The biggest winners and losers from Friday Night SmackDown (September 4, 2020)

The Sept. 4 edition of SmackDown did what it needed to do in terms of slowly building up to WWE's next pay-per-view event, after the sprint of airing SummerSlam and Payback back-to-back. Now, there's a lot of room to work with. How did the company do and who got the most and least out of it?

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SmackDown Winner: Roman Reigns

It finally happened. It's just a shame that it couldn't happen in front of a live audience, because it would be one of the most memorable segments in a long time.

On Friday's SmackDown, Roman Reigns officially turned heel, bitter that he was "cast aside" after recovering from a life-threatening illness, uncaring about who his next opponent would be, and arrogant about his strength. Like something out of Dragon Ball, Roman Reigns said that "When you have this sort of power, all you have to do is show up and win."

This is the sort of character evolution that WWE fans have clamored for for years and now it's finally happening. The addition of Paul Heyman, who he has several years of history with, only makes it more intriguing. However, Heyman doesn't appear to be the devil on Roman Reigns' shoulder that tempted him to turn to evil. Rather, he decided on his own and Paul Heyman was simply a useful partner on his new path.

At any rate, Roman Reigns has become the focal point of the company again; the one fans want to watch out of everyone else. He feels much more natural in this role than he ever did when he was constantly struggling against Brock Lesnar for all those years.

SmackDown Loser: Otis

It feels like the company doesn't know what to do with Otis. As noted in May, he was a questionable choice at best to win the Money in the Bank briefcase, and now it looks like the company has finally realized it.

Why else would he get into a spat with John Morrison over the briefcase? Why would Cory Graves add that possession is the most important thing in that regard? It sounds like the company could be subtly planting the seeds for Otis to lose the briefcase at some point soon.

Nevertheless, all you need to do is ask yourself: does Otis look like a believable challenger for the new Roman Reigns right now? It seems like an obvious answer. Furthermore, it didn't seem like WWE was making attempts to begin building Otis into that challenger on SmackDown.

WWE has a problem on its hands. We're just going to have to wait and see how they decide to fix it.

SmackDown Winners: Shayna Baszler, Nia Jax, Sasha Banks, and Bayley

In a good match on SmackDown, Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax proved how well they could gel together as a tag team even though WWE threw the odd couple together on such short notice. Afterward, the long-awaited turn finally happened, as Bayley brutalized Sasha Banks and kissed the women's tag team titles goodbye for good.

So, WWE actually decided to do it during the last third of the year, which is typically the slowest period of its calendar year. We can applaud the company for doing its best to make the home stretch of 2020 as exciting as possible, instead of waiting for the Royal Rumble or WrestleMania.

Fans can expect a wild ride. Sasha Banks will probably conquer Bayley in the end, in a kind of reverse from their classic match fome NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn over five years ago. Nevertheless, it should be a compelling feud. With this development and Roman Reigns' return, SmackDown has suddenly become a must-see show heading into the fall season.