WWE SmackDown recap & reactions (Oct. 28, 2022): ‘Daddy’s here’

This week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown, emanating from St. Louis, started with Solo Sikoa and Sami Zayn once again teaming up, this time to take on BUTCH and Ridge Holland. Near the end of the match, Jey Uso interrupted Zayn’s plotting to counter a move off the top rope by pulling him out of the ring. An argument ensued, and the distraction eventually led to Zayn taking a rollup pinfall loss at the hands of BUTCH.

Jey got good and pissed off, leading to, if you can believe it, his own brother, Jimmy, confronting him and an electricity permeating throughout the arena. Before anything could go down, a familiar chune hit the loud speakers.

“Daddy’s here,” responded Michael Cole.

Roman Reigns made his return to say that because “you two” can’t help but act like kids, that’s how they would get treated. Air it all out, right here, right now.

Zayn took the opportunity to grab a mic and apologize to Jey for whatever it was that upset him so much before offering his hand to him to shake and put whatever differences aside once and for all.

Jey didn’t go for it.

He ran down Sami’s hair, his whole schtick, and finally said it all — he’s a fake ass member of The Bloodline and he can’t stand him being around anymore. No one in the group likes him. All of it. Sami broke in to say “why are you yelling at me, I’m trying to make peace. The Tribal Chief said to make peace.”

To which Jey responded, “I don’t give a damn what The Tribal Chief said.”

Reigns instantly perked up and the entire audience was ready for something BIG. Everyone played their part to perfection here.

And then it went off the rails.

Because Sami Zayn can’t stop making everybody break character.

Before Reigns could go at Jey, Sami stepped in to say “lately he just hasn’t been very Ucey” and not a single member of The Bloodline could keep from laughing. It absolutely destroyed the dramatic tension, which is admittedly unfortunate considering the emotion they were getting out of this.

But laughter is always worth it.

And this was fucking hilarious.

Sami’s face when Roman and Jey are laughing is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Eventually Reigns said if Jey isn’t careful he’s going to get the boot and Sami is going to become a full time member with a new name — Sami Uso — and the segment ended with Paul Heyman sending the show to commercial.

Aces all around.

Bray Wyatt was back and it seems he’s going to get special lighting each time he’s in the ring. Here, he told us we’re getting the real man, not one hiding behind a mask, and he’s going to do some spectacular things while he’s here.

He blamed his emotions for getting him in trouble at times. His don’t work like others do and sometimes he just doesn’t feel anything at all. “I think that’s part of what makes me me, right? To get to where I’ve gotten, I’ve had to do some horrible things. And there’s a part of me that likes that I’m not afraid to do horrible things.”

Okay!

“I know that that’s not the end of it. I know that there will come another time when I’m faced with some adversity and I’m asked to do something completely horrible…”

Cue a video package of Wyatt dressed like an old man with a hat claiming Bray is lying about who he is and he actually does wear a mask but he can’t hide from Uncle Howdy.

There will be plenty of “let’s see how this plays out” reactions here and that’s probably fair. With Wyatt’s track record, I’m not sure how much rope I have for this. I also really dislike much of the presentation, like the mood lighting and the fact that I really can’t tell what ANY of this has to do with, you know, pro freaking wrestling.

But, again, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

All the rest

• The New Day beat Maximum Male Models in a match that didn’t matter much outside of simply reminding us that Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston are very good and we like them.
• Liv Morgan again attacked Sonya Deville during an interview, which served two purposes here — it kept their program going, and WWE personnel getting involved to deal with them explained why Liv wouldn’t be the one answering Ronda Rousey’s open challenge.
• Braun Strowman explained in a pre-taped message from backstage that he’s gotten really excited about Omos being bigger and he can’t wait to show that well, actually, there’s no one too big for the “Monster of all Monsters.”
• Emma made her return to WWE on this show, answering Ronda Rousey’s open challenge for a SmackDown women’s championship match. She got a decent response and went out and wrestled about as good a match as you could hope for with Rousey. There was always a lot of potential with Emma, and whatever was left unrealized now has a chance to be recognized under new WWE leadership. I’ll let you decide if that’s going to happen or not. We’re off to a solid start, in this writer’s humble opinion.
• Shayna Baszler found her killer instinct again, as she attacked Natalya, who she was recently teaming with, as Nattie was popping off at the mouth to Rousey about the being lucky that she wasn’t the one to answer the open challenge. It wasn’t clear if Baszler was aligning with Rousey here but it did seem that way.
• Did Top Dolla go full lucha on this show? Kind of! It was fun. Hit Row teamed up with Shinsuke Nakamura to defeat Legado del Fantasma and get one back on their chief rivals.
• Ricochet got all up in LA Knight’s face — YEAH — and made like he was going to get a new feud going but nothing really came of it. Knight just sort of left and Ricochet said he should be careful cause someone is going to beat him up if he isn’t.
• Karrion Kross was back after a short absence on account of a car crash Drew McIntyre was responsible for. He had a match against Madcap Moss, and, much to my surprise, Moss got quite a bit of offense in. It only turned around when Scarlett got involved and provided a distraction. It almost felt like Moss was the one nearing a big match on a PPV, not the other way around. Kross cut a promo on McIntyre while still choking out Moss after the bell, saying Madcap put up more of a fight than Drew, who is a hypocrite and a coward. Hard to argue with that, considering the whole car crash thing!
• GUNTHER interrupted an interview with Rey Mysterio to rip his shirt off while Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci held his arms out and deliver one chop. Just one. It legit looked like that chop could have killed poor Rey. Next week could get rough!

An enjoyable show.

Grade: B

Your turn.