The blue brand provides some more clarity on the road to King & Queen of the Ring, but it’s a bit bland.
I, personally, still don’t quite understand it, considering how over the top he makes everything feel, but Cody Rhodes remains the most, well, over star in WWE. The folks in Jacksonville at Friday Night SmackDown this week treated him like a returning hero, and maybe that’s what he is to them.
Whoa-oh and all that.
The WWE Champion was in town for a contract signing with United States Champion Logan Paul, the two of them making official their title vs. title match at the upcoming King & Queen of the Ring premium live event in Saudi Arabia later this month.
As for the story angle they took here, Paul ripped up the contract presented to him, saying he did not agree to put the United States championship on the line. No, he only agreed to challenge for Cody’s WWE championship.
SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis pushed back against this, saying they agreed to a winner-takes-all match for all the gold and he wouldn’t stand for any of this. Then, hilariously enough, Rhodes basically told him to take off, he’s relieved of his duties here, and he’ll take over from there.
Cody well and truly is a corporate champion, folks.
Aldis actually did exit stage left, leaving Cody to work it out with Logan in the ring. Rhodes called him a human hat rack and claimed Mike Tyson will be knocking out Jake Paul and then Cody will be doing the same to Logan.
This got a tremendous response live. They also did well to figure out how to get out of having both titles on the line, seeing as there is zero reason for either of these guys to be losing a match at all, let alone dropping their title. This ensures they don’t have to book a schmoz finish and while it’s a bit goofy that they had to do this at all, at least they got it right eventually.
The King and Queen of the Ring tournaments were once again a major focus of television, with four matches taking place across both brackets. This show was about getting us to the semifinals as we round the corner to the home stretch.
Off to Saudi Arabia soon.
Here, we started with Tiffany Stratton, fresh off a controversial social media post that had quite a few fans up in arms, taking on Bianca Belair. Reports indicated there was no heat on her for that created such a stir and it didn’t seem to have any effect on how the first TV audience to see her live responded to her.
Whether or not it’s what led to her losing here we’ll never know but it’s entirely possible it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Bianca is one half of the tag team champions, after all.
Speaking of which, the other half, Jade Cargill, took on Nia Jax later in the evening. Our very own Cain A. Knight mentioned WWE having an interesting decision to make here and they went the way of avoiding putting the tag champs in a singles match against each other.
They did so by having Cargill use a chair on Jax, getting herself disqualified in the process. It protected her from taking a pinfall loss while getting her out of the tournament. Whether or not that was the right decision I’ll leave up to you to decide.
On the men’s side, The Bloodline continued having success in Roman Reigns’ absence, with Solo Sikoa ensuring Tama Tonga advanced by distracting LA Knight during their match. There wasn’t much to the match itself but it’s worth pointing out that Sikoa told Paul Heyman earlier that he’s been consistently speaking with The Tribal Chief.
The saga continues.
The main event was given to Randy Orton and Carmelo Hayes. The latter was defiant, and positioned as the cocky young heel who bit off more than he could chew. It really worked for him too, even in defeat.
Indeed, Orton won after an RKO OUTTA NOWHERE, one of the cleaner RKOs he’s hit in some time. He even fixed his wedding band after, which made it even tougher. He’s never won the King of the Ring tournament and WWE was pushing that hard.
He might be the new favorite.
The Bloodline came out to tease intimidating him but he called their bluff and closed the show strong by promising to put his foot up Tonga’s ass next week.
Should be fun!
All the rest
- It’s worth pointing out here that we got our first official tease for LA Knight vs. Logan Paul on this show, with the two crossing paths outside Nick Aldis’ office. “I’ll see ya, champ,” LA told him. There’s plenty of time to build to something for SummerSlam… Having said that, Knight also had a backstage interaction with Carmelo Hayes and he got the chance to verbally sit his ass down and let him know whose game this is. Despite the loss in the KOTR tournament, there’s still plenty to be excited about for our man LA.
- So as not to have an entire episode center around tournament matches, DIY wrestled Legado del Fantasma in tag team action while Grayson Waller & Austin Theory sat in on commentary to try setting up some kind of program. By the end of it, it was clear they were showcasing DIY and they’re about to get a title shot and this writer cannot be bothered to care. I simply cannot.
- They’re finally acknowledging the glitches and QR codes, showing some footage of the Twitch stream that had plenty of folks confused. The original white rabbit campaign was a big deal but this one feels … off. I think there are probably multiple reasons for that but this group is going to have a tough time making this work. I won’t condemn anything before we actually get the chance to see it, however, and am looking forward to what they come up with for Uncle Howdy and crew.
- AJ Styles was given some promo time to talk about what’s next for him and he quite literally said he’s just going to go to Nick Aldis’ office next week to find out. They played this super serious and I could not stop laughing at the entire thing. It just felt entirely unnecessary.
- Meanwhile, Women’s Champion Bayley also got an interview backstage but at least she had a confrontation with Chelsea Green and Piper Niven, who were mad at her for last week. Bayley told them to meet her in the ring next week. So far, her title reign is just as forgettable as Iyo Sky’s was. Let’s hope that starts to change soon.
This show was just sort of there.
Grade: C
Your turn.
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