This week’s Smackdown did not feature many good matches but it had good promos and had excellent build-ups towards the ongoing feuds. It was not a much improved Smackdown from the past week but it was a good show.
The promo on the start of the show was pretty good. It featured all the six top stars of Smackdown right now. Yes, we are considering Jinder Mahal as one of the top stars. At least after this week, we just have to consider him as a main eventer.
The whole segment was great. It was a great way to kick off the show.
There was a total of four matches this week. The number of matches of Smackdown has been decreased this week after quite a long time. They book five matches in almost all the recent weeks. But having fewer matches booked, they could not deliver any masterpiece. Among three of those four matches were booked for only five minutes or so, only the main event scenario was booked for over twenty minutes.
The women’s feud is being built well. This week Becky Lynch and Natalya had a one-on-one match. Natalya won this match and she had to win it. Their faction needs to be shown as a strong force, for that they need wins.
However, Becky was presented as the stronger force among the two women, which is definitely a good piece of booking. Becky did a good job on the match and on the backstage segment too.
The only thing that did not sound good of this scene was Becky making the six-woman tag team match for Backlash. She cannot make matches, she could propose the match.
Breezango had a match against the Ascension. Not much to say about this match but the promo cut by the Usos after the matches were just hilarious. All that ‘In Twelve Days’ thing was really very entertaining to see, fans really enjoyed it. They memorised the whole thing really well.
Now let us talk about the match between Luke harper and Eric Rowan. We seriously don’t why they are doing this. Nobody in the crowd seemed interested to see this match. If you have followed the commentary during this match, you would understand this feud will go on for a while, and they won’t finish with each other until Backlash. But no one is interested to see this feud because it is all so baseless.
The only thing they should do with this duo is to team them up and feature them on the tag team division. They are way more entertaining as a tag team and it will boost up the tag team division too. Just imagine a feud between The New and Harper & Rowan. Things could be way better if they team up.
There was another promo on this week featuring Dolph Ziggler and Shinsuke Nakamura. It might not be the best segment of the week but Ziggler did a decent job on the mic. They capitalised on Nakamura’s fame pretty well too.
Moving on to the six-man tag team match, it was a very good contest. AJ Styles’ performance was really cool in this match. The match ended with a big shock when Jinder Mahal pinned Randy Orton. We are not sure if anyone was expecting this. But you cannot blame the creative team for this decision. They have to book Jinder strong since he will be headlining the next pay per view event. And Jinder is doing a good job, so we must appreciate his work.
Final Verdict – It was a promo filled week but all are valuable. Even with fewer matches on the card, it was not a boring show. They did a good job in building up almost all the ongoing feuds. Jinder’s improvement is seriously mentionable, and they are doing as much as they could to promote him as a legit main eventer. A pinfall win over Randy Orton at this stage is really a huge boost for his career. He might get cut out of the main event scene after Backlash, but he can be a solid mid-carder in future. But there were some flaws of this week too. There was not much process in the build up of the US championship feud, which is potentially the most interesting match on the card of Backlash. They should focus on this next week surely.
Sportzwiki Rating – 2.5/5