WWE wasted no time in following up on The Bloodline’s attack on WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and his friend, Randy Orton, on Friday Night SmackDown last week by having the champ open this week’s episode. Of course, he still managed to ask what Omaha was talking about.
Hey, I need to work the gadget.
Rhodes started by talking about Orton and laid out all the reasons why he owes him. He wouldn’t be standing before us as WWE Champion if it wasn’t for Randy, who helped him grow in the business. That is to say, Cody feels terribly guilty about what happened to him at the hands of Solo Sikoa and his gang of misfits.
Family isn’t always blood related, guys.
He quickly spoke about the new Bloodline leader, saying that he once told him that he wasn’t ready, but with everything he’s done lately, he wonders what it’s like that Rhodes is still this strong as a champion and he’s not…
And then… A-Town Down Under happened?
They started to get angry but before they could really do anything, Rhodes launched an attack. They threw him onto the barricade and undefeated boxing champion Terence Crawford handed him a chair to use against the former tag team champions. Suddenly, it was clear why the duo were there.
Food for one champion helping another champion get an easy press.
Kudos to WWE.
Backstage, Rhodes asked SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis for a handicap match against Theory and Waller but was reprimanded. Instead, Aldis said he had until the end of the night to find a tag team partner.
Who could it be?
Solo Sikoa made his presence felt later in the show in the form of a pre-tape, stating that anyone who decided to align themselves with Rhodes would make themselves an enemy of The Bloodline and would be forced to pay the price for teaming up with them.
Naturally, it was Kevin Owens who answered the call. He’s back after his mother was ostracized for the illness she was battling and there was no one better to be put in that position.
In the main event, Rhodes and Owens beat A-Town Down Under because, once again, Waller made sure to defend himself at Theory’s expense. This breakup needs to happen much sooner than expected.
The Bloodline came out to confront the babyfaces after their victory, which was no surprise given Sikoa’s previous promise. And, like last week, Rhodes was forced to watch Owens get crushed by Jacob Fatu and punished for committing the cardinal sin of being friendly with the enemy.
The night ended with Rhodes getting a triple powerbomb through the announcer’s desk and Owens getting shoved into the post with a chair around his neck. Once again, The Bloodline stood over the broken bodies as FOX cut to black.
The chants of “We want Roman” echo constantly.
We are sure of it.
Your LA Knight segment of the week was the promised contract signing for the United States Championship match against Logan Paul at Summer Slam:
Look, I love LA Knight, but when Paul says he looks like a “Sons of Anarchy extra,” that’s pretty good. Meanwhile, old LA brought up the fact that he invaded the man’s house and treated his pool like his personal bathroom. That only earned him a Money in the Bank tag, a tag he used to pin Paul down to prove he deserves the hit he’s currently trying to get.
How did Paul react to this? By calling him by his shooting name!
Well, he said more than that – he claimed to be too culturally relevant to stoop so low as to allow someone like Knight to challenge for his title. He hasn’t had a single defining moment in the last 20 years and is just a gym dude with a spray tan pretending to be The Rock.
Knight fired back by calling him “low-level, low-level, low-level Logan P.” Not bad. Then he called him a fraud posing as a WWE Champion before hitting him where it hurts.
His brother Jake at least has the guts to step into the ring and take on the likes of Mike Tyson. Apparently, it’s not a family affair.
That’s all it took.
This was a damn good back-and-forth match between two guys who feel like real stars, even though they’re only fighting for the United States title. The match was a signature one and probably has as much heat as anything else on the card right now.
Paul added to this by rushing in for a low blow after he made like he was leaving, but Knight was ready for him and fought him off.
This is going to be a lot of fun.
Meanwhile, Santos Escobar set up a match with Knight for next week in a backstage segment where he claimed he was in that triple threat and he’s never been beaten. LA made a joke about “your mother” and that’s how you make a match that people will surely care about a lot on the way to a bigger match that people will surely care about.
Everything else
- Andrade and Carmelo Hayes had a really fun TV match, the crowd was super excited. Andrade shows off a little more and Carmelo deserves a lot of credit for selling himself for him. Andrade won cleanly with The Message, a cool ending with a cool name. Hayes doing so much work is going to end up being a problem but he looks great in this and none of this is going to hurt him too much until he has a proper story to dive into.
- Nia Jax and Bayley were treated to a side-by-side interview segment where the former asked the latter to call her the Queen of the Ring, which she is, while saying she was going to win the title and so on. Bayley brought up an injury she got from Jax in 2017 – then they did the worked shoot where she said it wasn’t because she’s big and mean, it was just because she’s big, clumsy and reckless. Jax did it not like that. At the end, Jax would take off his mic and storm off in a huff. I’m not the biggest fan of shooting like that, but they needed something to grab attention here, so whatever.
- Later in the night, Tiffany Stratton was treated to a full-length video clip before she showed up for her match against Michin. She lost that match when Bayley came out and went on a complete rampage, destroying the Money in the Bank briefcase after eliminating Jax in the ring and allowing Michin to roll Stratton up. It was certainly a way to inject some life into Bayley’s character.
- Bianca Belair defeated Chelsea Green in a short match that they had set up with a pre-taped segment about Belair & Jade Cargill going to Aldis to get a rematch for the tag team titles at the same time as Green & Piper Niven. It was a no-win match that only gave Belair a win so that the Unholy Union could appear on the big screen and set up a showdown for next week.
Everything about this show was building towards something, whether it was a big game at the next PLE or a televised game next week. It was a solid two hours. I feel like I always say that about the blue brand.
Category B-
Your turn.