Damage CTRL Start the Show, The Brawling Brutes VS The Street Profits VS Pretty Deadly: Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships Number 1 Contender’s Match
The new and improved Damage CTRL kicked off this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown as Bayley officially confirmed Asuka as a member of the group. However, by the looks of it, the other members of Damage Control don’t look like they want Bayley hanging around for too much longer and this was even teased by Dakota Kai. Speaking of Dakota Kai, she challenged Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, and Shotzi to a WarGames match before the Babyfaces arrived to start a brawl. This wasn’t a particularly great start to the show, but at least WarGames was confirmed.
Grade: C
Nick Aldis told Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, and Shotzi that they needed to find a partner for WarGames by the end of the night before it was time for the first match of the night as The Brawling Brutes, The Street Profits, and Pretty Deadly all fought over the opportunity to face The Judgment Day for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships on next week’s SmackDown. This was a solid match between three capable Tag Teams and whilst that was all going on, B-Fab once again approached Bobby Lashley backstage as The All Mighty was watching on from the back. Near the end of the match, Butch accidentally connected a Brogue Kick with the face of Ridge Holland before The Profits dropped Butch with their finisher to get the victory. I’m intrigued to see how the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships match goes next week and I’m also intrigued if Ridge Holland walking out on Butch at the end is a sign that The Brawling Brutes might be coming to an end. Personally, I think that’s a good thing.
Grade: C+
Axiom VS Dragon Lee, Santos Escobar Explains His Actions, Cameron Grimes VS Grayson Waller, Jimmy Uso VS LA Knight
We saw Bianca Belair chatting to Michin over a potential spot in the upcoming Women’s WarGames match. However, when we came back from the break, we saw Damage CTRL beat up Mia Yim so it certainly isn’t going to be her at Survivor Series. We then saw Nick Aldis set up a match between Dragon Lee and NXT’s Axiom, and I thought this was good fun. Good fun is basically the correct phrase to use over Dragon Lee’s main roster run so far, and it certainly helped that he was in the ring with someone as talented as Axiom. Some of the moves in this match were insane and quite scary at times with both guys landing on the back of their heads on multiple occasions. In the end, Dragon Lee was able to defeat the Spanish Superhero with Operation Dragon which is a hell of a move.
Grade: B
Santos Escobar then made his way down to the ring with Legado Del Fantasma’s own music as Santos had some explaining to do. The crowd clearly weren’t too happy to see The Emperor of Lucha Libre before Santos cut a great promo on why you should never meet your heroes. Escobar also brought up a bunch of valid points as to why he turned on Rey Mysterio last week before he said he hoped Rey’s surgery went terribly. This brought out Zelina Vega (who played her role very well) and she slapped Santos right in the face before Cruz Del Toro and Joaquin Wilde came out to comfort her. Santos Escobar then fired shots at both of his former Legado members before Carlito had to run down to stop a beatdown. This was really good stuff and it made Santos Escobar look like the serious villain that he probably always should’ve been. It was later confirmed that Escobar and Carlito will collide at Survivor Series and it’s imperative that Santos wins that match.
Grade: B+
The next match of the night saw Cameron Grimes return to TV to face Grayson Waller as Austin Theory joined commentary. There really wasn’t anything to this contest as Grayson Waller dominated for the most part before Waller hit a different move onto Cameron Grimes to get the victory. I really didn’t understand this as it didn’t really do anything for the Heels whilst it was yet another sign that WWE have fumbled the bag hard with Grimes.
Grade: C-
Bianca Belair spoke to Zelina Vega about being on her WarGames team before we came back from the ad break to see Vega completely laid out on the concrete floor. I fully blame Belair for this. Paul Heyman was then in the ring as he cut a promo about how John Cena’s never coming back to WWE because of Solo Sikoa before LA Knight arrived to trash-talk all of The Bloodline. Knight did have an interesting line about going through everyone before facing Roman Reigns again and that starts with a one-on-one against Jimmy Uso. This was about the same level of quality as we usually get when these two men are in the ring together; it’s decent, but it’s nothing to massively excite you. After a couple of back-and-forth reversals, Knight finally picked up the win after dropping Uso with the BFT before Solo Sikoa made his way back down to ringside. This brought out Cody Rhodes who evened the odds to chase Solo away as Uso once again got dropped and realistically, Cody should definitely receive a fine after this!
Grade: C
The Women’s WarGames Lineup is Complete
Earlier in the night, Bianca Belair told Charlotte Flair to make a phone call. Charlotte told Belair and Shotzi that she had before the Babyfaces came out to announce their 4th and final member for WarGames. However, they were interrupted by Damage CTRL who laughed off the idea of Charlotte Flair having any friends before the 4th member of “Team Belair” at Survivor Series was revealed to be none other than Becky Lynch. A brawl then started and carried on until after the show went off the air. Realistically, Becky Lynch joining forces with Charlotte Flair and Bianca Belair makes absolutely no sense. It’s also annoying considering the fact that Becky feuded with Damage CTRL for ages earlier in the year. However, there were clearly no other options so I guess getting the biggest star in the Women’s Division will at least make more people tune into the show. I now need to go and find out how Becky managed to arrive at the arena just 10 minutes after getting a phone call from Charlotte.
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