.
It was the best thing about this show by a mile.
A while back, Naomi showed up on Friday night on SmackDown to say that she was there and ready to step into the ring to wrestle and show what she can do. She was greeted by a strangely distant Sonya Deville, who played the fool by pushing her away.
Fast forward a few weeks and Naomi was getting more and more pissed off about being tied up, to the point that she found herself right in front of Deville’s face and almost threatened to jump right away. She was fined for it.
Finally, she just stepped into the ring this week, picking up a mic and leading a crowd in a “make the game” chant in reference to, well, literally any game. This extremely skilled and naturally talented woman just wants to wrestle, damn it. What’s Sonya’s problem, anyway?
Here’s the thing: we still don’t know the answer to this.
Here’s the other thing: we don’t really care at this point because my god was amazing Deville here.
She demanded that Naomi’s microphone be muted, called security to escort her, then fully lay on top of her as they did:
“You don’t see it, but I was actually trying to help you because we all know when your elaborate entry is done, everything else is downhill from there. We gave you luck after luck after luck and you constantly drop the ball. So you wanna be mad at someone? Be angry with yourself. Take her out, boys, take her out. Now you can go back there and Tik Tok dance your way in the dark as I create the future of SmackDown. Get her out of here!
Give me Naomi vs. Sonya Deville NOW!
Everything else
- Oh, I liked the added wrinkle they introduced in this week’s brief Seth Rollins promo, cut while sitting in a dark backstage area. He made it clear this week that he expects Edge to drag his butt into the ring to answer his call on next week’s show and if he doesn’t, there will be consequences. . However, he made sure to underline a key point in demanding this: He said that Edge needs to make the world understand that Rollins is not, in fact, Edge-lite, and that he is the reason why. Edge will go ahead. While last week his angle was purging himself of the weakness he was perceiving by feeling sorry for his enemy, this week was about ego. It’s not just that he won, it’s that he needs to hear Edge say it and he’s ready to chase Edge in front of his wife and kids to get there. It’s great because of what it means for the Rollins character and his progression, but it’s also great for setting up how Edge will react to that after what happened in their match.
- Shinsuke Nakamura beat Apollo Crews to retain the Intercontinental Championship in a game that was not very interesting. It felt more like a showcase for Rick BOOGS, who played guitar to help a Nakamura comeback before pitching Commander Azeez to make sure he couldn’t interfere in the match.
- For my part, I’m really happy to see Nikki ASH and Rhea Ripley come to the blue mark to refresh the women’s tag team division here, if only by knocking out Natalya and Tamina again (even if it was just Nikki defeating Nattie in a singles match). This paved the way for Shotzi & Nox to show up with this tank and shoot the champions. I like the idea that this is how they make a challenge for a game. Just shoot a tank at their opponents. They deserved the next game anyway, and there’s a lot of potential in those two, so let’s go now, please and thank you.
- Dominik Mysterio finally stood up to his dad just a bit on this show, categorically telling Rey that he would have beaten Sami Zayn twice without his dad hanging out at ringside. Rey dismissed this completely, leaving him some space because “it is clear that you are not thinking correctly.” As we know, Dom is right here. We don’t have to worry about which side to take all of this on, as Zayn showed up to get more into Dom’s head on this. We can be reasonably sure that he doesn’t have good intentions, even though he does appear to be, and he does right now. They do a good rhythm job with this story, don’t rush into anything and let it develop naturally. I am here for the next chapter.
- Zelina Vega defeated Liv Morgan thanks to Carmella providing a useful distraction. Not much to say about this one. Carmella is far too worried about being punched in the face and Morgan may be a little too zealous to achieve it. Incoming match!
It was a solid show.
Category B-
Your turn.
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