Friday Night SmackDown Review - May 27, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Shinsuke Nakamura and Riddle Attacked Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions The Usos

The Usos started out their promo pandering to the audience and acting genuine before flipping the script and crapping all over them to good heat. Nakamura and Riddle both had their partners "injured" by The Bloodline in storyline, so it makes sense for them to join forces in the meantime. I don't want them winning the tag titles from The Usos, but at least this mini feud will keep them busy until Riddle challenges Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at some point. This was a solid segment to start the show.

SmackDown Women's Champion Ronda Rousey vs. Raquel Rodriguez Ended in a No Contest; Rousey and Rodriguez def. Natalya and Shayna Baszler

The SmackDown Women's Championship rematch wasn't added to the show until earlier in the day on social media, so it was obvious it wouldn't last long before being interrupted (especially when it was made clear right beforehand that Baszler and Natalya would be interrupting it). The subsequent tag team match was well wrestled and effectively furthered the story with Rousey and Rodriguez. I appreciated that there was minimal interaction between Rousey and Baszler because there's a lot of history there and that should be saved for down the road when it means more. What are the odds Rousey and Rodriguez enter the upcoming WWE Women's Tag Team Championship tournament  because WWE has very limited options?

Los Lotharios def. Jinder Mahal and Shanky

Mahal and Shanky started teasing tension several weeks ago, but there's been no follow-up on it since and I was hoping they had forgotten about it. Sadly, they did not. Shanky didn't come to the ring initially because he was too busy dancing in the back, and then that cost him the win here as well. The match was whatever and Los Lotharios don't gain anything from the victory because the focus was entirely on Mahal and Shanky. I couldn't possibly care less about a Mahal vs. Shanky program if I tried.

Kevin Owens Hosted The KO Show with Sami Zayn

The Brand Split is all but dead at this point with Raw and SmackDown Superstars appearing on the opposing brand on a weekly basis at this point. Granted, it's been dead for a while, but I think it's time we just accept it. At any rate, before the break, The Bloodline was advertised to appear on The KO Show, but Owens brought out Zayn instead, which was a clever twist since Zayn thinks he's a part of the group. They acknowledged their feud last year and went on to have a very entertaining back-and-forth. This was excellent stuff with both men playing their roles remarkably well, and I love how it ended with them blowing up at each other when Zayn turned down Owens' offer to help him out on Raw. 

Gunther and Ludvig Kaiser def. Intercontinental Champion Ricochet and Drew Gulak

The former Ludwig Kaiser is now going by Ludvig Kaiser, changing the "w" in his first name to a "v." This was a pretty basic tag team affair, but they made the most of the time they had. You had to know Gulak would be eating the pinfall loss as he should have, but what I didn't expect was Kaiser picking up the win for his team. As I've said before, I'm looking forward to Gunther vs. Ricochet one-on-one and Gunther taking the Intercontinental Championship from Ricochet.

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

I know there was some speculation that New Day's "mystery" partner would be someone such as Cesaro or Tyler Breeze, but once it became evident that this was closing out the episode, it was pretty obvious that it would be Drew McIntyre, especially since WWE said he'd be returning on this show a week ago. That was underwhelming yet expected. The match was almost every house show main event you've ever seen, but the crowd was mostly into it and was happy when the babyfaces won. All I ask is that this mark the end of this redundant rivalry between Brawling Brutes and New Day, but I'm not holding my breath.

Overall Show

While not an egregiously bad show, this edition of SmackDown didn't do much for me, personally. There was progression of several storylines, but the problem is that most of those storylines aren't interesting in the slightest. There was also some quality wrestling throughout the show, but how much does anything actually matter without Roman Reigns around? I assume we should get used to Raw Superstars appearing on SmackDown since the roster is so depleted, even with all of the call-ups from NXT. This was a serviceable show, though only the Owens and Zayn segment stood out in my opinion.

SEE MORE: SmackDown Reviews