Friday Night SmackDown Review - November 24, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Bayley Interrupted Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair and Shotzi

This segment was designed to established tension between Lynch and Flair ahead of the night's tag team main event and the women's WarGames match, which was a logical story to tell considering all of the bad blood Lynch and Flair have had over the years. I thought it was weird they reunited out of nowhere, unlike the longer stories WWE has done in the past with Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens or Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. This served its purpose, but Shotzi's mic work was abysmal. I appreciate the character development with her, but the over-the-top screaming and laughing needs to tweaked.

Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions The Judgment Day (Finn Balor and Damian Priest) def. The Street Profits

It would've been cool if someone from the babyface team in the men's WarGames match cost Judgment Day the tag titles here, but no such luck. I love Judgment Day, but Street Profits are more of an actual team and the division would benefit with them holding the gold instead. The match was good, but the heel vs. heel dynamic didn't help and they're definitely capable of better. I don't know why it needed to happen on this show, but I guess it was to give it an attraction ahead of Survivor Series and Judgment Day were in town for the event, anyway.

Kevin Owens and LA Knight Attacked Austin Theory and Grayson Waller on The Grayson Waller Effect; Knight and Owens def. Theory and Waller

Theory initially came out dressed as Owens before Owens showed up and revealed he's no longer suspended. Knight teaming with him here made sense given his own on-and-off issues with Theory and Waller and they had an enjoyable outing with the crowd very much behind the babyfaces. I'm disappointed there was no follow-up to Cody Rhodes coming to Knight's aid against The Bloodline last week.

Santos Escobar Attacked Carlito

The LWO drama continues to be my favorite thing on SmackDown right now. Carlito cut a decent promo addressing his scheduled Survivor Series match with Escobar, who interrupted with a fiery promo of his own. That led to Escobar attacking Carlito and Nick Aldis swapping out Carlito at Survivor Series for Dragon Lee. I don't know if that means Carlito is legitimately injured or not, but I'm looking forward to Escobar vs. Lee, even though it feels rushed and both guys need wins.

Pretty Deadly def. The Brawling Brutes (Butch and Ridge Holland)

Yes, we got yet another bout between these two teams, even after their apparent feud-ending gimmick match a few weeks ago. This was fine, but the focus was more on Holland walking out on Butch halfway through than it was on the action. It turned into a Handicap match at that point and Butch battled back the best he could before falling to Pretty Deadly. I'm glad Pretty Deadly have won a majority of their matches so far on SmackDown team, but they need a new team to work with. Meanwhile, I'm hoping this leads to Butch/Pete Dunne branching off into singles competition instead of Sheamus returning to get them back on the same page.

Damage CTRL (Bayley and Asuka) def. Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair

Although this was a star-studded main event, it was fairly formulaic up until the end with Lynch and Flair arguing and that costing them the win. Lynch and Flair teaming up for the first time in several years (if I'm not mistaken) should've felt like a bigger deal than it did, but this was successful in giving Bayley a much-needed win as well as Damage CTRL the upper hand over the babyfaces ahead of Survivor Series. Perhaps this points to a babyface win in WarGames, but Damage CTRL continuing their dominance would be more productive in my opinion.

Overall Show

The show centered around the upcoming women's WarGames match and if Flair and Lynch could coexist. The answer was ultimately no, but that doesn't mean they won't prevail in WarGames. The stuff with Lynch came together so quickly that what they did was necessary, but the rest of the show was paint-by-numbers with nothing really standing out. The last-minute Survivor Series hype was adequate, but if you missed this edition of SmackDown, you didn't miss much.

SEE MORE: SmackDown Reviews