Hot off the heels of the OG Bloodline’s victory at Survivor Series: WarGames, SmackDown headed to frigid Minnesota for its latest episode.
There was plenty of fallout to cover from the massive PLE during Thanksgiving weekend, including a slew of injuries that WWE announcers Michael Cole and Corey Graves detailed during the opening moments. Bronson Reed (broken foot, surgery planned), Tonga Loa (torn biceps, underwent surgery) and Jimmy Uso (broken toe) will all be out indefinitely after the instant classic main event Saturday.
We’ll come back to the Bloodline saga later on — albeit with a few major absences — but for now let’s jump into the action.
👀 We CAN see you Cody Rhodes
SmackDown opened on Friday with Undisputed WWE Champion cutting a promo on Kevin Owens. After initially seeming like your generic babyface mic work, Chad Gable and American Made disrupted and Rhodes started cooking.
After some brief back-and-forth between Gable and Rhodes, the American Nightmare started throwing verbal haymakers, particularly with a callback to Gable’s much-maligned stint as “Shorty G” (yes, this actually happened). We even got a Stardust mention and chant from the crowd — for the record, we should get a Stardust return for a “one night only”-type thing.
What really stood out to me — and probably all of the true hip-hop heads — was Cody Rhodes referencing his loss at WrestleMania 39 and staring up at the lights for the “three-second tan.”
Can you hear that? Are those trumpets blaring?
Was Rhodes directly referencing John Cena’s “My Time is Now” lyrics as an homage to the retiring star? Will we get a match between the two soon? Was it just a throwaway line that has zero meaning?
You can believe what you want, but for now I am going to dig into this and Pepe Silvia.
You’re the bEST around!
Bianca Belair is really, really, really ridiculously good at professional wrestling. After getting jumped backstage by Piper Niven and Chelsea Green, Belair got a shot at revenge in a singles match with Niven.
This match immediately followed a triple-threat match between Tiffany Stratton, Naomi and Elektra Lopez. While that contest had its moments — Stratton’s Prettiest Moonsault Ever actually might be the prettiest today in WWE — you could see there were chemistry/timing issues and the difference was only highlighted by the banger that Niven-Belair was.
Belair ultimately won here and in a segment later in the show, Byron Saxton confirmed that Niven had nothing to do with the attack on Jade Cargill. The whodunit hijinks aside, if you can only watch one match from SmackDown on Friday, it should be this one.
Shinsuke Taker-Mura?
WWE continues to tinker with Shinsuke Nakamura’s presentation, and it’s objectively awesome and menacing. This week it appeared as if Nakamura had added some new eye makeup. After his entrance, LA Knight — still SUPER over — cut a promo and demanded his rematch against Nakamura.
One thing worth noting: As a New York guy, I respect Knight rocking the Timbs, but there was no way he was going to wrestle in them, so his attire served as a spoiler that we were in for more disruption.
That came to pass in the form of Andrade and then the New Bloodline, who sneakily and swiftly took out El Idolo and the Mega Star. After Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu took out the would-be challengers, they turned their attention to Nakamura, who did his best Dilophosaurus impersonation and threatened to mist them all, earning the …
Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑
What an incredible presentation of Nakamura here. Aside from the continually evolving entrance and look, he comes off looking wildly strong as an apex predator that even Solo Sikoa and the New Bloodline doesn’t want beef with. WWE is absolutely NAILING everything about Nakamura since his return.
Afterward, Sikoa cut a very solid promo declaring that the New Bloodline was still the dominant faction on SmackDown and he was still the Tribal Chief.
D-I-Why, Johnny? Why?
Earlier in the show, the Street Profits were brutally attacked backstage and could not compete in their scheduled WWE Tag Team Championship match against Motor City Machine Guns. Johnny Gargano was quick to suggest to Nick Aldis and MCMG that he and Tommaso Ciampa could fill in. Everyone obliged since it made complete sense in the ongoing story/split of DIY.
OR. SO. WE. THOUGHT!
The in-ring action in the match between MCMG and DIY took a backseat to the unreal storytelling here. Ciampa and Gargano feuded for the duration of the match, with the former becoming so fed up with the latter that he ranted and raved outside the ring about how useless he was. While Ciampa distracted the referee with a steel chair, Gargano turned by delivering a low blow and revealing it was all an elaborate ruse.
DIY pinned MCMG to become the new WWE Tag Team Champions. What. A. Swerve.
Even with the loss, MCMG have injected so much life into the tag division. You love to see it.
SUV Confessions
Relax, Uncrowned is a completely PG outfit.
Michael Cole was set to interview Kevin Owens 8 days before his Saturday Night Main Event match against Rhodes. Rather than do it in a nicely lit, staged interview room, Owens forced Cole to conduct the segment in his rental GMC Terrain in the parking lot.
This worked WAY better than it had any business doing and was probably the best promo of the night. Owens is so good as a heel — and a somewhat delusional one, in this case — that you actually find yourself agreeing with him. There’s a meta-ness to all of this as well with Owens pointing out some flaws in pro wrestling storytelling. Chef’s kiss!
Shorty G vs. Stardust
The night’s main event between Gable and Rhodes was a solid affair between two of the most technically sound professional wrestlers on the SmackDown roster. While there was never any real doubt that Rhodes would lay Gable down for the “three-second tan” (God, that reference is going to live in my head rent-free for a while), the American Made leader did manage to hobble the American Nightmare’s ankle severely heading into Saturday Night’s Main event on December 14.
In the aftermath, Rhodes was attacked by the ….
Uncrowned MVP of the Night 🏆
Owens — who we all saw drive away after his Cole interview. Owens was of course wearing his American Dream Dusty Rhodes shirt and naturally targeted the newly (storyline) injured ankle. SmackDown went off the air with the two men brawling and Owens has done enough in this build to convince me that we NEED this to last well into 2025.
Quick hits
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What a bad week to be a professional wrestling security guard: First Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley attack you on AEW Dynamite, then the New Bloodline decides to wreak havoc at the metal detector. Hazard pay is required for these guys!
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WWE is pushing the next few weeks as a “transfer portal” of sorts, allowing stars to change brands ahead of the new year and Raw’s debut on Netflix. In addition to Gable and American made, we saw SmackDown GM Nick Aldis talking to World Heavyweight Champion Gunther and in a segment with Carmelo Hayes. With the hype behind the Raw Netflix deal, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Rhodes and Gunther swap brands.
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As mentioned above, Stratton’s moonsault is unreal. I know it was her home state of Minnesota, but she’s super over and is really killing it at every level. We’re just waiting for her to pull the trigger on the Money in the Bank briefcase.
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Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura was seated ringside at SmackDown because the former Minnesota governor will be a special commentator for Saturday Night Main Event next weekend.
Even without the OG Bloodline appearing, we had great storytelling and solid in-ring action all around — 8.5 crowns 👑
