This week’s Smackdown was not bad but compared to the previous week, it was a little down. It featured five matches but none of the matches could blow you away. Promos were good, but nothing special. But it featured good continuations for all the existing storylines. So the show was good, but nothing special.
Most of the matches were booked to promote certain individuals through jobbers. And none of those matches were hilarious. Jinder Mahal and Sami Zayn had a match which was a potential main eventer build up for ‘The Maharaja.’
Fans are criticising WWE for granting Jinder the win over Sami Zayn. But you see, it was seriously needed. Jinder is battling for the WWE championship at the next pay per event. Should he not look strong? Plus, it was not a clean victory, so it would not offend Sami’s career much after what he went through at Raw.
About the other matches that focused on promoting individuals; one of them being Dolph Ziggler vs. Sin Cara. It was not a bad match, and Ziggler badly needs such victories before facing Shinsuke Nakamura at Backlash. Ziggler vs. Nakamura is rumoured for Backlash and for that Ziggler needs to look strong. Nakamura is a very famous wrestler among the fans and they will push him as the top guy at Smackdown. So his first pay per view opponent needs to look strong.
The other match that focused on individual promotion was Tye Dillinger vs. Aiden English. It was more of a squash match in favour of Tye. Things are going well for Tye. It seems like they will push him as a main eventer in future.
There were two other matches in the show. One was a women’s tag team match. This match was okay, it marked the beginning of the faction warfare on the Women’s division of Smackdown. Becky Lynch decided to join Charlotte and Naomi’s side even after refusing an offer from Natalya and her team. This storyline is going really well. They should give it a go for a little longer. Now, some more women joining these factions will make things even more interesting. Suppose, Nikki Bella returns and joins the face side and Lana makes her Smackdown debut to form an alliance with the heel side. It would be really cool.
And the main event was the part three of Chris Jericho – Kevin Owens match. It was the worst match of the duo so far. Kevin Owens won the title again. It could have been a shocker if the news did not get leaked yesterday on the social media. Owens’ assault on Jericho proved that the rumours of Jericho taking time off are true. It will definitely give him a kayfabe injury and after his return, we think this feud should continue for a little longer. We never got the ultimate heat from this feud that it could deliver, so they need to continue it.
Final Verdict – It was not a boring show. Like no matter how good the Raw creative do a three-hour show sometimes feels boring. But Smackdown never gets boring. As we said earlier, it built all the storylines very well but did not feature the best matches. The women’s division is getting better and better. The mid card division is getting even stronger. But no involvement of the WWE champion Randy Orton or the tag team champions is biggest cons of this week. So we rate it as an average episode. Not a bad show, but it should have been way better.
Sportzwiki Rating – 2.5/5