Friday Night SmackDown Review - November 5, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The New Day Interrupted The Bloodline

Roman Reigns certainly wasn't wrong when he said that his absence was felt last week when he was on vacation (which I believe because it looked like he had a tan) and that the show sucks without him. Hell, even this episode wasn't the best with him on it, but I'll address that at the end of the review. This was a solid segment that effectively set up the night's main event. I like that we're getting right into Reigns vs. King Woods because Reigns is logically taking exception to Woods calling himself the king of WWE. I don't think it needs to be a pay-per-view match or anything, but it's a cool spot for Woods to be for a brief bit.

Naomi def. Shayna Baszler; Shayna Baszler def. Naomi

I think it was a week or two ago that Naomi and Baszler had a match that ended almost immediately. When a rematch was advertised for this episode, I was hoping we'd get a full-length matchup from them, but what we got instead was just more of the same. Granted, their first encounter here went a few minutes, but a commercial break ate up most of their time, so there wasn't much to it. The impromptu rematch, orchestrated by Sonya Deville was won by Baszler in seconds. As I've said before, I like Naomi vs. Deville as a secondary storyline in the SmackDown women's division, but it's been hit or miss with how it's been executed depending on the week. This was more of a miss than a hit and I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why Deville has it out for Naomi.

Los Lotharios def. Cesaro and Mansoor

What a random match this was. Los Lotharios is the new name for Angel Garza and Humberto Carrillo and I like it, much like I've been digging their heel team so far. Unfortunately, their win here had to come at the expense of two men who shouldn't have been in this spot: Cesaro and Mansoor. It was never said why Cesaro and Mansoor were teaming aside from Los Lotharios needing two people to beat. Mansoor is coming off two wins over Mustafa Ali, so why waste that momentum with a tag team loss? As for Cesaro, this is the most directionless he's been in some time, and eating unnecessary tag team losses isn't helping his stock any. At the very least, this was well wrestled and enjoyable while it lasted.

Drew McIntyre def. Ricochet

This was the third straight week where McIntyre issued an open challenge to the rest of the roster. This time, it was answered by Ricochet, and we also got to hear from Ricochet for a change beforehand briefly. Although it didn't last long, this was an absolute blast. Ricochet got to do Ricochet things and McIntyre was excellent as usual. These two have always had strong chemistry dating back to their early encounters in 2019. McIntyre doesn't have a formal feud right now, but at least he's killing it in the meantime with these matches. As for Ricochet, I liked that he wasn't a complete moron by accepting Mustafa Ali's services after seeing what happened with him and Mansoor and also given their own history.

Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss Hosted Happy Talk with The Viking Raiders; Viking Raiders def. Corbin and Moss by Count-Out

I'm among those that still enjoys the Happy Corbin character to a certain extent, but he's quickly found his way right back to where he was before: midcard hell, bouncing around from feud to feud with no real direction. The Happy Talk stuff is painful television as the laughing bit with him and Moss is just terrible. The match that followed was fine for what it was, but the count-out finish means we'll likely get a rematch that I'm not exactly clamoring for. By the way, what the hell happened to Corbin beating Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura two weeks in a row? Where was Nakamura on this show?

Hit Row Made an Example Out of Sami Zayn

Hit Row have had a rough 24 hours, to say the least. As you probably saw, B-Fab was among those released from WWE on Thursday night. I have no idea why considering she was just called up to the main roster and was a crucial part of the Hit Row act. That was pretty apparent in this segment when Hit Row came out and their theme was noticeably different without her vocals in it. They're still a solid group, but it's not the same dynamic and I can understand fans not being as interested. This was decent otherwise.

King Woods def. Jimmy Uso

The stipulations stated that if Uso won, Woods would have to "bend the knee" to Reigns, but if Woods won, Uso would have to bend the knee to Woods. That made this match more interesting than it would have been otherwise and it was a quality main event to boot. Woods winning was the right call coming off his King of the Ring victory, but unsurprisingly, they didn't follow through with the stipulation because The Bloodline left both Woods and Sir Kofi Kingston laying. I was expecting Big E to show up and go after The Bloodline to build to the rumored champion vs. champion main event at Survivor Series, but no such luck. Are we even getting a Survivor Series pay-per-view at this point?

Overall Show

As I just wrote at the end of the previous paragraph, I'm starting to think Survivor Series has been canceled or something because there has been no mention of the event on television aside from a quick commercial here and there. I assume the brand supremacy stuff is still happening, but you would never know it because they haven't referenced it at all. Maybe they'll begin the build next week, but that's pretty lazy with the show just over two weeks away. As for this edition of SmackDown, it was an improvement over last week with Reigns returning, but it still wasn't great. There isn't a ton of direction at the moment and the blue brand is still getting used to its new roster. The continued releases don't help and some storylines seem to be stuck in a holding pattern until Survivor Series season is over.

SEE MORE: SmackDown Reviews