Friday Night SmackDown Review - November 20, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Street Profits and Raw Tag Team Champions The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) def. Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn, King Corbin, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode

While the mic work in the segment that preceded this involving all eight guys was solid, the segment itself was completely pointless. Yes, it set up this eight-man tag team match, but it felt like it went on forever and that it was largely designed to kill television time. How would New Day even be allowed to defend their Raw Tag Team Championship against two people from SmackDown right before Survivor Series? The matchup was fun for what it was and it was cool seeing The Street Profits team up with The New Day for the first time ever, but I can't say it made me any more interested in their Survivor Series outing than I was previously.

Natalya def. Tamina to Qualify for SmackDown's Women's Survivor Series Match

We found out in a backstage segment beforehand via Adam Pearce that Bayley was named the fourth member of SmackDown's women's Survivor Series team. Natalya had to compete in a fourth qualifying match in order to join the squad, whereas Bayley was just given the spot, I guess because of her long list of accomplishments. Okay then. On paper, Natalya vs. Tamina comes across like the cure for insomnia, so thankfully it was kept short and somewhat sweet. SmackDown's women's team is stronger than Raw's in my opinion and thus I'm hoping they pull out the victory on Sunday.

WWE Champion Drew McIntyre and Universal Champion Roman Reigns Signed the Contract for Their Match at Survivor Series

It's such a shame McIntyre had to lose the WWE Championship to Randy Orton back at Hell in a Cell because as great as the build to this bout has been heading into Survivor Series, it only started a week ago and could have started sooner had McIntyre retained the title at Hell in a Cell or won it back there (had Orton won it at either SummerSlam or Clash of Champions). Nonetheless, this was a stellar segment. Both guys were wonderful and I loved how they didn't even use microphones. Plus, Reigns sat at the end of table because he's the "Tribal Chief". That was a terrific touch. This was pure perfection that, unlike the opener, left me looking forward to their upcoming clash.

Murphy def. Seth Rollins

Although I preferred the first match these two had about a month ago, this was still very good stuff from Rollins and Murphy. The action was entertaining and the involvement from the Mysterio family at ringside made sense given the story they've told up to this point, but it felt like they tried to pack a lot of stuff into a 12-minute matchup and it was bit rushed as a result. That said, I'm happy Murphy finally beat Rollins as the latter prepares to take time off to be with his pregnant wife Becky Lynch (post-Survivor Series, of course).

Raw Women's Champion Asuka and SmackDown Women's Champion Sasha Banks Went Face-to-Face; Carmella Attacked Banks

Banks and Asuka will no doubt have an awesome match on Sunday and I was glad their history from the summer was acknowledged in this segment, but this was all over the place. Banks is delivering on the mic right now in her tweener role, but the rambling promos from Asuka in Japanese continue to do nothing for me and I don't understand what the appeal is. She's a total afterthought at the moment, so I'm pulling for a Banks victory. Carmella's latest on Bank was well done, but I'm waiting for the next stage of their storyline and I assume WWE wanted to wait to get to it until after the pay-per-view.

Daniel Bryan def. Jey Uso

This was a rematch from three weeks ago from when Uso beat Bryan to qualify for SmackDown's men's Survivor Series team. Bryan was sporting a new haircut that makes him look like his archrival The Miz. At any rate, this was a top-notch main event. Uso has proven time and time again he can hang with WWE's biggest names and this was no exception. Obviously, Bryan brings the best out of everyone he works with, so I wasn't surprised by the high quality of this contest whatsoever. Bryan won clean and that was it, making me think the seeds are being planted for him to either go after Reigns post-Survivor Series or rekindle his rivalry with Zayn over the Intercontinental Championship as had been teased earlier in the evening.

Overall Show

The buildup to Survivor Series has been an absolute mess in that WWE has to know people don't care about the brand supremacy stuff and so they brought a handful of Raw stars over to SmackDown this week in order to get those viewers to care about the event at the last minute. Was it successful? That's debatable, but I would argue not. The opening tag team match was pretty pointless, Otis and Bayley were added to the men's and women's teams without having to earn their spots, and the Banks and Asuka interaction was forgettable. On the bright side, Reigns and McIntyre had a fantastic contract signing that is well worth checking out. Although Murphy vs. Rollins and Bryan vs. Uso were above-average matches, neither of them had anything to do with the pay-per-view. In other words, let's just get Survivor Series over with so the brand warfare nonsense can be a thing of the past (at least until next year).