WWE Smackdown Reaction for 10/1/21
Welcome to the Smackdown Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show in Baltimore. As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth review here.
Get your draft cards ready, we are kicking things off with the first picks of the night. It was noted that the draft moves will not be official until the day after Crown Jewel, so that’s October 22. Your first picks are:
- Universal Champion Roman Reigns to Smackdown (well duh)
- WWE Champion Big E to Raw (again duh)
- Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair to Smackdown
- Bianca Belair to Raw
The first two were no-brainers. Flair coming to Smackdown sorta makes sense, since she’s wrecked the entire Raw Women’s Division. Belair kinda explains the Extreme Rules ending a bit.
Promo Time with Roman Reigns is up first. Heyman talked about the protected loss The Demon took at Extreme Rules before moving on to Brock Lesnar, cueing up his entrance. Lesnar and Reigns started fighting before The Usos ran down to get flung like a Singh by Brock to close out the segment. Face Brock is working for now. Let’s see how well-received he is after Crown Jewel if he wins the title as I expect he will.
Our opening contest is Kevin Owens taking on Happy Corbin. We find out that Corbin’s sidekick is Madcap Moss, which is just a renamed Riddick Moss. Poor KO, he has to try to make Corbin and Moss look like something that they are not, talented. The match was okay proving Corbin still sucks in the ring. Owens does the job duty here and I guess that confirms he will be leaving the company once his contract is up.
A promo airs announcing the return of the King of the Ring tournament and the Queen’s Crown Tournament. Both start next week on the “season premiere” of Smackdown. Why couldn’t we have done this last year?
Get your draft cards out, it’s time for round two.
- Drew McIntyre to Smackdown
- Raw Tag Team Champions RKBro to Raw
- Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods to Smackdown
- Edge to Raw
McIntyre moving was almost a given. RKBro stays on Raw. The New Day is split up again by the Draft. Edge heads back to Raw.
Promo Time with Edge is next. Edge said he was here to confront Seth Rollins, as he requested. Rollins appears on the screen at Edge’s “house” instead. Rollins gives us a tour of the place before Edge calls Beth to take the kids elsewhere. A truly awful segment that belonged on Raw and not Smackdown.
Carmella gets her rematch against Liv Morgan next, or not. Carmella puts this stupid-looking silver mask on to protect her face before wiping out Morgan and leaving. I wasn’t really clamoring for a rematch between these two anyway. At least Morgan got some TV time.
Draft time, round three picks are in:
- Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss to Smackdown
- WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Rhea Ripley and Nikki A.S.H. to Raw
- NXT’s Hit Row to Smackdown
- Keith “Bearcat” Lee to Raw
Hit Row gets a well-deserved call-up, meaning their feud with Legado Del Fantasma will be ending shortly. Everybody else stayed put.
Eight-man tag is up next with The Street Profits teaming with The New Day to take on Alpha Academy, Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler. We get a solid action-packed tag match. Gable countering Ford’s top rope move into a Northern Lights Suplex was an awesome sight. Gable and Ford made it took easy. The New Day picks up the win for their team with Woods pinning Roode after the double team double foot stomp. This was fun.
The final picks for tonight are in, so grab your draft cards.
- Naomi to Smackdown
- The Mysterios to Raw
- Jeff Hardy to Smackdown
- NXT’s Austin Theory to Raw
Sonya Deville could have had a little more enthusiasm for Naomi’s pick. Be a star, Sonya. The Mysterios and Hardy are switching shows. Theory going back to Raw was a little surprising, but he’s been a background player to the In-Dex angle on NXT so I guess that makes him the odd man out.
Brock Lesnar interrupted Kayla Braxton’s interview with Jeff Hardy to declare himself a free agent thanks to his good friend Paul Heyman. Reigns questioned Heyman why The Usos haven’t been drafted to Smackdown yet. Heyman said that the plan was for Monday. Reigns looked skeptical and told The Usos to go to Raw on Monday to make sure.
Main event time with Sasha Banks taking on Bianca Belair. Becky Lynch came out to join commentary and it was also announced that Lynch would defend her title against both Banks and Belair at Crown Jewel. There’s a lot to digest there for sure and several different directions to go in. Turning back to the match at hand, it was pretty good for the time they were given. Their WrestleMania match was a lot better though. Lynch interfered which cost Belair the match. With the triple threat coming, this was the best they could do for a finish. After the match, Charlotte Flair showed up and destroyed both Banks and Belair to stand tall to close the show out, because you know.
Let’s look at tonight’s highs and lows.
The Highs
The couple of matches that actually made it to the show were pretty solid. Banks/Belair and the eight-man tag are worth checking out. The Draft dominated most of the night so the in-ring product just wasn’t there this week.
The Lows
Charlotte Flair has arrived on Smackdown to destroy the Women’s Division. Standing tall to close the show out after a match she was not involved in made no sense whatsoever. The only thing I can think of is Lynch kept mentioning the Becky Two Belts thing and maybe they are going to unify the titles into a traveling title.
The Seth Rollins invading Edge’s house was pretty lame. It was one of those spots you would find on Raw on a regular basis. Smackdown usually has higher standards.
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A couple of quick thoughts on Smackdown’s side of Extreme Rules. The two protected losses for the Smackdown Women’s Championship match and The Demon kinda showed how WWE booked themselves into a corner for both matches. At least nobody looked bad in either match and should be able to recover from that.
You can find me on Facebook or Twitter (@ciscowebwiz) if you’d like to discuss the draft as it rolls into Raw. That’s all I’ve got, until next time.