Hey Smackdown fans!!! Boy, did we have a great show this week and I can’t wait to get into it. Coming off of SummerSlam there are a lot of questions that need to be answered and a couple of storylines to unfold. The main buzz coming off of SummerSlam is Becky Lynch losing her match and thus hitting her breaking point.
In case you have been living under a rock since Sunday, Charlotte Flair won the Smackdown Women’s Championship by pinning her best friend Lynch in a triple threat match that also featured, now former champion, Carmella.
Flair pinned Lynch to win the title after executing the Natural Selection. After the match the unthinkable happens, Lynch snaps. After a couple of hugs and embraces between the Tea Sisters, Lynch punches Flair in the face and the attack ensues. That was Sunday, last night at Smackdown we see the aftermath. Before we get into that, a couple of moments happen with the women first.
As I stated in the beginning, SummerSlam left some unfinished business to attend to and the first business of the night involves Maryse. Maryse was in the front row with her newborn at SummerSlam to cheer on her husband The Miz during his long-awaited match against Daniel Bryan. The match ended in controversy due to Maryse handing her husband brass knuckles allowing The Miz to pick up the victory in the way he does best: cheating.
The Miz comes out to start the show with Maryse. He starts off by acting as if he is crying with Maryse attempting to hold back “tears” as well. He says he has to “retire”, only to explain the he has to retire from ever facing Bryan again. Bryan’s music hits and he heads down the ramp with a microphone in hand: He repeatedly shouts “coward” to the Miz. The Miz attempts to hide behind Maryse as he trades words back and forth with his longtime foe. The Miz focuses on the fact that he will never have to face Bryan ever again.
Maryse then takes to the mic and tells Bryan to leave already and retire again. She exclaims that he might as well change his last name to Bella. Brie Bella‘s music hits and Bella runs right into the ring. Maryse is able to escape but the Miz is the victim of many punches by the returning twin. Bryan put the cherry on top of the beating by knocking him over the top rope. As Maryse and her husband flee the ring area and make their way up to the ramp, Bryan finishes what he was about to say before Maryse interrupted him. He will be facing the Miz again, but not alone. At Hell in a Cell, there will be a Mixed Tag Team match between Bryan and Bella vs. Miz and Maryse.
In a WWE.com exclusive, Bryan and Bella explain how they have been preparing for Bella’s comeback to the ring.
Next up is the moment we all have been waiting for: Naomi leaving catering and lacing up her boots to get back in the ring.
Naomi squared off against one of Smackdown’s resident IIconics mean girls, Peyton Royce. Royce and her tag team partner Billie Kay had been taking jabs at Lynch’s heel turn since Sunday on social media. Naomi, who is a friend of both Flair and Lynch made a challenge for Royce to step into the ring with her. Let’s highlight the top moments of the match:
Naomi starts the match strongly and on the offense. She executes her roundhouse kicks as Royce ducks them all but the last one. After Royce is laid out from the kick, Naomi hits a split on her and holds it there for a two count. After this initial move from Naomi, the numbers game is in Royce’s favor. Kay’s first distraction in the match had Naomi tied up in the ropes which allowed Royce to capitalize with a roundhouse kick of her own. The second distraction by Kay allowed Royce to smack Naomi face first into the ring post. Royce executes a fisherman suplex into a bridge to pick up the win. Royce picked up her first win on Smackdown since Kay and herself beat Asuka back in April.
In a WWE exclusive, the IIconics celebrate Royce’s victory:
Prior to Smackdown, WWE posted on their instagram about the friendship between Lynch and Flair ending:
Next, we have the fallout that was mentioned at the beginning of this recap.
Becky Lynch makes her way to the ring. She has the angry look on her face because she is about to address everyone about why she turned on Charlotte Flair. She gets right to the point by saying she should be champion right now and that Flair deserved the beating she got. She rattled off many names, some champions, both male and female that SummerSlam should not have been about them. SummerSlam should have been about her and her alone. She went on to say how she earned this title shot and even got over the fact of how Flair was added to it. She is tired of everyone’s opinions and decided to take action into her own hands. She knew the moment Flair pinned her in that match that her so-called best friend stole her spotlight and moment. Flair’s music hits and the new champion comes out to the stage.
Flair comes out to the stage and raises her title and yells to Lynch saying is this what all of this is about. She throws the belt down and runs down to the ring and the fight starts. She knocks Lynch down and throws punch after punch to her former best friend. Lynch ends up countering the attacks and throws punches of her own. Flair knocks Lynch out of the ring and Lynch hops the barricade to try and break up the beating. Flair gets Lynch back into the ring and the two continue to fight surrounded by several referees. The officials aren’t enough to stop the fight, so General Manager Paige comes out and waves out the entire Smackdown women’s division (except for Carmella) to come out and break up the two. The crowd chants “let them fight”, as the other women try to pull the two apart. This fight continues until the commercial break.
After the chaos is over between Flair and Lynch, a rematch from the kickoff show of SummerSlam takes place. Rusev and Lana face off against Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega. Some key moments involving the women of this match are as follows:
The men start the match, but once the women are tagged in, Vega has the majority of the upper hand in this match. Vega isolates Lana from tagging in her husband, even though Lana tried many times. Vega was able to tie up Lana in the ropes with a unique submission maneuver that she held for as long as she could before the referee’s count broke it up. Once Lana was able to tag in Rusev, the match continued with the men as Almas was in control.
After Rusev was able to knock Almas over the top rope to the floor on the outside, Vega entered the ring and shoved Rusev. Lana takes down Vega with a spear. Aiden English shows up and for once is a help to his friends. Almas grabbed a chair to hit Rusev with while the referee had his back turned. English was able to grab the chair out of Almas’ hands. This distraction was enough for Rusev to capitalize and apply the Accolade to Almas for the submission victory. Finally, English was able to help his friends Lana and Rusev emerge in the victory.
After the match, Lana and Rusev celebrate their win with English backstage.
Lastly, to conclude a highly focused woman division episode of Smackdown, Carmella approaches Paige in her office to air out her grievances from losing her title on Sunday. She wants her rematch against Flair for her title one on one. R-Truth interrupts the two and demands that he get his shot at Carmella.
Truth is still thinking that he can pin Carmella and receive a United States title shot. Paige explains to him that just because Lynch and Flair had pinned Carmella to earn their title shots, that isn’t what he has to do. After Paige is able to get Truth out of her office, she announced that Carmella will get her title rematch next week on Smackdown against Flair.
Thoughts: Loved it: 4 stars out of 5. The women were all over this show as they should be. RAW please take notice and have more than one match and one segment for the women in your three-hour show.
Brie’s return was great. Maryse being in a match is going to be great, as long as it is a better match than the one she had with her husband against Nikk Bella and John Cena last year. I am looking forward to the build-up to this match. Despite what some people feel, I am here for the Bellas and so excited to see Brie get back in the ring.
Naomi! We found you!!!! Yay!!!!! Good to see you girl. I am a little sad that she lost but Peyton finally picked up a win, so I am not hating on it. I think the match could have been better but it wasn’t bad. The win for Peyton did surprise me as that was not what I was expecting due to her multiple losses since she has been on Smackdown!
Heel Becky is everything!!! I cheered the second she punched Charlotte at SummerSlam. I was so upset that Becky didn’t win but I get it. This feud is going to be great and I am here to love every second of it. This is everything Sasha Banks and Bayley should have been. Hopefully, once Becky wins the belt, the moment will be that much better. I keep seeing people say that her being a heel isn’t going to get over. People aren’t going to “boo” her. People are going to cheer her because they want this. Boos or cheers, this turn is something new and exactly what her character needs and Smackdown needs.
I am glad that Lana and Vega are still going. Now with Lana finally picking up a win, hopefully, it continues and just doesn’t fade out. I am a big fan of both of them, and I fee Vega is making Lana better and better. Nothing amazing happened between the two of them in this match but it was still good that Lana and Rusev won.
The only reason why I gave 4 out of 5 and not a perfect 5 is that I feel the matches could have been a little better but that is just nitpicking.
What did everyone think of the show? Are you team Becky heel? Are you happy to see Brie Bella back? Sound off in the comments below!!
