WWE SmackDown emanated from in Denver, Colorado just one night before Survivor Series.
With plenty of business to attend to in The Last Time is Now tournament and the women battling it out to see who has the advantage at War Games, WWE had cause for a solid show.
Let’s get into the results below:
The Last Time is Now tournament: Jey Uso def. Rusev
Then Last Time is Now tournament: LA Knight def. The Miz
Women’s War Games advantage: Charlotte Flair def. Asuka
Traditional Survivor Series match: Team MFT def. Team Sami Zayn
Notes:
Jey Uso opens any show he’s on. WWE has lent on that energy time and time again and it doesn’t appear to be stopping any time soon.
Damien Priest gives a backstage interview refusing to ‘change’ as a result of his feud with Aleister Black. Zelina Vega interrupts and goads him. When she leaves, Rhea Ripley turns up and says she has an idea she wants to run past him.
Chelsea Green finally has her United States title celebration. Just when she was about to get the very expensive pyro she’s been pining for, Women’s champ Jade Cargill turned up and demolished both Green and Alba Fyre. Of course once she took Jaded, the pyro went off.
The women’s team rallied around Charlotte Flair before her match with Asuka. Flair notes she tore her ACL last time she met Asuka so will have to win tonight. AJ Lee turns up and says she will ‘make sure’ they win tomorrow.
Cathy Kelly catches Cargill backstage and asks why attack Chelsea. Jade says it was a message to the entire women’s locker room and to anyone who runs their mouth. Come step up and get stepped on. B-Fab and Mia Yim toy with the idea of confronting Jade.
The Miz turned out to be Sheamus’ replacement against Knight. WWE opted against a real surprise opponent which might have been cool.
Asuka misted one of the WWE production staff at ringside when she attempted to blind Charlotte Flair in their match.
Shinsuke Nakamura was the first to depart. JC Mateo was first to go for his team in the Survivor Series matchup thanks to the Motor City Machine Guns. Rey Fenix got rid of Tonga Loa. Talla Tonga got rid of Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin in quick successive fashion.
Rey Fenix was next to go leaving Zayn in a 3-1 situation, but he managed to take out Tama Tonga to give himself a chance. Talla Tonga (a lot of Tongas, I know) then got himself counted out leaving just Zayn and Sikoa. After a quality back-and-forth battle, the Samoan Spike got Sikoa the major win ahead of his semi-final vs Gunther on Monday.
The show closed with The Wyatt Sicks taking out Sikoa.
Analysis:
A decent show, but nothing groundbreaking. The climax felt a tiny bit less-than; with two big War Games bouts to sell before tomorrow, they ended with the Wyatt Sicks’ half-interesting return.
Charlotte and Asuka will always have good matches. That’s a fantastic match for WWE to have in their back pocket with this division. They’ve faced each other 15 times over the years; they’re so good it doesn’t even feel like it. I enjoyed the fact we didn’t get another scenario where every team member got involved, too. These are two women you should just let wrestle.
Zayn just coming up short in the Survivor Series match is pretty good booking. It feels like WWE are setting the table for him to finally overcome all of his hurdles and win a world title next year. With the star power at the top of the food chain right now it’s kind of hard to see where he’s going to do that, but having him come so close to achieving but not quite is a decent recipe to follow – has worked thus far anyway!
Jade Cargill is hamming up the heel tendencies and the way she brushed off B-Fab backstage was right on the money. It screams of Bianca Belair returning as a babyface and finally giving us the most-powerful match-up in the division at WrestleMania.
I don’t think we saw what Ripley ever said to Priest? One to keep an eye on maybe.
Almost amusing how Zayn said last week that MFTs had awakened Nakamura only for the Japanese legend to fall first in the matchup.
Rey Fenix is so damn good. There’s a moment in the bout where he’s walking the top rope with Tama Tonga holding on and he looks like he’s fallen and is holding onto the middle rope. With a little help from Tonga to buy time, Fenix recovers wonderfully into a jumping hurricanranna. Awesome stuff.
