WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 29/05
Jade Cargill Starts the Show, Alexa Bliss VS Jade Cargill
This week’s special edition of Friday Night SmackDown, live from Barcelona, Spain, kicked off with Jade Cargill, Michin, and B-Fab coming down to the ring as Jade talked about how she’s going to take back her WWE Women’s Championship at Clash in Italy! The current Champion, Rhea Ripley, then arrived to state that when no one else is involved, Cargill can’t beat her, before both Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair arrived as backup! Alexa then proceeded to cook Jade on the mic, before those two squared off in the opening match of the night! This was fine, I guess, with Jade massively outperforming Alexa in both the size and power department! It’s amazing to see just how over Bliss still is, like she is still one of the most popular females on the entire roster, even though WWE has refused to book her like the star she is for far too long now! Eventually, Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair would brawl with Michin and B-Fab to the back, but this just allowed Cargill to drop Little Miss Bliss with a Jaded to score the 3 count! After the match was over, Jade Cargill delivered another Jaded to Alexa Bliss, this time onto a steel chair, with Charlotte and Rhea’s reappearance being too little, too late!
Grade: C+
Axiom VS The Miz, Damian Priest and Royce Keys VS MFT, Sami Zayn VS Matt Cardona
Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn still aren’t getting along backstage, with Sami telling Cody that he left him to get choked out by Gunther last week because The American Nightmare needed to be taught a lesson! I agree! Nick Aldis then told Danhausen that he needed to “improvise” after his science equipment was kept back by board control, whilst The Miz didn’t want to face Axiom alone after Kit Wilson was barred entry into Spain due to having too much moisturiser! What?! Anyway, Aldis didn’t care about this excuse one bit, as he sent Miz down to the ring to take on The Spanish Superhero right now! This was actually quite a fun match, with Axiom being allowed to run loose due to this show being in his home country! The crowd were hot for him, too, with The Miz playing the perfect Heel for this type of occasion! Unbelievably, when Miz was set to win this match, the lights went off again due to Danhausen doing more experiments, and this distraction opened the door for Axiom to defeat The A-Lister via a Golden Ratio! I’m glad that Axiom won here; he deserves it!
Grade: B-
Damian Priest wasn’t at all happy with R-Truth for getting him to team with Royce Keys to take on MFT, whilst Sami Zayn was still trying to do counselling with Johnny Gargano, not Candice LeRae! Matt Cardona wasn’t impressed with any of this, leading to Sami getting himself a match against “Mr. Alwayz Ready”, before Charlotte Flair warned Rhea Ripley that she’s going to get her hands on Jade Cargill after she injured Alexa Bliss earlier in the evening! Damian Priest and Royce Keys were then forced to team up to take on Solo Sikoa’s MFTs in the next matchup! It’s amazing how much the WWE Universe in Europe can’t stand Solo Sikoa; this has been going on for years now, and it’s even funnier given the fact that he wasn’t even in this match! To be fair to Priest and Keys, they did start to gel as this match went on, mostly because I think they share in their disdain for Tama and Talla Tonga! After Solo got involved, R-Truth ran down to make the save, but this once again only served as a distraction for Priest, with Talla Tonga taking advantage to hit a T-Bone Chokeslam to get the victory! He’s on a roll right now!
Grade: B
To The Miz’s surprise, Nick Aldis actually agreed with him when it came to Danhausen’s experiments being too costly and dangerous, but things only get worse for The Miz when DH sprayed him with a fire extinguisher! Chelsea Green was then left feeling rejected after Tiffany Stratton said that she wouldn’t be coming down to support her in her match against Nia Jax later in the show, before Sami Zayn headed down to the ring to go one-on-one with Matt Cardona! All of these so-called “Ride or Die” Sami Zayn fans are clearly based in Europe, as Sami got a great reaction as the crowd sang his song throughout the match! I’m actually going to a House Show in Cardiff in 3 weeks’ time, and Zayn is someone that I’m particularly interested to see as he was arguably the most over person when I went there last August! Anyway, this match was alright, with Cardona coming close to getting the win with a Rough Rider, only for Zayn to put his foot on the rope! Sami Zayn then rallied back, hitting a Helluva Kick to score the victory to gain back some much-needed momentum!
Grade: C+
Trick Williams Gets Interrupted, Carmelo Hayes VS Ricky Saints, Chelsea Green VS Nia Jax
After The King of the Ring Tournament got a hype package, Gunther made a promise to Nick Aldis that he would only annihilate Cody Rhodes verbally, not physically! Trick Williams was the out next, alongside Lil Yachty, to hype himself as WWE’s biggest rising star over the past 6 months! Because of this, Trick feels like it’s his right to enter King of the Ring, which brought out Carmelo Hayes to cleverly call Trick “The King of the Microphones”, but definitely not the Ring! Carmelo also still has his eyes set on winning back the United States Championship, which the Barcelona crowd seemed to be quite into, before Ricky Saints interrupted to say that he’ll be the one coming after Williams once he defeats Hayes tonight! We then got the rematch between Carmelo Hayes and Ricky Saints from a few weeks ago, and just like then, this was the match of the night! Over the past 6 months, we’ve finally seen Carmelo Hayes wrestle like he did in NXT, which quite frankly is to be one of the best in the entire business! It also helps that his opponent is pretty good, too, with Ricky bouncing off Melo well! I actually wasn’t too sure which way this match was going to go, with there being arguments for either performer winning, so you’ll be shocked to hear that neither of them won! Yes, you heard that right, both Hayes and Saints got counted out! A silly ending to what was otherwise two strong segments put together!
Grade: B- (Overall)
After Nia Jax and Lash Legend told Tiffany Stratton to watch what they do to Chelsea Green, Blake Monroe had another video where she jotted down a list of notes in regards to the current WWE Women’s Champion, Rhea Ripley. What I want to know is why has Blake gone back to “Coming Soon”, when she literally had her debut segment last week?! Anyway, Nia and Chelsea were then set to face off in the Main Event match of the night, which saw Green 100% work as the Babyface! It’s certainly an interesting new direction to take the Chelsea Green character, but given the crowd reactions she gets, as well as having no more Secret Hervice, this may well be the perfect time for a switch! Nia did dominate Chelsea for the most part here, however, looking majorly imposing as she closed in on a victory! However, whilst the referee was distracted by Lash Legend on the apron, Tiffany Stratton arrived to floor Jax with her Women’s United States Championship, opening the door for Chelsea Green to scrape herself into the cover to score a shock win! Yay for Chelsea winning, but I can’t have any more “frenemies” storylines!
Grade: C
Cody Rhodes and Gunther Come Face-to-Face
After Fatal Influence set their sights on Brie Bella and Paige’s WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships, the final segment on this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown saw Cody Rhodes and Gunther come face-to-face ahead of their bout at Clash in Italy! Whilst the crowd began fully behind the Champion, they did start to react more fondly towards Gunther as the segment went on, particularly after his brilliant line about how Cody Rhodes killed the meaning of the American Dream! See, Cody doesn’t have to work for anything to be successful; success is just one phone call away, whilst Gunther deserves to be at the top because of all of the time and sacrifices that he’s put in! On top of that, Gunther doesn’t care about the admiration of the fans or having fancy entrances; he just wants to protect this great sport by being the best wrestler in the world! That’s why I really like Gunther, because he’s different from all of the other top stars! Cody then fired back, saying that doing all of the media and European tours is part of the job when it comes to being Undisputed WWE Champion, and that holding this Title becomes an addiction! This was a pretty strong go-home segment, probably the best I’ve seen on SmackDown all year (at least that I can remember)!
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