5 Things We Learned From SmackDown Last Night

Another week, another edition of WWE SmackDown Live.

Following this week’s edition of RAW, which followed up Sunday night’s big No Mercy PPV, how would WWE capture the attention of fans probably burned out from three straight nights of watching pro wrestling?

Well, they started things off with Kevin Owens and ended things with Kevin Owens. Sprinkle in a little Sami Zayn and Shane McMahon and you’ve got some entertainment.

But what about everything in between? What else of note happened this week? Never fear, we’re here with five things we learned from this week’s edition of SmackDown Live.

1. Fight Forever

Seriously, anytime that Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens step in the ring together, it’s magic. When SmackDown opened with these two, I was pleasantly surprised. Given their well known history together (which was probably explained better in NXT than on the main roster), there’s no more believable character who could try to stop Owens from fighting the McMahons.

Owens continues to the best character going in WWE today. He is at a whole different level from the rest of the roster when it comes to microphone work right now, and the match he and Sami Zayn had was off the charts. This man can do no wrong, hopefully we see him in the world title picture again very soon. 

2. Just Stop Him Bobby

In this week’s Dolph Ziggler segment, he came out dressed as the Undertaker, with the full entrance and everything. It’s hard to believe anyone in the crowd would actually buy that this was the real thing, especially given how fast Dolph was walking down the ramp, but to his credit, some actually did. 

By the time Dolph revealed himself, the segment, as usual, started to die a slow death. As I’ve written in these recaps for months, it’s just not an interesting angle or a good use of Ziggler. 

Thankfully, he was interrupted by Bobby Roode. They revealed the two of them will wrestle at Hell In A Cell, which should be a very good match. Hopefully the bout helps Roose ascend up the card, because being stuck in a feud with this dying Ziggler story could spell death for Roode’s main roster prospects. 

3. Just Stop. Period.

 WWE Champion Jinder Mahal and the Singhs came out and again made fun of pictures of Shinsuke Nakamura. And again, almost nobody in the arena laughed.

They definitely cut down on the underlying racist tones that have existed in these promos for the last couple of weeks, but the whole thing was still painfully unfunny. It’s hard to believe that after the feedback (or lack thereof when the live crowd is considered) the story has been getting, they continue to do the same thing.

Finally, they had a final “picture” of Nakamura on the screen, but then Shinsuke started to move and it was revealed to be a live shot of him backstage. Nakamura then entered the arena and took out Mahal and his entourage.

It was good to see Nakamura get some vengeance after the last couple of weeks, but I sincerely hope this is the end of these “comedy” bits. 

4. One More Time

The Usos and the New Day have been stealing the show for two solid months now, maybe longer, on the SmackDown brand. Going back to their match at Battleground, followed up by SummerSlam, and then a tremendous television match in Las Vegas, it’s been quite a feud.

Their story could come to an end at Hell In A Cell in a couple of weeks. It was revealed that the Usos will challenge the New Day for the belts inside of the Hell In A Cell structure at the PPV, a rare occurence in WWE. 

Historically cage matches are the blow-off to a longterm feud, and this could be no different. I’m excited to see the teams have what is sure to be another very good match, but I’m not as excited for them to be split. This is mostly due to the lack of depth on the SmackDown tag team roster. 

Where does either team go from here? The most likely option I would say would be a tag title feud between Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin and the Usos. In that scenario, we need a heel team to hold the belts, and there’s really no other team on the roster at this point who could rightfully have any credibility in a title match.

5. So Much For The Open Challenge

Remember when AJ Styles was supposed to bring back the weekly U.S. title open challenge? Weren’t we all excited for a slew of surprise challengers?

Well turns out that idea seems to be all but completely buried. After Tye Dillinger was the first surprise challenger, we’ve had none since. All we’ve had is Dillinger getting a rematch and Baron Corbin continuing to interject himself.

Predictably, we’re getting Corbin vs. Styles for the U.S. title at Hell In A Cell. It should be a good match, but I can’t help but long for the open challenge segment to make a full-time return. It was always one of the most entertaining segments of the show when John Cena was doing it, and with a talent the calibre of AJ Styles, it could really be great television. Especially if they brought up some challengers (even as one-offs) from NXT.

I’m not sure if they are ever going to go back to it at this point, though, because I think the odds are high that Styles will work himself back into the WWE title picture in the very near future. If Nakamura isn’t successful at Hell In A Cell, look for Styles to be the next challenger for Mahal, which means he would be dropping the U.S. title sooner rather than later.