No disrespect to any of this week’s other wrestling shows, but I’m already focused on Friday’s SmackDown. WWE loaded up the card for the first night of the Draft on Oct. 9, including a match many of us have been looking forward to since, oh, round about October of 2015.
Will we get a clean finish to Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, or is this just prelude to rumored Hell in a Cell-headlining rematch? You know the answer, but it’s still worth getting hyped for.
The Boss did her part in this clip from Talking Smack:
“You know, the ‘using me’ part, I get. She has been using me because she’s always needed me. Bayley, you can’t do this without me. You can’t do the magazine covers, you can’t get the following. You can’t get the interviews, the appearances. You can’t get the star power because you’re not a star like me - plain and simple. Plain and simple.
“So of course you were using me. That’s not what hurt me. It’s after all of these years, all of these years of friendship. I knew you before you even got signed. I felt your energy. I believed in you before anybody else did, and I know that you believed in me.
“So you can use me all you want, but I need to remind you that you’re absolutely nothing without me. You try to end my career? You try to end me, because you know that you cannot beat me. So come next week, Bayley, forget about the title. It’s not even about that.
“I’m coming to end you.”
My favorite part of this is the way Banks isn’t turning into a traditional babyface. There are splashes of it in what she’s doing - she is hurt that her friend betrayed her. But it’s mostly buried underneath rage and ego. Bayley’s been too good as in her current form to turn her back, and Sasha’s always been better as a villain. This way, we’re getting both - and this is certainly an instance where a heel vs. heel feud makes sense.
As long as Kurt Angle doesn’t show up on SmackDown to send them to therapy, this just might live up to the hype.
Thoughts?