WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 10/10

Linus O'Howell
4 hours ago
4 min read

Cody Rhodes Starts the Show, Sami Zayn VS ?: United States Championship Open Challenge

The final episode of Friday Night SmackDown before Crown Jewel saw Cody Rhodes kick off the night to cut a promo about his impending match with Seth “Freakin” Rollins! Cody praised a lot of different wrestlers for being crucial to the show, including Seth Rollins, but for some reason, Rollins seems to be in his own head about it all! The crowd in Perth, Australia, then started to turn into chaos, resulting in the rest of this segment going off the rails, but it was okay, very straightforward! I have to say, though, Seth has to win tomorrow; Cody cannot win the Crown Jewel Championship again!

Grade: C+

Stephanie Vaquer and Tiffany Stratton agreed to have each other’s backs for tonight’s match before Jacob Fatu made his future plans clear for Cody Rhodes! This resulted in Fatu being assaulted by Drew McIntyre, before it was time for the first match of the night as Sami Zayn hosted yet another Open Challenge for his United States Championship! Interestingly, this one was answered by none other than a returning Shinsuke Nakamura, who came out to his classic NXT theme! Sami and Shinsuke have so much history, both as rivals in NXT and as partners in The Artist Collective, and that showed here with a really strong match! Both guys clearly click whenever they work together, and with the addition of the Perth crowd being really invested in the action (really getting behind Shin in particular), this was worth the watch! There was also a strong near-fall that followed a devastating Kinshasa from Nakamura, only for Zayn to put his feet on the ropes, before the match was ended as a DQ when Shinsuke was taken out by the returning Tama Tonga! This is when the rest of the MFT’s showed up, beating up both Shin and Sami as Solo Sikoa celebrated his family’s job well done!

Grade: B

Tiffany Stratton and Stephanie Vaquer VS Giulia and Kiana James, The Wyatt Sick6 VS The Street Profits: WWE Tag Team Championships

After Jacob Fatu decided it was his turn to attack Drew McIntyre, Crown Jewel opponents Tiffany Stratton and Stephanie Vaquer teamed up to take on Giulia and Kiana James! Stephanie and Giulia know each other inside out, so they always have a great amount of chemistry whenever they work together! Tiffany and Kiana also know each other from their days back in NXT, so everyone was fairly familiar with one another! The match itself was based around Giulia and James working over Vaquer throughout, eventually leading to Stratton making the hot tag to run wild! In the end, it was Tiffy who scored the win with the Prettiest Moonsault Ever, and I would assume that that means that La Primera is winning tomorrow!

Grade: C+

After Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair finally agreed to face ZaRuca for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships, The Wyatt Sick6 were set to defend their very own WWE Tag Team Championships against The Street Profits! The story that’s been being told since Clash in Paris has been setting up a potential split between Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins, with the payoff to all of that surely coming here? I mean, The Profits even came out to their O.G. NXT theme, so that gave you even more reason to believe that! However, after a somewhat decent match, The Wyatt Sick6 just won, successfully retaining their Titles before Solo Sikoa and his MFT’s showed up to presumably set up the next Tag Team Title feud! What?!

Grade: C-

Aleister Black VS Damian Priest: Last Man Standing

After The Miz cut a promo saying Carmelo Hayes “missed”, it was Main Event time as Aleister Black went one-on-one with Damian Priest in a “Last Man Standing” Match! These guys got plenty of time to get all of their spots in, and I thought it was a pretty good Main Event! Most of the time, SmackDown Main Events are just the same formula, but this felt a lot different, one because it had a stipulation, but also because it felt like a bigger deal; this was the end of what’s been a key feud on the blue brand! Also, I wasn’t sure who was going to win here, and that only created more intrigue as Damian kept dropping Aleister on the announce table! Eventually, though, the match spilled into the crowd, and Priest was set to finish Black off when Zelina Vega arrived to save her husband! However, it was clearly more than that as Black then fired a fireball into DP’s face, followed by a Black Mass through a table to finally keep The Punisher down for the 10 count! I’ve always said that Vega is better as a Heel, so this was both a good and a surprising ending!