WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 09/01

Linus O'Howell
14 minutes ago
5 min read

Randy Orton Starts the Show, Trick Williams VS Rey Fenix

A special edition of Friday Night SmackDown, live from Berlin, Germany, kicked off with Randy Orton for the first time in quite a while! However, Randy could barely say anything before he got interrupted by Trick Williams, a man that’s trying to place himself firmly in the spotlight! Trick made it clear to Randy that it’s not 2006 anymore, it’s 2026, and that’s why all the new stars are coming! Randy decided to give Williams one free pass, stating that if Trick turns his back on him again, he’ll quickly get dropped with an RKO! To be fair, Orton did drop Trick Willy with his Apron-DDT, before The Miz failed in his attempt to jump The Viper! As far as this segment goes, it was alright as it allowed Trick to once again stand up to a big-time name!

Grade: C+

The opening segment of this show led perfectly into the opening match of the night as Trick Williams made his official Main Roster debut against Rey Fenix! I thought this was a pretty decent match; Trick has massively improved in the ring in recent years, whilst Rey Fenix is so much fun to watch! Fenix tried to use his quickness to ground Williams, a smart strategy, but it didn’t quite work as Trick Willy proved to be a little bit too big to overcome! Ironically, though, Trick won this match by catching Fenix off guard with a roll-up (whilst holding the tights), a finish that I thought was well executed!

Grade: B-

Women’s United States Championship: Giulia VS Alexa Bliss, The Wyatt Sick6 VS MFT

After Giulia laughed off Byron Saxton’s belief that Alexa Bliss is a threat to her, Damian Priest made it clear that he’s setting his sights back on the Undisputed WWE Championship! This then resulted in an interesting interaction between Priest and Drew McIntyre, before Lash Legend and Nia Jax questioned whether Charlotte Flair was actually ill or not! Anyway, this then led into the next match as Alexa Bliss challenged Giulia for the Women’s United States Championship! The crowd seemed to be behind Alexa here, but once again, they showed little interest towards Giulia! It’s honestly quite frustrating because Giulia is one of the best female wrestlers in the world, but she’s just not connecting with the Main Roster audience! Anyway, despite multiple pieces of interference by Kiana James, Alexa was still able to fight on, before Lash Legend arrived to shove Bliss off the top rope! This opened the door for Giulia to nail Alexa with a Northern Lights Bomb to get the win, meaning The Beautiful Madness is still your Women’s US Champion! After the match was over, Nia Jax flattened Alexa Bliss with an Annihilator!

Grade: C+

Jordynne Grace has officially signed to Friday Night SmackDown, and her first piece of business was getting into a war of words with Chelsea Green and Alba Fyre! Kit Wilson then called Nick Aldis “toxic”, before Matt Cardona reunited with Cody Rhodes! Everything was then ready for a colossal 8-man Tag Team match as The Wyatt Sick6 and Solo Sikoa’s MFTs looked to prove which family is better! A lot of this match seemed to feature around Talla Tonga; I felt like he was in this match a lot, and that did result in us getting a pretty cool standoff between Talla and Erick Rowan! In terms of the rest of the match, it was totally fine, but I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to see it (unless you want to, of course)! However, having said that, I did like the ending, as Solo Sikoa stole Bray Wyatt’s lantern, completely throwing Uncle Howdy off his game, before Tama Tonga nailed Howdy with his finisher to get the win! Another successful night as far as the MFTs are concerned!

Grade: C+

Alba Fyre VS Jordynne Grace, Carmelo Hayes’ United States Championship Open Challenge

Carmelo Hayes once again enjoyed mocking The Miz before Ilja Dragunov told Melo that right now, he has bigger things on his mind than another rematch! Jordynne Grace was then ready to make her Main Roster debut when she went one-on-one with Alba Fyre! Honestly, I’m not even sure this match lasted 3 minutes, with Jordynne delivering both a Juggernaut Driver and Beast Mode to get a pretty straightforward victory! In fairness, this is exactly how someone like Jordynne Grace should be booked, but I do still feel for Alba Fyre (because she’s great)! Anyway, after the match was over, Jade Cargill arrived to send a warning to JG; something I wouldn’t be worried about at all!

Grade: C+

After Sami Zayn talked about who he thinks is going to end the night as the Undisputed WWE Champion, Nathan Frazer was ambushed by a guy dressed as Axiom! However, instead of it being Axiom, it was actually revealed to be Johnny Gargano in what was a fabulous segment (Gargano is such a great Heel)! Carmelo Hayes was then out next to host another United States Championship Open Challenge, a call that was answered this week by none other than Shinsuke Nakamura! This match went nearly 20 minutes, it got 2 whole advert breaks, and it was very good because of it! Arguably, Carmelo and Shinsuke are two of the biggest NXT stars of all time (in terms of how they carried themselves), and it was pretty cool to see them grapple up on the Main Roster (especially given the fact that they came from very different eras of NXT)! Most of this match also had a story, with Nakamura constantly targeting the bad knee of Hayes! However, despite coming close to connecting with a Kinshasa, eventually, Melo was able to nail Shin with a First-48/Nothin’ but Net combo to earn another successful Title defence! Fair play!

Grade: B

Undisputed WWE Championship 3 Stages of Hell Match: Cody Rhodes VS Drew McIntyre

After Nick Aldis confirmed a Number 1 Contender’s Tournament to start from next week, an awesome video package was the prelude to this week’s SmackDown Main Event as Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre went through 3 Stages of Hell to come out on the other side as the Undisputed WWE Champion! Now, the first part of this match was a straight up Wrestling match, meaning it wasn’t exactly the most extreme stage of hell! However, after the referee got distracted by a turnbuckle being ripped off, Drew took advantage, nailing Cody with both a low blow and a Claymore Kick to score the first fall! The second fall was then contested in “Falls Count Anywhere”, with the two brawling around the arena, before Cody did a ridiculous dive off the top of the railing through a table! Amazingly, that only resulted in a 2-count, with Rhodes having to wreck McIntyre through an announce table (with a Cross Rhodes) to level the scores up at 1-1! After having about a minute to catch their breath, the sudden-death deciding fall saw a Steel Cage surround the ring! It wasn’t exactly the “old school” Steel Cage that Drew had promised, but I guess that would’ve been a lot harder to have gotten all the way to Germany! Drew then came close to winning, with Cody kicking out of a Claymore (after running head-first into the exposed steel turnbuckle), before a returning Jacob Fatu arrived to cost McIntyre the Title! Jacob completely wrecked Drew inside the Steel Cage, but then, in an absolutely shocking moment, Fatu also went off on Cody Rhodes, allowing The Scottish Psychopath to escape out of the cage door! Yes, that does mean that Drew McIntyre is the new Undisputed WWE Champion! This match was great already; I thought it worked really well, but Drew winning is just the icing on the cake! I never expected that to happen, but if anyone deserves it, it’s McIntyre!