Roman Reigns was not on Friday Night SmackDown this week.
Jimmy Uso wasn’t on SmackDown either.
As it turns out, that was because Reigns wanted Jimmy to stay home and watch his brother Jey take on Sami Zayn all by himself. Paul Heyman explained this backstage early in the show. As Jey, who wasn’t too happy about it, walked away, Heyman told Solo Sikoa, “Either he solves the Sami Zayn problem tonight, or you solve our problems tonight.”
Intrigue!
Later, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn met backstage. The former spoke of this as a great opportunity to leave The Bloodline behind. Defeat Jey Uso here and they can move on.
Of course, Zayn had a feeling.
This feeling, as he explained it, was one of obligation and he couldn’t shake the thought that maybe he should talk to Jey. KO didn’t even try to talk him out of it, just stating the facts – it’s a bad idea.
Sami said he was right and then told him not to worry.
But that didn’t seem to allay fears of what was to come.
Intrigue!
Later, Zayn actually caught up with Jey and had the same message for him as before — it doesn’t have to be that way. Hey, look around: Jimmy’s gone, Reigns is pissed, Heyman sells lies, and Solo seems ready to drop the hammer. Sami did what he said he did, he won the tag team titles at WrestleMania, and he’ll beat Jey some sanity if he has to. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Just then, Owens was attacked by Sikoa, breaking his leg while Jey looked on, seemingly uncertain.
Finally it was time for the match.
They played it pretty straight forward, a typical Bloodline match. Late in the match, Sikoa interfered, hitting the Samoan Spike and paving the way for Jey to victory. After that he helped Jey up and everything seemed fine.
But then…
Sikoa moved towards Sami, who Jey stopped. There was a big bang and it was one hell of a tease… It only lasted a few seconds as Jey performed a superkick and ordered Solo to get a chair so they could give Sami a good fuck.
BROTHER!
Yes.
Matt Riddle, of all people, showed up to save the day. There is some continuity to the plot there as it was Sikoa who took him out when they had to write him off. Still, it feels strange for him to chime in here.
That could just be me
They left the door open just enough for Reigns and Jey to have some trouble as well, but we’ll see.
Triple H’s big announcement, it turns out, was the return of the draft:
The draft is one of the easiest wins of the year for WWE because it automatically generates interest just by seeing the results of it, but I’m having a bit of a hard time getting all the hype about it considering Triple H gets a lot of it spent more or less ignored the brand split last year. Wrestlers have bounced back and forth from Raw to SmackDown on a weekly basis.
So what does it matter if they’re technically above the other on one roster?
Oh who am I kidding, I’ll be there for this big time when it gets here. It’s a draft! It’s always a good time and they always manage to throw in a surprise or two.
They should have something damn special up their sleeves this year, as Triple H hyped it here.
all the rest
- Despite winning the Triple Threat match for his Intercontinental Title against Drew McIntyre and Sheamus at WrestleMania 39, GUNTHER kicked off this week’s show with a six-man tag pitting Imperium against The Brawling Brutes. They spent much of the match building getting Sheamus the hot day so he could go head-to-head with GUNTHER again, and Portland absolutely loved it. Maybe that thing still has legs? The match was a lot of fun, one of those sixes that just go into chaos with bodies flying around. Ultimately, Sheamus pinned Giovanni Vince after the brogue kick. I wouldn’t hate coming back to GUNTHER vs. Sheamus on Backlash.
- Ricochet defeated The Viking Raiders’ Ivar in a match that saw both Braun Strowman and Erik eliminated from the ring. They played this like the typical small vs. big matchup, where Ricochet used his high flight to achieve the win, but also proved he has the muscles to keep up with a wrestler like this. It was a fun match with the crowd happy for the babyface to pass.
- New women’s tag team title contenders Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez defeated Natalya & Shotzi – who called themselves “brave baddies” – in a match Wade Barrett admitted in comment before it even started, to sharpen their knives before fighting for the championship next week. They won in a relatively short amount of time and looked good doing it.
- Rhea Ripley and The Judgment Day were here, and the new SmackDown Women’s Champion introduced herself as the new queen of the blue brand. Finn Balor acted like he was the real winner against Edge since he’s the one standing. When Dominik Mysterio tried to speak, he was drowned out by boos. It was fantastic. It’s incredibly fun to hate this man. He claimed he restrained his father Rey at WrestleMania. It was Damian Priest’s turn and said he forgives Bad Bunny for making him do what he did to him on Raw. We’re definitely getting that tag match on Backlash, and the Heat should be off the charts for it.
- The tag team match that followed was heaps of fun as Priest Santos pinned Escobar to South of Heaven despite a tremendous effort by Rey. I’m not a huge fan of Escobar being so much less featured here, mostly because I think he has all the potential in the world to be a big star for WWE and he needs to be booked better than that. But the larger Mysterio family drama story still hits enough that I can’t blame them for playing things that way. There was also a nice little teaser here for a match between Ripley and Zelina Vega.
- They lined up LA Knight vs. Xavier Woods on that show, with the former complaining about not making the card at WrestleMania and the latter unwilling to listen to those complaints. “You have to make a difference yourself,” and so on. I don’t think it was meant to be ironic, but hey, period. It seemed like it was headed for a match, but they didn’t get to it this week. Kind of fitting. They announced it at least for next week!
The games have been fun this week, and the main story has seen a lot of development.
grade B-
It’s your turn.
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