WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 01/08

John Cena and Cody Rhodes Come Face-to-Face, Giulia VS Zelina Vega: Women’s United States Championship

The final SmackDown before Summerslam started with John Cena and Cody Rhodes coming face-to-face! This was a very different promo segment than what I was expecting, with John Cena thanking Cody for putting him in this position as he’s now finally woken up, realising that this isn’t who he is, and it’s time to be himself again! This segment then ended with Cena and Rhodes drinking together as the crowd cheered, and honestly, I didn’t like this at all! I’ve really enjoyed Cena’s run as a Heel, and this felt incredibly sudden! I definitely wouldn’t have done this, especially the night before Summerslam!

Credit: solowrestling

Grade: D

After we saw Drew McIntyre and Logan Paul attack Jelly Roll during a training session, it was time for the first match of the night as Zelina Vega looked to recapture the Women’s United States Championship from Giulia! This was a really good match, the best performance I’ve ever seen from Zelina Vega, and Giulia is amazing at what she does! There were a couple of scrappy moments, as expected, but overall, this was enjoyable enough as Giulia eventually retained her Title with a Northern Lights Bomb!

Grade: B

AAA World Tag Team Championships Open Challenge, Aleister Black VS Damian Priest, Jimmy Uso VS Talla Tonga

Solo Sikoa made it clear that he had nothing to do with a Steel Cage being above the ring before Legado Del Fantasma came out to issue an Open Challenge for their AAA World Tag Team Championships! Their call was answered by none other than Psycho Clown and Mr. Iguana, and this was mental! Some parts of this match were great, Iguanas’ hot tag was fun, the crowd love him, and Angel and Berto sold well for them both! However, it felt like everything fell apart in the final few minutes, with a lot of scrappy sequences taking place before Los Garza eventually got the win to retain their Triple-A Titles! I did enjoy this, but it was definitely messy!

Grade: C+

Credit: WWE

After a great video package hyping up the Summerslam TLC Match, Damian Priest headed down to the ring to go one-on-one with Aleister Black! This was a good match too, the crowd were into it, but it was never really about the match as it ended with Aleister throwing a steel chair at Damian’s face! Black then continued to assault Priest with said steel chair before he delivered a nasty-looking Black Mass to stand tall! Definitely looks like Aleister Black is going to be a Heel moving forward!

Grade: C+

We then headed straight into the Main Event match of the night as Talla Tonga made his singles debut against Jimmy Uso! This match was fine, nothing special, but Talla did look imposing, something that is very important! Jimmy Uso tried his best, but Tonga was able to score the win with a Chokeslam before the rest of The MFT’s continued to attack Uso as Solo Sikoa asked for the steel cage to be lowered! However, this just brought out Jacob Fatu who beat up both JC Mateo and Tonga Loa as Solo escaped!

Grade: C+

Drew McIntyre and Logan Paul Close the Show

After Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair once again failed to admit that they’re friends, the closing angle heading into Summerslam saw Drew McIntyre and Logan Paul take shots at Jelly Roll for being an outsider! Jelly Roll then pulled up in a car, along with Randy Orton, as the two stormed to the ring and started a brawl! Security guards actually did a good job for once to break them up, but Randy decided to take a couple of them out with RKO’s before Jelly dropped another one with a Chokeslam! The fact that this closed the show is actually insane!

Grade: C