Friday Night SmackDown Review - June 3, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Brawling Brutes (Sheamus, Ridge Holland and Butch) def. Drew McIntyre and The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods)

McIntyre and New Day opened the show with a promo where McIntyre wished Big E well in his recovery (which was cool) and outright announced he intends to challenge for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at Clash at the Castle in September. Most of us assumed McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns would be the main event for that show, but now it's basically official. The six-man tag team match that followed was more of the same from what we got last week. The wrestling was solid and I was pleasantly surprised to see Butch pick up the win for his team, but I've been done with this feud for a while and this didn't change my mind. Unfortunately, it's likely going to continue for a while longer now that McIntyre is involved. Ugh.

Jinder Mahal def. Humberto

Why wouldn't this marquee match be saved for Sunday's Hell in a Cell pay-per-view? I would've paid top dollar to see this! I kid, I kid. I have no desire to see Mahal and Shanky feud with Los Lotharios, but I suppose it gets Los Lotharios on TV, if nothing else. The match was total throwaway as all the focus was on Shanky dancing at ringside. Maybe it will end up getting over with the audience in the long run, but I find it to be dumb more than anything else.

Natalya def. Shotzi, Raquel Rodriguez, Shayna Baszler, Xia Li and Aliyah in a SmackDown Women's Championship No. 1 Contender's Six-Pack Challenge

An actual number one contender's match and not a Championship Contender's Match? I'm shocked! Then again, WWE probably doesn't want Ronda Rousey taking unnecessary losses (and she shouldn't be), so doing this instead makes more sense. Despite all the talent involved, SmackDown's women's division couldn't be less interesting right now due to how a majority of these women have been booked, but this was a decent Six-Pack Challenge, even if it was on the shorter side. Natalya is a perfectly fine filler feud for Rousey, especially given their history as partners from a few years ago.

Happy Corbin def. Madcap Moss by Disqualification

Moss made his return beforehand (after only two or three weeks away) and cut a promo acting much more serious than we've seen him since he returned from injury last year and aligned with Corbin. He also debuted new music and a new look, which was overdue and appreciated. Now all he needs is a name change and the transformation will be complete. His promo was decent, but I could have done without the minute-long match between him and Corbin. I know it was done to set up the No Holds Barred rematch for Hell in a Cell, but they could found another way to accomplish that.

Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions The Usos def. Riddle and Shinsuke Nakamura

Riddle and Nakamura beat The Usos in a Championship Contender's match on Monday's Raw. I thought the championship clash would be saved for the pay-per-view coming up this weekend since there were no SmackDown matches on the card before Corbin vs. Moss was added, but apparently not. I guess WWE thought it was smarter to have it headline this episode on short notice. At the very least, it was an entertaining outing with what I thought was a very clever finish where Sami Zayn played Reigns' music from the back to distract Riddle and cost him the win. Hopefully Nakamura isn't legitimately hurt because that would be another big blow to the depleted SmackDown roster.

Overall Show

What a lame show. The same can be said about almost every other edition of SmackDown for the last few months. I still can't get over how shortsighted of a decision it was by WWE to have Reigns win both belts at WrestleMania 38 only to disappear until who knows when. SmackDown has no top title for the Superstars to vie for in the meantime and the storylines are largely uninteresting. There were way more video packages than usual on this show, and what's a shame is that SmackDown has almost no presence at Hell in a Cell. It's a sad state of affairs right now on the blue brand, making this program a chore to sit through most weeks.

SEE MORE: SmackDown Reviews