The WWE Smackdown Reaction for 11/12/21

Welcome to The Smackdown Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show in Norfolk, VA.

As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth review here.

We kick off the show with Sonya Deville introducing the Smackdown Women’s Survivor Series team to the audience. Noami shows up and you can smell the six women tag match coming. The six women pair up and start fighting. Deville was trying to regain control while we got to a break.

Back from the break and to the surprise of no one, the bell rings to start the six women tag match with Sasha Banks, Naomi, and Aliyah taking on Natalya, Shotzi, and Shayna Baszler. They are given more than three minutes and put together a really fun tag match. Naomi did the face in peril great to lead into the hot tag to Aliyah. Aliyah got to show off her stuff and looked impressive. In standard tag format, the new face (Aliyah) picked up the win after an impressive rollup while in the Sharpshooter after Natalya got dropped into the ropes by Naomi.

After the match, Aliyah was celebrating backstage when Deville showed up and took Aliyah off the Survivor Series team. Aliyah cried on command and this Sonya Deville angle is beyond its expiration date. Can the Anonymous Raw General Manager return and take over Smackdown?

Promo Time with Roman Reigns backstage is up next. Reigns didn’t really say anything important and left Paul Heyman to finish the promo with Kayla Braxton. Heyman offered up the bended knee stipulation again but with Reigns being stripped of the Universal Title and banished from Smackdown if he violates the stipulation. Well, thank you for giving away the ending to the main event Heyman. I don’t need to watch it now.

Tag team action returns with Rick Boogs teaming with the Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura to take on the new team of Los Lotharios, Humberto and Angel. The tag match was solid like last week and followed the same formula too. The new team picked up the win again with an impressive showing. I think Boogs should have eaten the pin instead of Nakamura, but the match was more of a throwaway to Nakamura. Watching the IC champ take the fall didn’t feel right to me, but it did what it was supposed to do.

For some unknown reason, Von Wagner was in the office of Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville when Sami Zayn came in complaining about Jeff Hardy. Zayn got himself a match with Hardy for the Survivor Series team spot on the line. Wagner said nothing nor was his name acknowledged on TV. I think it is too soon for Wagner to come up, but we’ll see where that goes.

Promo Time with Charlotte Flair is up next. She tries to convince the crowd that she is the face going into the Survivor Series match with Becky Lynch. Flair bores the crowd to death repeating the same tired promo from 2018. Thankfully, Toni Storm shows up to save us. Storm issues a challenge to the alleged “star maker” for the Smackdown Women’s Championship tonight. Flair said no and left. Let’s hope Storm gets a fair shake at the title and not steamrolled as usual.

The Ricochet/Mustafa Ali angle continued this week with Ricochet pulling Aliyah away from Ali’s advice to give her better advice. Aliyah left with Ricochet.

Jeff Hardy takes on Sami Zayn next with their Survivor Series team spot on the line. The loser is kicked off the team. These two put together a good match with Hardy picking up the win after Zayn got caught trying to cheat to win. Zayn really needs something of more substance soon.

Hit Row got into a rap battle with Jinder Mahal and Shanky. It was decent and tried to give Shanky some personality since he still can’t quite wrestle. We’ll pencil this in as a feud coming soon. I don’t know if that’ll be a good thing or a bad thing.

Ridge Holland is backstage with another introduction-type promo only with Cesaro showing up. This could be a good feud and it’ll be interesting to see who Sheamus sides with next week.

Main event time with Roman Reigns taking on King Woods. Reigns entrance is reaching Undertaker time. The match was good and competitive with Woods getting decent offense in. Woods keeps impressing me every week with how much he’s grown as a competitor being in The New Day. Woods hits his finisher (elbow off the top) and here’s the Usos for the DQ ending. The Usos wipe out Woods and Reigns bends his knee to be crowned with Woods’s KOTR crown to end the show.

Let’s take a look at tonight’s highs and lows.

The Highs

We had another week of solid wrestling action. All of the matches were decent and nothing was really bad. The women’s tag match got sufficient time in to accomplish what they needed to do.

The Lows

Let’s hope that was the first and only rap battle between Hit Row and Mahal/Shanky. It let Shanky get a little personality, but it was not all that great.

Can we please end the Sonya Deville/Naomi story? The heel boss story never goes well in the end and gets dragged out for too long.

==You can hit me up on Facebook or Twitter (@ciscowebwiz76) with any comments or discussion.

That’s all I’ve got, until next time.