Happy August SmackDown fans and welcome to this week’s SmackDown Redux! Josue here as our usual SmackDown correspondent Abir will be taking some time off these next few weeks. Let us all enjoy and make the most of this last month of the summer season! On this week’s SmackDown, the SmackDown Women’s Champion Naomi teams up with Becky Lynch to take on the team of Natalya and Carmella. Let’s watch how the semi-SummerSlam showdown unfolds.
Before we get to our scheduled tag match, we catch up with Mike and Maria Kanellis. The residential “Power of Love” couple makes their presence felt following Aiden English’s, surprise, win over Sami Zayn to confess the only thing they love more than each other is seeing Sami lose! And that one liner is pretty much all we get from the Kanellis’.
We move on to our tag match and the heels are already in the ring awaiting their opponents. Becky makes her entrance but boy do I miss the smoke that came with her entrance! Naomi makes her signature Feel the Glow entrance next and with all our competitors now in the ring, we’re ready to get things started with Becky and Natalya.
Becky traps Natalya to into an early armbar but Natalya finds relief by running to the ropes to break the hold. Becky stays in control with a kick to midsection and taking Natalya down with a drop toe hold. Becky takes Natalya to Naomi’s corner where a tag is made along with some team work: Becky landing a running forearm while Naomi provides a big leg drop on Natalya for a two count.
Natalya calls for an unofficial time out, which is used as an excuse to make a tag to Carmella. Naomi dodges a clothesline and kicks away at Carmella. Ms. Money in Bank puts a stop to the kicks by catching one of them and then slapping Naomi across the face but Naomi responds with a dropkick. Naomi then returns the favor with a slide-in slap to Carmella.
Natalya distracts Naomi from the ring apron, which allows for Carmella to regroup herself and make a tag. The heels toss Naomi headfirst to the mat then target her legs before Natalya goes for the cover for a two-count.
Natalya switches gears by slowing down Naomi with a sleeper hold and then following up with the Sharp Shooter! The SmackDown Women’s Champion endures the submission and is eventually able to crawl her way to the bottom ropes for a much needed rope break.
In the midst of the rope break, Carmella tags back in the match and immediately locks in her Code of Silence submission on Naomi. Naomi reverses this to a submission of her own, prompting Natalya to run-in to make the save but Becky neutralizes her with a Bex-Plex.
Left alone, Carmella taps out awarding Team Glow Fire with the win!
NEXT WEEK: Miss #MITB @CarmellaWWE looks to avenge her loss to @NaomiWWE when they go toe-to-toe on #SDLive! pic.twitter.com/0KgzLO5eAq
— WWE (@WWE) August 2, 2017
Next week, Carmella gets a chance to get even with Naomi in a ONE-ON-ONE match-up! Hoorah for the singles match-up again. Hoorah for the singles competition!
During SmackDown’s Fallout, we also find out that next week, Lana will challenge Charlotte Flair to a match – all in an attempt to make up amends with Tamina for costing them their tag team match last week. Will Charlotte accept?
Thoughts: This tag match was pretty short and sweet; nothing completely terrible (or memorable) but there was also almost no story progression here. With SummerSlam considered one of the ‘Big 4 PPVs’ and the chance of seeing a fresh feud between Naomi/Natalya, I’d like to see these two be given more interaction with one another, much like the backstage promo we saw last week with each Superstar declaring why they’re more worthy of holding on to the SmackDown Women’s Championship.
Having followed and covered Mike and Maria’s run with Impact/GFW all of last year, I do have to admit that their current stint with WWE right now just feels stale right now. They’ve been running the same line since their debut and this Sami Zayn feud isn’t doing any favors to anyone in this feud so far.
The Lana/Tamina interaction was interesting as Lana had no problem acknowledging that she was (and still is) the weak link; something she has never truly admitted to before. Tamina’s facial expressions as Lana explained her aspirations to be a more ‘ravishing’ version of her were hilarious! While I do still wonder where WWE are taking this pairing of Tamina/Lana, pushing Lana into these big matches is risky given how fans have reacted to her matches so far. She just isn’t ready to compete full-time so I don’t see Lana getting over Charlotte, even through any help from Tamina. I am however interested in seeing how Charlotte will respond, given her already feelings towards Lana.
If the rumors are true of some main roster Superstars heading to NXT after SummerSlam, Lana is one name that should certainly be considered. I think Lana certainly has potential to be a Superstar in the Women’s division but as with anything, it takes time and investment.
What did you think of this week’s episode of SmackDown? Where do you see the Tamina/Lana allegiance going? What do you think will happen on next week’s show? Let us know in the comments below!
