WWE SmackDown preview (Sept. 10, 2021): There’s finally someone who can beat Roman Reigns

SmackDown airs tonight (Sept. 10) live from Madison Square Garden in New York City. This is the third SmackDown episode during the five week build towards Extreme Rules 2021 on September 26.

There’s finally someone who can beat Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns has held onto the Universal championship for over a year. During that time, he has successfully defended the blue brand’s top prize against Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, Rey Mysterio, Edge, John Cena, and Finn Balor. Outside of kayfabe, there was little to no doubt about the outcome of these matches, aside from a triple threat match at WrestleMania where Reigns could have lost the title without being involved in the fall. None of these men were ever going to pin or submit Reigns to take that title from him.

But then Brock Lesnar and his terrifying ponytail showed up at SummerSlam to confront the champ. Now that Brock is set to make his return to television tonight, there is finally a wrestler on SmackDown who can actually beat Roman Reigns. We know this because Brock has already beaten Roman once at WrestleMania and once in Saudi Arabia.

Paul Heyman has a big problem on his hands now that Brock is gunning for the Tribal Chief. Lesnar’s appearance tonight will probably focus on Paul’s position as an ally of both Lesnar and Reigns, and finding out which man he is more loyal to. Can Heyman actually find a way to navigate this tricky situation without severing his ties with either man?

WWE teased a return of The Demon at the end of last week’s show, and Finn Balor is getting a championship rematch against Reigns at Extreme Rules. But Brock’s presence renders Finn’s title chase moot. Demon or no demon, Balor is still firmly on the above list of pretenders to the throne. Brock Lesnar is the real threat to Roman Reigns, and their match could happen as soon as WWE’s upcoming show in Saudi Arabia in October.

The rest of the title scene

Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair have a contract signing scheduled for tonight to make their SmackDown women’s championship match at Extreme Rules official. That scumbag John Cena showed us all last month that any wrestler can sign their name on a contract and get someone else’s title match handed to them. That’s why every wrestler in the women’s division should storm the ring during this contract signing to stake their claim to the title match. This might be the perfect opportunity for Sasha Banks to return to WWE and get her revenge on Belair by incapacitating her so that someone else can sign the contract.

The Street Profits have been sticking their noses in The Usos’ business in an attempt to even the playing field for Finn Balor as he battles it out with The Bloodline. Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford have been rewarded for their efforts with a SmackDown tag team title match against Jimmy and Jey tonight at The Garden.

Shinsuke Nakamura is such an incredible Intercontinental champion and king of WWE that apparently no heels are willing to step up and challenge him for the title. Therefore he’s spending his time in recent weeks alongside Rick Boogs showing that Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode are nothing more than low card fodder. Toni Storm seems to be impressed with Boogs’ moves in the ring.

Natalya & Tamina are still the Women’s tag team champs because all of their losses have conveniently occurred during championship contenders non-title matches. Shotzi & Nox have done more than enough to earn a shot at the gold, so it’s just a matter of time until Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville book a championship match.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

- The big match scheduled for tonight is Edge vs. Seth Rollins in a rematch from SummerSlam. WWE has said that these two men will settle their issues “once and for all” in this match, which makes it sound like this is the end of their feud. But this is WWE, so you can’t rule out the possibility of a screwy finish here and then one more match down the road.

- Happy Corbin is now good buddies with Logan Paul after they humiliated Kevin Owens last week. It’s difficult to find two bigger douchebags in WWE right now.

- Naomi is still trying to get her first TV match as a new member of the SmackDown roster, but she’s being ignored by Sonya Deville. I don’t like her chances of being acknowledged on this loaded card at MSG.

- It turns out that Dominik Mysterio is a very bad singles wrestler who exists to pad Sami Zayn’s win-loss record.

- Local advertising for tonight’s show suggests that John Cena is in the building, as well as Raw wrestlers Bobby Lashley, Charlotte Flair, and Drew McIntyre.

- This weekend is the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; WWE is probably going to spend some time tonight telling you how awesome they were at helping the United States recover from this tragedy.

What will you be looking for on SmackDown tonight?