SmackDown Review (2021-12-03)

We kick off with the BEAST INCARNATE

Brock starts a promo saying he’s only here for the universal championship.

Sami Zayn’s music hits…

He comes out and says it’s been a long time coming for their paths to cross and that they’re similar as they’re both “Canadian alpha males” and that he’s a fan. Brock says he doesn’t know who Sami is and tells Sami to shut up.

Brock asks why he shouldn’t rip Samis head off, Sami explains he is the NO1 contender for the

Universal title, and that after he beats Roman, Brock can have the first shot at it.

Brock laughs at him.

Brock suggests a universal championship match between Sami and Roman tonight and reiterates this a whole bunch of times, Sami says thank you for the advice but no thank you as a result of this answer Brock intimidates/ forces Sami to accept the Universal title match tonight.

Brock finishes the segment by saying that he will be by Samis side tonight.

We come back from an advert break and Sami is talking with Sonya backstage, he tells her he doesn’t want to face Roman tonight, then Brock turns up and Sami again bottles it and agrees to face Roman and the winner will face Brock at DAY 1

Its BOSS TIME

Sasha banks vs Shayna Baszler

There’s some pretty standard early match wrestling and Shayna goes for a early attempt at the Kirifuda clutch,

Sasha gets out and takes control for a short while, she hits springboard arm drag, Shayna rolls all the way out the ring, Sasha follows up with a baseball slide and Shayna reverses into an ankle lock, Sasha reverses and hits a Apron meteora and follows up by putting Shayna back in the ring and hits a over the top rope meteora in the corner, she then runs to the opposite corner and Shayna follows and hits Sasha with a HEAVY knee and follows up with a gutwrench powerbomb for a 2 count. (Not really sure what Sasha was meant to be going for by running to the opposite side of the ring)

Sasha gets a reversal and takes control of the match, She hits 2nd rope meteora for a 2 count she continues her offence and hits a Tornado DDT for another near fall,

Loud Let’s go Sasha chants from the crowd she is very very over right now.

Shayna reverses a move into a Kirifuda which Sasha reverses into a bank statement, Baszler gets out and goes to hit another gutwrench powerbomb, Sasha rolls through and stacks Shayna up for the win.

Winner: Sasha Banks

A good match, nothing spectacular but Sashas matches are always good quality, The meteora never fails to surprise me, it really is one of my favourite moves in wrestling.

In general Shayna, her locks are very genuine and when done properly can seriously hurt, I like that authenticity but I feel like she needs to go back to being ruthless Shayna who decimates people, take her out of feuds that she loses more often than not for a while.

Sonya is FaceTiming Adam Pierce and he is saying he is not going to come to Smackdown tonight because Brock is going to be there.

Drew turns up and wants to know why he wasn’t included in the battle royal last week, Sonya blames Adam pierce and Drew says he wants a “chat”.

Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss are out next and Corbin is wearing some funky get-up

It’s time for Happy talk

They talk about the battle royal from last weeks Smackdown, Moss says he had a ton of fun eliminating people, Corbin says it was a pretty funny prank for him to eliminate moss they both have a laugh, then throws a couple of insults at Jeff hardy… don’t go at my guy Corbin.

He goes on to insult Drew McIntyre and shortly after the hearty bagpipes of Drew’s music are heard.

Madcap Moss is sent out the ring to talk to Drew.

Back to the ring and Jeff turns up behind Corbin and hits a twist of fate on him, Madcap comes to attack Jeff and gets a Twist of fate and Moss eats a claymore aswell, the sound of this claymore was fantastic.

I really like this tag team that seems to be shaping up, they work really well together and have great chemistry so far. Hope they give them some genuine feuds and possibly title shots, I would not complain at a USOs vs Jeff and Drew feud, could be gold.

Another Xia Li promo

I’m apprehensive to see what they do with her, with all this build up I hope they have something big for her.

The Viking raiders are out next for their match with Los Lotharios

The Viking Raiders vs Los Lotharios

Erik and Angel start in ring, the Raiders take early control with aggressive early offence. Humberto gets a reversal and Los Lotharios go to hit their tag team attack,

Shinsuke and Boogs come out to distract Los Lotharios and Erik hits Humberto out the ring, Angel rolls up Erik for the win.

Winner: Los Lotharios

The Viking raiders go out to confront Shinsuke and Boogs but Boogs plays the Vikings theme tune on his guitar and they all beat their chests together.

Nothing really to say about this match, I’m probably underplaying the amount that happened as I’m not a massive fan of either of these teams, a typical Midcard tag team match, some nice moves and not a bad match technically, but very short.

Toni Storm is backstage for an interview with Kayla

Toni says she will not stop going for a title match, She says she is not scared or impressed by Charlotte flair carries on by saying she wants to beat Charlotte and be champion

Very typical #1 contender interview.

USOOOO

2 thirds of the bloodline are out for Jey Uso vs King woods they come down to the ring0 to hit a promo and they’re laughing at Sami Zayn again same as last week, they say the Head of the table is going to smash Sami tonight and Brock Lesnar at day 1.

Woods comes out with a microphone and says that the USOs don’t like surprises, but he has a surprise for them!

Sir Kofi is back! and after the loud Uso chants earlier, The New Day chants ring round the stadium.

Jey Uso vs Xavier Woods

Jey starts strong in this match hitting some typical Uso offence there is a lot of arguing between the

Jey in the ring and Kofi at ringside, Xavier get a reversal and starts to take control and Jimmy Uso pulls him off the top rope, and goes to beat on woods, but Kofi intervenes with a suicide dive he gets in the ring to hit Jey with a trouble in paradise and the New Day both beat on Jimmy, The USOs retreat up the ramp

Winners: The New Day by DQ

It seems like this could have been a much better match than it was, and I would even have taken them making it a tag team match, but it was far too short. It was a nice little comeback for Kofi but not want you want to see from this amount of talent.

Roman is backstage watching the match he doesn’t look happy, he asks Paul Heyman if he knew that Kofi was back or anything about Brock suspension being lifted. Paul says he is surprised as anyone, Roman says there is a lot of things Paul doesn’t know anymore

He goes on to say he is going to smash Sami tonight and if Brock comes anywhere near him, he’s going to smash Brock too.

We go are backstage with the new day and another weird Aaliyah backstage cameo she is talking to the Kofi and Woods about “the band being back together”

Kayla comes over for an interview, Aaliyah leaves and Kofi announces that The USOs will face the New Day at Day 1!

Charlotte flair addresses Toni Storms challenge.

Woo

She says the only way to get noticed in the Women’s division is by challenging her, Goes on to say she is giving Toni Storm too much credit by talking about her, she finishes by saying she considered

Toni’s challenge and the answer is No! As Charlotte is leaving up the ramp she turns around to face the ring and hold up her title

Toni Storm sneaks up on her and gives her a pie to the face in revenge for last week.

Cesaro vs Sheamus

The early part of this match has some hard-hitting action, Sheamus gets control and hits the Irish curse and does 4 beats of the bell.

He shouts to ask ridge Holland if he is watching, we cut to ridge Holland watching backstage on a screen.

Back to the match and Cesaro powers out of a submission, he starts to beat on Sheamus, the action goes outside of the ring and Cesaro hits an uppercut to drive Sheamus into the timekeepers area, he then gets his bounced off the commentator's desk and Cesaro throws Sheamus back in the ring, when Cesaro goes to hit his next move Sheamus reverses, they have a shouting match in ring and a small amount of back and forth hits before Sheamus hits the Brogue kick for the win.

Winner: Sheamus

A typical Heavyweight clash, again running with the theme of this show, nothing spectacular, but not a bad match whatsoever.

We go backstage for Naomi to confront Sonya and calls her Cruella Deville, says she wants a match against Sonya and only Sonya, Sonya says she yes when she takes off her suit and puts her ring gear on,

She goes on to say that while she is wearing her suit, she is a WWE official and if Naomi lays one finger on her, she’ll make sure she gets suspended and loses her paycheck.

She then slaps Naomi round the face and laughs at her while walking away

THE

MAIN EVENT

Sami Zayn vs Roman Reigns

Universal Championship match

Sami Zayn comes out to the ring first and hits a promo where he says Texas is his least favourite state and goes on to say that he is going to beat Roman tonight and then says he will have no one to thank for his title win other than Brock Lesnar,

Cue Brocks music

Sami says he shouldn’t help him win *wink wink* he says that Brock would have an easier time at day 1 with him than Roman as Brocks record against Roman isn’t great recently, he runs his mouth a

bit more to then get taken on a trip to Suplex city, then gets two F5s for his trouble.

Brock stands Sami up in the corner and hangs his arms over the ropes and leaves the ring up the entrance ramp.

We come back from break and Roman is on his way down to the ring followed by Paul Heyman and The USOs.

Sami Zayn is once again on the floor and the USOs prop him back in the corner.

The match starts and Roman goes straight to the opposite corner to Sami

OoAAAAHHHH

Roman hits Sami with a spear, followed by the Guillotine. Sami taps instantly

Winner: Roman Reigns

Fished mentioned on the Recharge wrestling podcast that Roman is the new Undertaker with his entrances apart from Roman has good matches at the end. Maybe Vince heard you, because this match was not even a match. Really nothing more to say about this “match”

My Rating for this show

5/10

This was a very average show, no outstanding matches, there was nothing terrible in it but nothing amazing.

The best match was the Sasha vs Shayna match furthering the fact that fairly often the Womens division holds up WWE shows but even this match wasn’t anything spectacular.

Brocks promos were great and my personal highlight was the Drew McIntyre and Jeff Hardy interrupting Happy Talk segment, very excited to see where that tag team goes! But as we know, I’m somewhat biased with anything including JH.

I'm glad they're putting Toni Storm in the picture, I really think she deserves a go at the top, but Charlotte and Becky seem to be doing the same thing “you’re young and inexperienced, you should be thanking me”

Becky just does it better.

It was a good show, storytelling wise, but the matches weren’t great. None of them got given any decent amount of time, when you have a card that includes Sasha Banks vs Shayna Baszler, Jey Uso against Xavier Woods, Cesaro vs Sheamus and a Universal Championship match I expect more because all of them are so talented and genuinely good wrestlers.

The current “booking” if you can call it that of Aaliyah frustrates me, have they not got any better plans for her? They seemed to start off by giving her a bit of a short-lived push winning her first match, she then got kicked off the Survivor Series team. since then, just strange backstage cameos where she isn’t even the main person, just sort of there with other people.

Sami seems to be heavily involved at the moment, always seems to be in the show in a way but at the same time it doesn’t really seem like they’re doing anything with him, I feel like he would be better

placed in a feud more on his level, maybe Intercontinental championship #1 contender or a storyline filled feud with someone else, he could potentially have a good feud with someone like Ricochet.

I have to say if I’d paid to see Smackdown live and that’s all I saw of Roman I wouldn’t be thrilled. It seems odd to have a 20 man battle royale to determine a #1 contender to make it irrelevant the following show?

I’d give this show a 7/10 storytelling wise but a 4/10 for actual matches.

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