WRESTLING WITH SMACKDOWN 9/3/19

Smackdown Review - 9/3/19 Norfolk, VA

Quick Results:

• King Of The Ring Tournament: Elias defeated Ali

• Fire & Desire (Sonya Deville & Mandy Rose) defeated Bliss Cross (Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross)

• King Of The Ring Tournament: Chad Gable defeated Andrade

• Aleister Black defeated Shelton Benjamin

• 24/7 Championship: Bo Dallas defeated Drake Maverick

• Shinsuke Nakamura defeated a local competitor

• 24/7 Championship: Drake Maverick defeated Bo Dallas

• 24/7 Championship: R-Truth defeated Drake Maverick

Highlights:

• The opening promo by Bayley, who was defending her actions against Becky on Raw, was one of the better delivered promos from Bayley in some time. But the content is still lacking, as it seemed she was trying to still be a babyface so that her match with Charlotte at Clash of Champions makes more sense. If they are going to follow through with a proper heel turn for Bayley, she needs to presented in a completely different way, ala Io Shirai in NXT: new music, new entrance, new look, new attitude. One good point was made by commentary that, after Clash of Champions, Sasha and Bayley could both be holding the Women's Titles and, as a cohesive unit, could be a force to reckon with in the Women's Division. That is an intriguing prospect.

• As much as I love Alexa Bliss, the Women's Tag Titles mean absolutely nothing at this point and the crowd were not into this match. Fire & Desire won, likely to set up a title match at Clash of Champions, but no one cared. It should be noted, too, that Bliss Cross worked heel on Raw last night and were the babyfaces tonight. The back-and-forth flipping needs to stop. People do legitimately like Bliss but the constant switching is just going to make the fans give up on her and anyone else involved.

• Once again, the best matches of the night were the King Of The Ring matches. Ali and Elias looked great together and Gable and Andrade were the match of the night. More surprisingly, both matches ended with surprise outcomes! I was sure Ali would beat Elias (likely with interference by Kevin Owens) and Andrade would run through Gable. But no, the exact opposite occurred and it was very fun to watch. Gable, especially, is such a fantastic talent and it is a terrible shame he is being saddled with this "Short guy, little man" storyline. He's billed at 5'8" and was only an inch or two shorter than Andrade. There were so many amazing reversals, suplexes, and overall athleticism in their match, it was so much fun to watch! Gable is a multi-time tag team champion, the commentators should not be SO surprised when he wins a match. Gable shouldn't be built as a little man getting surprise victories, he should be built as this generation's Kurt Angle. That being said, Samoa Joe calling Gable "Bilbo" was pretty freakin' funny!

• It's always great to see Aleister Black on TV...but his match with Benjamin was pointless. As was the Nakamura match. No one cares about Nakamura or Sami Zayn, which does absolutely no favors for the Intercontinental Championship.

• The Main Event, again, was the Roman Reigns attacker storyline. It was very clear this week that this storyline began with no clear ending in sight. As the story went on, the writers just seemed to throw things against the wall and when nothing stuck, they dropped it and tried something else. After weeks of Daniel Bryan and Erick Rowan saying they had nothing to do with the attacks, it was finally revealed that it was indeed Erick Rowan who was behind it all along, seemingly working alone. This caused a split between Rowan and Bryan, potentially turning Bryan babyface. This storyline was reportedly supposed to be a short angle that would culminate last month at Summerslam. Instead, the angle was extended but was not thought out to the end. This has led to Samoa Joe being a part of the storyline then being dropped, Buddy Murphy being a part of the storyline (by mistake) and then dropped, a Rowan imposter coming in and then being dropped, and a video that clearly shows the culprit in the initial attack that apparently no one bothered to look at in the beginning when everyone was asking "Who's responsible?". This entire story has been nothing but garbage and it needs to be dropped.

This show was a low 2 out of 5. As usual the in ring action was very good but the stories are not. Although new matches were made for Clash Of Champions, nothing on this show seemed to move things forward. If I were Fox, I'd really be regretting bringing Smackdown to my network based on the last few weeks.