WWE promised we would learn what’s next for Cody Rhodes and the WWE championship on this week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown, not even one week after he retained it via less than honest means at Saturday
Night’s Main Event. I’m prepared to say Drew McIntyre was screwed out of the damn thing.
Again.
Rhodes gets his share of heat here and there but he’s largely been immune to the dueling fan reaction that faced other true blue babyface types like John Cena. That was the case again here, with fans largely responding positively to Cody even when he was claiming McIntyre is the biggest self sabotaging wrestler in the history of the business.
I don’t get it, but hey.
Rhodes claimed he’s moving on and wants to do something different now, like sit with the fans and watch the show while they all decide who gets to be next in line to challenge him for his title.
And then the lights went out and Aleister Black, his wife Zelina by his side, hit the scene. He made his message short and sweet — he wants the title. To punctuate the point, Zelina slapped Rhodes in the face.
Hard.
Brandi soon?
Naturally, SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis showed up to book the two fellows for a match later in the evening, though the championship wasn’t going to be on the line. Surely, they were simply going to establish a hot new challenger, yeah?
They may have done something close to that with the match they were having, though said match ended when none other than Drew McIntyre showed up to Claymore Kick the referee. It was an incredible visual too.
The heels went after Rhodes, and then Damian Priest showed up to even the odds and get Black out of there, once again leading us to Cody vs. Drew until Aldis showed up once more to say McIntyre was suspended effective immediately.
So perhaps they are finally moving on.
Or maybe they’re just going to find a different way to revisit this again next week.
Either way, when are we going to get to the point of feeling like McIntyre deserves better? I might be there now.
You?
All the rest
- Ilja Dragunov’s latest challenge involved Tommaso Ciampa, the least surprising option after the past couple of weeks, showing up to talk about how pissed he was and equally eager to win the United States title. Instead, Dragunov accepted a challenge for his title from Ciampa’s DIY teammate, Johnny Gargano. Tommaso was left wanting yet again. The match didn’t get all that much time relative to what we’re used to, and that was fine by me. Dragunov retained in a dominant win and everyone was happy about it, maybe even Ciampa!
- R-Truth is still an all time great, and I won’t say anything beyond that.
- Jade Cargill is the new women’s champion, and she got to cut her first promo as such on this show. “I’m that bitch,” she said. And that was it. She walked out while commentary put her over as best they could. I can’t help but wonder if the women’s title will continue to struggle to get much TV time. They did, at least, have Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss walk out while Cargill was still making her way to the back. “When you’re ready,” Jade said, and Charlotte almost went after her before Alexa stopped her.
- She did so because Flair had her own problem for tonight — Nia Jax. As it turned out, she had more than one problem, because Lash Legend showed up from nowhere, and tossed Bliss around like a rag doll. Jax defeated Flair in the ring thanks to the distraction, and we seem to have a new hoss tag team in the women’s division. These two wrecking shop sounds like a fantastic idea to me. Jax did a fantastic job in the follow up promo putting Lash over and establishing the new team. I can’t wait for what’s next with these two.
- Meanwhile, The Kabuki Warriors dressed up as doctors to mist the champs as they were tended to backstage following the Jax/Legend beatdown. “The perils of being champion,” Corey Graves said. I guess!
- Hey, here’s a shocker — Chelsea Green, who just won the AAA mixed tag team titles with Ethan Page, managed to defeat Giulia to win the United States championship! Page was right there in the crowd to celebrate with her, lifting her up on his shoulder to hold all their titles high. I am baffled by the decision to do this, especially having Giulia lose such a short match for seemingly no reason at all. I’ll let you, dear reader, explain this one.
- Rey Fenix did his best to get a sold match out of Talla Tonga but you can only do so much in a situation like this. It was all set up for Sami Zayn to make the save, continuing his issue with Solo Sikoa and the MFTs. I’d love to be more invested in the group, they just aren’t doing enough for me. That could change as they continue down this road, they just fall short of The Bloodline to such a degree it’s hard to get up for them as much.
This was a decent enough show.
Grade: B-
Your turn.
