The WWE Smackdown Reaction for 9/3/21
Welcome to The Smackdown Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show in Jacksonville. As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth report here.
We kick off the show with Promo Time with The Usos. The Usos talked about The Street Profits injecting themselves last week into the family business. Street Profits show up asking the Usos to show them their permission slips from Roman to be out in the ring. This leads to the scheduled Championship Contenders match between the two teams.
The match was a really good preview of what these two teams can do together. The match was really good for the time allotted. Montez Ford still continues to amaze me with that frog splash he does, this time a twisting one doing a complete 180 in the air. In typical WWE fashion, we end this on a DQ so we are left wanting more in this feud. After the match, Ford does this crazy dive out onto the Usos that didn’t look that pretty on the landing. He popped right up so hopefully he’s okay.
Paul Heyman was backstage with Kayla Braxton when Brock Lesnar’s theme started playing on his cell phone. Heyman took the call and implied it was Lesnar on the phone. Heyman then bumped into Big E, dressed as a janitor, who just laughed manically at him while holding up the Money in the Bank briefcase. Big E needs to up his tease game, though. Why not come out with a ref during one of Reigns’s matches?
Promo Time with Becky Lynch is up next. Fantastic pop for Becky so this heel turn thing isn’t quite working out yet. Lynch again explains what she did at SummerSlam and that brings Bianca Belair out. Belair challenges Lynch to a match right now and Lynch said no before walking away. We’ll find out later net week at MSG on Super Smackdown, Lynch and Belair sign their contract for a title match at Extreme Rules.
Rick Boogs makes his singles debut against Dolph Ziggler next. I’m sure you can figure out how this goes. They didn’t have a lot of time so Boogs finishes Ziggler off with Boogs Cruise, the new name for his pumphandle powerslam finisher.
Cesaro takes on Seth Rollins next. Prior to the match, Rollins cuts a promo on Edge. They have another great match together for the time given and the needed story outcome. Rollins does a couple of Edge’s moves to sell the story from the promo that he learned from Edge. Cesaro gets the swing in for about 20 rounds and the crowd loves it. Rollins ends the match by getting DQed for using a chair on Cesaro. Lame finish since that’s how Usos/Street Profits ended. After the match, Rollins goes nuts on Cesaro until Edge makes the save to set up their rematch next week on Super Smackdown.
Up next, Kevin Owens hosts The KO Show with his guest Happy Corbin. Corbin is still dull and brings out Logan Paul to give KO his hundred bucks back. Owens gets into a shoving match with Paul before getting taken down by Corbin. Let’s hope KO wins the feud.
Dominick Mysterio gets another shot at Sami Zayn to try to avenge his loss from last week. Unfortunately, they don’t get much time here and Zayn finishes Mysterio off quickly. Let’s hope they decided against the Dominick heel turn.
Main event time with Finn Balor taking on Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. Hey look, there’s The Usos to beat up Balor before the match. The Street Profits come down and run the Usos out of the arena. I feel like we’ve seen this gimmick match before. The match was good given the time constraints placed on it. Balor eventually gains the upperhand so Reigns resorts to his low blow kickout before choking out Balor. No DQ trifecta tonight. After the match, the lights flashed once (a Demon Balor tease) as Roman walked to the back to close out the show.
Let’s take a look at tonight’s highs and lows.
The Highs
We had some solid in-ring action this week. Usos/Street Profits, Cesaro/Rollins, and Balor/Reigns all had decent time given to them to let the story play out.
The Paul Heyman/Brock Lesnar story played out well tonight also. Lesnar will be at Super Smackdown next week to confront Reigns. This should give us the booking plan.
The Lows
The Usos beating up Roman’s opponent before the title match is almost played out. It’s treading into where it will hurt Roman more than help him booking wise. I’m sure that Lesnar would just annihilate them if they tried it. I guess it could have been done in order for Balor to bring back The Demon, but I don’t want to see The Demon lose yet and he makes a plausible opponent to take the title off of Reigns.
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