Friday Night SmackDown Review - April 16, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Cesaro Confronted Universal Champion Roman Reigns

Reigns' promos are easily the most must-see aspect of any WWE program right now and it's not even close. He's still cutting excellent promos eight months into his heel run and this was another gem from him as he recapped his decisive win at WrestleMania 37 over Edge and Daniel Bryan. I loved how we didn't have to wait to find out who was next in line for a title shot, either, and Cesaro makes as much sense as anyone coming off his 'Mania victory. I figured Edge or Bryan would interrupt and take exception to the double pin, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Rey Mysterio def. Otis

Seeing Otis in action reminded me of Tucker's release from Thursday and how dumb it was for WWE to break up Heavy Machinery last year. Don't get me wrong, I love Chad Gable, but he should be on his own. At any rate, this could have been a fun David vs. Goliath type of match, but it was way too short to be anything of note. I enjoyed it while it lasted, but I'm not sure what the point of this program is other than to keep these teams busy.

Kevin Owens def. Sami Zayn by Count-Out

You can never expect anything less than an entertaining affair any time Owens and Zayn are in the ring together. I know they had what felt like a million matches against each other between 2014 and 2017, but it feels fresh all these years later, especially with the roles reversed. I thought we'd get Owens and Zayn reuniting coming out of WrestleMania, but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe that's what the ultimate endgame is? Either way, the count-out finish was weird if Owens was going to lay out Zayn with a Stunner, anyway.

Bianca Belair Celebrated Her SmackDown Women's Championship Victory with The Street Profits

You can tell that Belair is still on Cloud 9 from winning the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania. She cut an excellent promo and it finally feels like she's finding her footing as a character on the main roster. She comes off as very likable and I liked how she made the material relatable by saying that everyone has some EST in them. This also served as a nice segue into Street Profits' SmackDown Tag Team Championship match.

SmackDown Tag Team Champions Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode def. The Street Profits

These teams have worked together a ton of times over the last six months, but at least their matches are always well-wrestled. That was once again the case here as they brought the energy and produced some strong nearfalls down the stretch. I assumed WWE would go with the usual post-WrestleMania title shot, but they resisted. I love Street Profits, but this should put them out of title contention for a little while. The feud has been done to death and I'd rather see the Mysterios step up to challenge Ziggler and Roode next.

Natalya def. WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Shayna Baszler

This feud is still going on? Ugh. I'm not going to pretend to be The IIconics' biggest fan, but putting them back together and inserting them in the tag title picture would have been more interesting than continuing Baszler and Nia Jax vs. Natalya and Tamina. Who are supposed to be the babyfaces? Who is supposed to care? The match was fine for what it was, but Baszler losing almost every single time on her own is depressing considering where she was a little over a year ago. What a waste of time.

Cesaro def. Jey Uso by Disqualification

Cesaro originally wanted Reigns on this show, but Heyman gave him Uso instead. Uso has proven he can hold his own in these main event matches, so this was a quality contest. WWE replayed the UFO spot from WrestleMania a bunch of times on this show, and the big payoff was apparently... Seth Rollins attacking Cesaro. Yeah, that was it. I was hoping for interference from a returning Jimmy Uso, but no such luck. I'm fine with the Cesaro and Rollins rivalry resuming, but it was a fairly underwhelming ending to the night.

Overall Show

I think it's safe to say the allure and the magic surrounding the post-WrestleMania shows is officially over. This show and Monday's Raw proved that. This was a step up from that awful episode, and by usual SmackDown standards, it was solid. But as a post-WrestleMania edition, it was definitely lacking. Cesaro stepping up to Reigns was cool, but the replays throughout the night were terrible. The rest of the show was good, but there weren't any major angles, returns or debuts. Not even an Aleister Black sighting, which was heavily rumored ahead of time. On the bright side, we have Pat McAfee on commentary now and I thought he did well. This wasn't a bad show by any means, but I was expecting more.