WWE SmackDown Live (though not this week) returned last night (Nov. 7) from the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. You can find all the results at the live blog here.
NEW CHAMPION!
Holy @*#&!
AJ Styles defeated Jinder Mahal to win the WWE title and I am all sorts of hyped right now!
This is the first time the title changed hands on SmackDown in over a decade and they did it in front of a hyped crowd and delivered.
The match was really good - probably Jinder’s best match since winning the title. (Also better than the last match he had with AJ earlier this year.) They did a fantastic job playing up the size differential, which was also the focus of AJ’s pre match promo where he acknowledged he may be outsized but he’s never outworked.
Early on in the match, Jinder tossed AJ around easily and looked huge standing next to Styles. But AJ kept fighting back with his quickness and tenacity.
Eventually, as per usual, the Singh Brothers had to insert themselves to help their champion. Styles hit a springboard 450 onto Jinder and the Singhs pulled Mahal out of the ring before AJ could cover him.
The Phenomenal One chased down both Sunil and Samir and took them out of the equation. Normally, this is when Jinder will hit the Khallas and pick up the win. And he did nail his Khallas but Styles got his foot on the rope to break the vicious cycle! And Mahal didn’t know what to do with himself. He never had to think about extra innings.
Soon AJ Styles hit that Phenomenal Forearm for the win!
(I stayed off line from 3 pm Eastern on just to avoid the spoilers and I’m totally glad I did.)
So what does this mean? Brock vs. Styles! Get hyped!!
Building to War
The Survivor Series brand war has turned out to be really fun. And SmackDown has done very well weaving in that main story with all of their intrabrand tales.
They’ve really leaned on the “no heels/faces” idea in this story as the major players on the SmackDown side can be considered heroes or villains depending on which angle you’re looking from.
Shane McMahon, who once again opened the show this week, was hailed by the crowd as a hero. And on Tuesdays, he is a good guy. But in the big picture, he’s the instigator of this war. He led a sneak attack on Kurt Angle’s entire roster just hours after hugging the man. He’s spinning Kane’s attack on Daniel Bryan as a scheme by Kurt Angle when he knows Angle isn’t the type of guy to do that. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Shane somehow organized Bryan’s attack just to help motivate his troops. He’s a McMahon after all, and I wouldn’t put such evil past him.
The commissioner called out Monday’s blue brand heroes, the New Day, who invaded Raw on their own just to show they can. They’re traditionally babyfaces, but they also were front and center in the siege of Raw. They have blood on their hands.
Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn walked out to the entryway when Shane McMahon started dancing with the New Day. (Has every McMahon danced with the New Day? Has Vince?) Now Kevin and Sami are the top SmackDown heels. But Zayn stated that he was too honorable to join Shane’s sneak attack. That’s a babyface statement, but he delivers it like a complete ass.
Sami and Kevin had a war of words with the New Day that led to a match between Zayn and Kofi Kingston. Kofi picked up the win in a fun bout.
The blue brand has many pieces moving around as they prepare for war. They haven’t pushed their stories to the backburner as they build to the PPV but instead use it as part of the larger tale. Despite a uniting cause, everyone has stayed true to their characters, even if that means leaving the heel and face dynamic a bit and moving closer to the center.
Intergender
Becky Lynch defeated James Ellsworth this week in a rare WWE intergender match.
Prior to the match, these two had a backstage bit together where Ellsworth was just the biggest piece of sleaze. He didn’t give Becky a chance because he’s a man and she’s a woman. It was a nice little pre-match segment to make us want to see Jimmy Dream get his ass beat even more.
The match was pretty much dumb fun. It was never going to be a serious exhibition. This is the most we’re getting out of intergender matches in WWE. But it’s a match that needed to happen eventually given all Ellsworth has done to Becky.
Bex toyed with James for a bit and while he got a few moves in, Lynch wrestled circles around him. When he tried to hightail it and leave, the rest of the women who were watching ringside made sure he didn’t go anywhere. They forced him back into the ring where he tried to beg off. He was soon tapping out to the Disarmer.
After the match, Carmella got into the ring and delivered a kick to Jimmy! What does that mean? Is she finally kicking him to the curb? Or is that just part of their weird relationship? This fallout video makes me think it’s the latter:
It was good to see Becky, and the rest of the division, finally get some revenge after Ellsworth screwed them in the initial Money in the Bank ladder match. It would have been more satisfying if it was a bit closer to the MITB match, but this was fun nonetheless.
Worst. Rusev. Day. Ever.
Rusev lost a Survivor Series qualifying match to Randy Orton via rKo outta nowhere. It’s disappointing to see Rusev lose to Orton again. But I really just want to talk about how great Aiden English has been.
He’s been fantastic in this rendition as the Artiste. And now he has his own introduction! “Please welcome the operatic melodious voice of Aiden English!” And then he delivered some beautiful bars of “Rusev Day.” He’s fun to boo. He’s fun to cheer if you dig wrestlers with a tad outrageous gimmicks. He’s a good pro wrestling character.
It’s really great that Aiden has found a spot consistently on television after Simon Gotch left.
As for Rusev, he’s got a really good excuse for losing:
The man has a point. I like how he talks about preparing for a fight, something that ties into real sports and isn’t mentioned enough in pro graps.
Tag match
The Usos’ title defense against Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin ended in a count out. Chad Gable delivered a chop block to Jey Uso outside the ring that the champion couldn’t recover from.
That’s interesting in the sense it seemed like a bit of a dirty move. Could we be looking at a feud that leads to a double turn. (Well, in the Usos case I’d only move them to tweener, which they kind of already are.)
The announcers also raised the question of whether or not this will affect the champs at Survivor Series as the big brand war is a shadow that looms over everything.
This was a really fun episode even before the main event. The big title match with a big title change capped it off.
Grade: A
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