Friday Night SmackDown Review - November 15, 2019

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Mustafa Ali and Shorty G def. Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode

The segment that preceded this with King Corbin mocking Roman Reigns with someone wearing a dog costume was painful to watch. It was as atrocious as the promo he cut on Reigns on last week's SmackDown, and that's saying something. The tag team match itself was actually well wrestled and enjoyable, except that the shenanigans at ringside with Reigns, Corbin and the stupid mascot were horrible and distracting. If this supposed to be building to the rumored Dog Collar matchup between them at TLC next month, then no thanks.

Braun Strowman Attacked Drew Gulak and The B-Team

Gulak is apparently obsessed with getting beat up by Strowman every week, which is a shame considering the great work he was doing on 205 Live just a few months ago. WWE shouldn't have drafted him to SmackDown if they had zero plans for him. The only thing that would have made this worse would have been if the 3-on-1 Handicap match actually happened. I realize this was designed to re-establish Strowman as a dominant force, but it did Gulak no favors.

SmackDown Tag Team Champions The New Day vs. The Revival Ended in a No Contest

This was easily the best thing on this entire edition of SmackDown as these two teams have quality chemistry together and were well on their way toward having a terrific match before the interference from Undisputed Era. However, this is a rare instance where I didn't mind the non-finish for a few reasons. It saved New Day vs. Revival for another day, protected Revival in defeat, and provided hype for the Triple Threat tag team match at Survivor Series with all of Undisputed Era standing tall over Revival and New Day.

Heavy Machinery def. Kevin Tibbs and Kip Stevens

WWE has been slowly but surely building up Heavy Machinery in the last few months, which is cool to see. They caught fire over the summer during their pursuit of the SmackDown Tag Team Championship but were abruptly dropped from programming when they failed to win it. These squash match wins are the first step in getting them back to that point. That said, I'm ready for them to move into an actual rivalry with another team post-Survivor Series.

SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley vs. Nikki Cross Ended in a No Contest (Non-Title); Sasha Banks, Cross, Carmella and Dana Brooke def. Rhea Ripley, Mia Yim, Tegan Nox and Dakota Kai

If Cross beat Bayley, she would have been added to Team SmackDown for the women at Survivor Series. They've faced off a bunch this year, so I honestly had no problem with this turning into a tag team match, except that it somewhat gave away a little of what we'll be seeing at Survivor Series with the Superstars of SmackDown and NXT going at it. Sure, the women of Raw will be involved next Sunday as well, but I still wouldn't have had it be four-on-four. I was glad the women's team for NXT made sense (i.e. Bianca Belair, Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, etc weren't in there) and I assume Cross picking up the win was her way of earning her way onto Team SmackDown. Kai getting pinned was also a nice touch given her recent setbacks in NXT.

Universal Champion Bray Wyatt Interrupted Daniel bryan on Miz TV

First and foremost, and I may be in the minority here, but I think the Universal title's new blue strap looks just as stupid as when it was red. As for the segment, it didn't light the world on fire the way I would have hoped. I actually really like the idea of a Wyatt vs. Bryan feud on paper, especially given their history from 2013/2014, but there's very little time for them to get fans excited for it, and I can't say this segment accomplished that. Bryan made it clear that the "Yes!" Movement wasn't returning (even though it obviously will eventually) and even came across as a bit heelish at times. I honestly have no idea what WWE is planning with his character, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Overall Show

I thought last week's SmackDown was significantly more boring and uneventful (likely due to how it was taped in advance), but this episode wasn't much better. There were some decent matches, but the only segment I found truly entertaining was the SmackDown Tag Team Championship clash (partially for the Undisputed Era appearance). I can't say this SmackDown did much to get me more excited for Survivor Series than I was before. The card has potential on paper, but the brand supremacy stuff has been very hit or miss so far.