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With Extreme Rules in the rear view mirror, Smackdown was set to kick off on the road to SummerSlam.
Tonight’s show was also rumoured to be the first edition of Eric Bischoff’s Smackdown as he begins his new role of ‘Executive Director’.
Prior to the show, WWE announced a Women’s Tag Team championship match between the IIconcics and the Kabuki Warriors.
As well as this, we were promised a ‘career-altering’ announcement from Daniel Bryan and first ever ‘Town Hall’ open forum where the Smackdown roster could air their grievances against Shane McMahon.
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So was Smackdown given a fresh coat of paint or was it the same old stuff from WWE?
Let’s find out as we run through tonight’s show and give every match and moment it’s own grade.
#1 - "WWE's First Ever Town Hall Open Forum"
Smackdown opened by airing a video from earlier in the day of Kevin Owens arriving at the arena.
Owens was met by Shane McMahon, flanked by a team of security guards, who informed him that he had the night off and would not be allowed to attend the first ever “Town Hall”.
We then cut to the arena for the aforementioned “Town Hall” open forum.
Roman began proceedings by telling Shane that nobody respected him and he could “kiss his a**”.
The rest of the segment was mainly bickering between the Smackdown roster to set up matches for later in the night, such as Charlotte Flair vs. Liv Morgan and Apollo Crews vs. Andrade.
After cutting off the microphone when Kofi Kingston was talking, Shane then tried to wrap up the forum but was jumped by Kevin Owens, who hit Shane with a ‘Stunner’ before escaping through the crowd.
This segment didn’t have any flow to it and came across quite awkward, but at least it set up a few things that would pay off later in the show.
Grade: B-
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#2 - Extreme Rules rematch
Another match set up in the ‘Town Hall’ segment was Cesaro challenging Aleister Black to an Extreme Rules rematch and that would be the night’s opening contest.
The majority of this match took place in an ad-break with Cesaro dominating.
That was until Black caught him with a ‘pump knee’ followed by the ‘Black Mass’ for the win.
This match didn’t do a lot for either man and if anything, it took away from their match on Sunday.
Cesaro took another loss and Black looked lucky to eek out a win, as opposed to earning a victory like he did at Extreme Rules.
Grade: C
#3 - Smackdown Liv
Up next was Charlotte Flair vs. Liv Morgan in Morgan’s first match since moving to Smackdown in the ‘Superstar Shake-up’.
This was another quick match, which did allow Liv to showcase some decent offence before being shut down by Flair, who got the win with a ‘Figure-8 Leglock’.
After the match, Liv Morgan grabbed Corey Graves’ headset and promised that next time we see her, she is “gonna be real”.
Grade: B-
#4 - Bayley picks her next challenger
Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville were out next for their tag team match against Ember Moon and a surprise partner.
This partner turned out to be Smackdown Women’s Champion, Bayley.
Rose and Deville jumped Moon and Bayley at the bell to take control of the match, but this ended up being another short contest that ended when Bayley took out Sonya, allowing Ember to hit the ‘Eclipse’ on Mandy to get the win.
Bayley and Ember were interviewed in the ring after the match with Bayley declaring that now she has seen off Alexa Bliss, she now wants to get back to elevating Smackdown’s women’s division.
She was then asked who her opponent is going to be at SummerSlam and Bayley handpicked Ember to be her next challenger.
It’s great to see Ember finally getting a chance to showcase herself in a prominent storyline. However, WWE do need to do a good job of building her up over the next few weeks if people are going to care about the match at SummerSlam.
Grade: C+
#5 - New Day are dripping in gold
New Day came out for an in-ring promo to celebrate the fact that they were all champions.
As they described it, they were like three African-American leprechauns that had reached the end of the rainbow and got all of the gold.
Big E then said that he knew what Bryan’s announcement was going to be, he wants a rematch for the Smackdown Tag Team Championships so called out the former Champions.
Daniel Bryan and Rowan then entered the arena, and then left…and then entered again, and left again…and then entered again…and then left again. That was the last we saw of Bryan on the night, so no “Career-altering announcement”.
Somebody who did want a rematch was Samoa Joe, who came out and challenged Kofi Kingston to a WWE Championship match. But Joe was interrupted by Elias and then Randy Orton who each staked their claims to be Kofi’s next challenger.
This lead to a decent 6-man tag team match which was ultimately won by Randy Orton after an ‘RKO’ on Kofi.
This looks likely to set-up a match between Orton and Kofi at SummerSlam for the WWE Championship and if that’s the case, then I for one am all in.
Grade: B
#6 - Women's Tag Team Championship match
The Women’s Tag Team Championship match was up next between The Kabuki Warriors and the IIconics.
The Kabuki Warriors got off to a hot start and showcased some good tag team offence, which sent Billie Kay retreating to the outside.
Peyton and Billie remained outside of the ring for the referee’s ten-count to take the count-out loss but retain their championships.
Asuka and Kairi Sane attacked the IIconics after the match and will likely get another shot at the titles, possibly at SummerSlam.
As much as I like the IIconics, I think it’s time they dropped the Women’s Tag Team Championship as the belts are in desperate need of a team to give the title some legitimacy.
Grade: C+
#7 - Apollo gets a win
Yet another short, meaningless match followed as Apollo Crews took on Andrade.
Andrade took control early on after attacking Apollo before the bell. But as seems to be the case with most TV matches in WWE recently, the face got the quick roll-up win to shock the heel.
This formula does not do either participant any favours as it makes the heel look stupid and the face look lucky and neither come out looking strong.
Grade: C-
#8 - Hit a stunner, do a runner
A running thread throughout the show saw Dolph Ziggler attempting to get Kevin Owens to return to the arena with the promise of a main event match between the two rivals.
A suspicious Owens took the bait but was constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting some kind of attack from Shane McMahon as revenge for his stunner earlier in the night.
Despite a hot start to the match from Owens, Ziggler ended up taking over and controlling the contest.
As Owens started to mount a comeback, Shane came down to ringside with every Smackdown heel that he could find and they surrounded the ring.
‘KO’ continued the match and looked to have it won when he hit a stunner on Dolph, but Shane pulled him out the ring before he himself was hit with another stunner by Owens.
The antihero babyface Kevin Owens then ran away, chased by the heels, as Shane vowed to have his revenge as the show went off the air.
This ended Smackdown on a flat note and didn’t exactly paint Owens as the Stone Cold-like character he has been portrayed as in recent weeks.
Grade: B-
While Smackdown had a decent pace to it throughout, most of the matches were far too short to be meaningful and it ended up being a very unremarkable show.
This week was reported to be Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff’s first week in their new ‘Executive Director’ roles, but if tonight’s Smackdown and last night’s Raw are anything to go by, not a lot has changed.
Overall Grade: C
