Smackdown Review 06/05/2020
Smackdown Review 06/05/2020
Hello! Welcome back to this weeks Smackdown review. Tonight’s show coming to us from the WWE performance center is looking to be interesting coming off of last week’s show. Tonight we will hear Jeff Hardy’s side of the story revolving around the incident from last week, as well as Miz & Morrison calming out Braun Strowman. Plus, a championship match will take place as Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross defend their Women’s Tag Team Titles against Sasha Banks and Bayley. All that and more, so, let’s get into it!
Live from the WWE Performance Center
⁃ Michael Cole and Corey Graves run down what’s on tap for tonight before we see Jeff Hardy backstage, seemingly happy. Cole points out that he’s in a better state of mind than he was last week. We then take a look back at the crazy scenes of last weeks opening segment with Jeff Hardy.
Jeff Hardy
Jeff Hardy then makes his way out to the ring. Jeff gets on the microphone and thanks WWE and Fox for letting him get what he’s about to say off his chest. He runs down what happened last week and says that it isn’t a pretty picture, but he has a portrait of his point of view. He says he pulled up to the building, got out of his car and BOOM, someone hit him from behind, he blacked out, and woke up in the hands of the police. Hardy says he questioned everything after smelling like alcohol. He talks about how bad it felt to feel like he was back in that dark place, but he knows in his heart that he didn’t slip last week. He says that at the police station he was tested with every test in the book and was set free. He also says that witness’s say the man who attacked him had a red beard and red hair. So of course, that’s why he attacked Sheamus last week. Suddenly, Sheamus made his way out to the ramp. Sheamus says Hardy always has an excuse and always blames someone else. He tells Jeff to be a man and admit to what he did. But, Sheamus knows he’s not a man. He’s just a junkie. Sheamus starts to talk about his wife and kid, but Jeff wasn’t hearing it at all. He ran up the ramp and a brawl ensued. Sheamus came out on top of this brawl after slamming Jeff’s face into the plexiglass on the entrance way a few times. Sheamus poses over top of a beaten down Jeff Hardy to end the segment.
⁃ Otis and Mandy are backstage when they run into King Corbin’s crown sitting aside. Otis grabs the crown and puts it on his head, and walks away with it. As they leave, Corbin walks up and realizes it’s gone. A WWE personnel tells Corbin that Otis took it. He’s on the way to the ring for a match, next!
Otis (w/ Mandy Rose) vs. Baron Corbin
Fast start here to kick off the match. Corbin was obviously very upset about his crown being stolen and he took it out on Otis right away. It didn’t take long for this match to spill to the outside where Corbin bounced Otis’ head off the ring post and took him off of his feet. Corbin got the big man back into the ring and even hit a impressive spine buster on Mr Money In The Bank. Otis tried to fight back, but Corbin was just throwing left and right bombs, and dropped Otis to the mat. Baron locked in a choke hold, but, Otis broke out and that’s where the tide started to turn. Otis with some strikes and slams, taking Corbin for a ride before King Corbin fled out of the ring. When Otis when after him, Corbin struck him with a chair for the disqualification.
After the match, Otis battled back against the chair attack and ended up hitting the caterpillar elbow drop, and stood tall with Mandy to end the match.
My Thoughts
Quick match, already starting off with a DQ finish is interesting and i hope that trend doesn’t continue tonight.
⁃ Miz and Morrison are in a van in the parking lot, watching Braun through a monitor as he entered the building. Stalker-like. We go to commercial break, and come back to Miz and Morrison still in the van. Miz says that Braun is under estimating them, but he shouldn’t. He says Braun strowman’s life should be a living hell. We then see them watching Braun Strowman backstage. Braun grabs what is to be believed as a protein shake, but it explodes on him. He gets mad as Miz and Morrison laugh at him.
⁃ Kayla interviews Shorty G backstage. Before she could fully get her question off, MoJo interrupts. MoJo makes a couple short jokes about him, Gable doesn’t find it funny. Suddenly, he is attacked from behind by Cesaro and Nakamura. New Day run up for the save to scare Mojo, Cesaro & Nakamura off.
Sonya Deville vs. Lacey Evans
Sonya attacked Lacey during her entrance and slammed her into the steps. The ref checked on her as we head to commercial, but upon return, Lacey was in the ring and ready to go as the bell rang. Sonya tried to capitalize and go right after Lacey, but it didn’t work out too well. Lacey took control early on and worked over Sonya in the corner, but, as fast as a snap, Sonya turned things around and started dominating Lacey Evans. Things then got weird when Lacey started to battle back, she went for a sunset flip pin, but Sonya rolled all the way through and ran into the referee. The ref was clutching his knee and crawled to the corner as medical staff ran out to help him. Lacey and Sonya were demanded to stay in their corners. A new ref was issued to continue with the match, but off that big distraction, Sonya Deville took advantage by spearing Lacey off guard. Sonya ended up whipping Lacey hard off the apron to the outside, then even smashing her face into the steel ring steps with her foot. But, not too long after, Deville got too cocky and Lacey turned things her way once more. A solid back and forth between these two, with Sonya wrestling dirty with some brutal offense, Lacey though, continued to stay in it and showed her toughness off by continuing to fight back. As Sonya seemingly had Lacey on her last legs, Mandy Rose came up on the titantron and mocked Sonya, saying she isn’t a real fighter. Lacey Evans took advantage of the distraction and hit a women’s right on Sonya for the win.
My Thoughts
Actually a pretty solid match, not bad at all. The only weird thing was the whole ref bump scene, but other than that, the match went along nicely. Good stuff.
⁃ They announce that Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles will have a face-to-face confrontation coming up next, as well as New Day and Shorty G vs. Cesaro, Shinsuke & Mojo for later on tonight.
⁃ A promo for Matt Riddle was shown. He’s Coming soon.
⁃ Kayla interviews Braun backstage. He says the fun and games are over and at backlash, Miz and Morrison are going to get these hands, but before he could finish his sentence, Miz and Morrison, in the van, hit a button and a bucket of slime fell, but it landed on Kayla. She stormed off as Braun continuously apologized.
AJ Styles & Daniel Bryan
Renee is in the ring with Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles. AJ says Renee doesn’t have to ask Daniel a question because AJ already knows that Daniel will call him a coward for taking a by into the finals. Bryan agreed that he’s a coward, but says they’re two different people. Styles says Bryan is all heart, but he is also stupid for not taking a by. Bryan fires back, saying that he knows he’s trying to get under his skin, but it won’t work. Bryan tells him why they’re two different types of champions in WWE. AJ is a coward champion, but Bryan says he is a Nobel champion who will defend the intercontinental championship every week on Smackdown against any superstar. AJ tried to run down Bryan and get under his skin by bringing up Gulak. AJ says Bryan seemingly wants a handout, He says that he should give Gulak a handout since Bryan seemingly gave him a handout to be his coach. Suddenly, Gulak came out to the ring and went right after Styles. He tackled him down but AJ scrambled out of the ring. A match was then made between the two.
AJ Styles vs. Drew Gulak
Gulak was all over AJ from the start, even locking in submissions early on, that Styles did get out of. Back and forth battle between the two with no man getting the true upper hand. But, such a fun battle though. Gulak started to really settle in the drivers seat as he gave a beating to AJ, including landing a nasty michinoku driver that almost kept AJ Styles down. Gulak went to pick AJ up but an eye gouge put AJ Styles back in control. Styles when hit a brutal neck breaker but couldn’t keep Gulak down. Styles then tried for a StylesClash, but Gulak swept the legs and rolled him up for a pin and the win!
My Thoughts
Good match, despite it being so short, it was hard hitting and kept a good pace. Interesting that Gulak beat AJ ahead of the Intercontinental championship match next week between Styles and Bryan.
⁃ Miz and Morrison are back in the parking lot, but this time they’re around Braun’s car. They smash his windows and hood in with a baseball bat and celebrate as they beat up his car. John Morrison says he can’t wait to see Braun’s face when he sees it. They head back to the van.
New Day & Shorty G vs. Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura & MoJo Rawley
Cesaro and Shorty G start off the match, Cesaro trying to get retribution for what happened last week. Quick back and forth between the two before Big E was tagged in. But, he ran right into an uppercut. MoJo was then tagged in for a quick second before Nakamura made his way into the ring. Big E battled back against Shinsuke and made it to his corner to tag Kofi, who then tagged Shorty G, who then tagged Big E, who then tagged Kofi back in, they all hit a barrage of moves on Nakamura as the quick tags were made. Kofi then hit a big dive to the outside onto Cesaro, but seemingly hurt his knee. As he tried to get up, MoJo ran right through him, launching him across the floor hard as we head into a break. We come back to see MoJo beating down Kofi in the ring, but, when MoJo took his eyes off the ball, Kofi double stomped him and made the tag to Shorty G, who came in on fire. Shorty G took out all three of his opponents and hit a big moonsault on MoJo, but it wa s only for a near fall. Shorty G locked in the ankle lock on MoJo, but Nakamura broke the hold. Suddenly, everyone was getting involved in the match and bodies were flying everywhere. MoJo got back in control off of the chaos and hit the hyper drive, but Shorty G wouldn’t stay down. MoJo tried for it again, but Shorty G reserved it and tagged in Big E, who came in and destroyed MoJo fast, then hit an assisted Big Ending with the help of Kofi for the win.
My Thoughts
Decent six man tag team match here didn’t last too long, but the chaotic ending was fun.
⁃ Braun was in the parking lot furious and looking for Miz and Morrison, he then found the van, and couldn’t get in because they locked the doors. So, Braun flipped the van over with them inside. Braun laughs and tells them that, THAT was funny. I agree, I laughed.
Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Sasha Banks & Bayley
Women’s Tag Team Championship Match
Nikki and Bayley start the match off but Nikki and Alexa make quick tags earlier, they’re on fire in the early moments of this match. Bayley then took over and made a tag to Sasha, who came in and beat down Alexa in the corner before tagging Bayley back in, who went after Alexa, but couldn’t hold her down for long, as she made a tag back in to Nikki. This is the list tags I’ve seen early on in a match maybe ever. Super fast pace here. But, things changed when Sasha hit a meteora to Nikki on the outside to slow things down and really take control of this match. Quick tags and tag team moves from Bayey and Sasha as they cut the ring in half, not even letting Nikki get close to making a tag. The utter domination from Sasha and Bayley continued for a few minutes until Nikki finally broke free and got the hot tag to Alexa Bliss, who came in on a rampage to avenge her friend. But, when Alexa went up for a twisted bliss on Bayley, Sasha got involved and distracted Alexa enough for Bayley to hit a top rope Bayley-to-belly on Bliss, which I thought for sure would finish her off, but she stayed in it. Sasha became legal in the match and her and Alexa battle back and forth for position, until Alexa made the tag to Nikki. Suddenly, Nikki came in and was caught in a Bank Statement, but a little confusion between Sasha and Bayley caused Nikki to get out as Bayley made the blind tag. But, Nikki caught Bayley in a neck breaker. Sasha broke up the pin, then tagged herself back in, and locked in the bank statement one more time, making Nikki Cross tap out. Sasha and Bayley are the new Women’s Tag Team Champions.
My Thoughts
My first initial thought is absolute shock, because i didn’t see Sasha and Bayley winning. Decent match, very, very surprising ending.
Overall Thoughts
A decent Smackdown tonight. Nothing that blew me away besides the shocking ending of new Women’s Tag Team Champions in Sasha Banks and Bayley, who is now a double champion. Interesting to see where this team goes after the big win, seeing as things haven’t been going so smoothly for them. Besides that, most of the matches were pretty short. I enjoyed Drew Gulak getting a win over AJ Styles, though. We shall see if that plays a part in the intercontinental championship tournament finals next week between Bryan and Styles. Next week is also the go-home-show before Backlash, so hopefully it’ll be a good one! Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
