Friday Night SmackDown Review - October 1, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Brock Lesnar Confronted Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman and Attacked SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos

This mirrored the opening segment from SmackDown in Madison Square Garden last month, but it was every bit as great as that one was. Reigns' mic work was strong as always and Lesnar coming out was a genuine surprise because I don't believe he was advertised in advance for this show. Lesnar laying out The Usos was a small taste of what we can expect from the war Reigns and Lesnar are bound to have at Crown Jewel. I hate that it's been given away at one of the Saudi Arabia shows in front a crowd that may not appreciate it as much, but that sort of thing is commonplace for WWE at this point.

Happy Corbin def. Kevin Owens

Owens and Corbin have basically been feuding since July when Corbin was begging Owens for money. I enjoyed it at first, but it's worn out its welcome and I'd ready for Owens to move on to something new. That said, the fact Corbin has gotten the better of him almost every week lately tells me that Owens is indeed on his way out (it gave me big Dean Ambrose energy from early 2019 when it was publicly established he was leaving). The match was it was, not awful but not exciting, either. I'm not sold on Corbin's pairing with Madcap Moss yet (yes, that's what his new name is) because Moss does nothing for me, but I'll give it more time.

Seth Rollins Interrupted Edge

Edge discussed how SmackDown has always been his home but that he's excited for his future on Raw. He was then interrupted by Rollins, who proceeded to "break into" Edge's home (and I put "break into" in quotation marks because the front door was left unlocked). This was well done aside from how it went on a little longer than it needed to. Edge came across like a moron for not calling the police right away and Pat McAfee calling him out on that was funny. Rollins and Edge are clearly headed for one more match at Crown Jewel later this month.

Liv Morgan vs. Carmella Went to a No Contest

I thought we were done with this feud after Morgan beat Carmella decisively at Extreme Rules? Ugh. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there was more than just one women's segment on the show, but this rivalry is beyond played out and I have no idea what this was supposed to accomplish other than to introduce a stupid mask gimmick for Carmella, assuming it sticks. Carmella really needs to move to Raw in Night 2 of the WWE Draft.

The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) and The Street Profits def. Dolph Ziggler, Robert Roode, Otis and Chad Gable

Don't get used to seeing New Day and Street Profits on the same show as I assume Street Profits are headed back to Raw in Night 2 of the Draft with Montez Ford's wife Bianca Belair already being moved to Raw. As a one-night interaction between the two teams, this was fun and the crowd was into it. I enjoy Alpha Academy and hope they get a title shot coming out of the Draft, whereas I couldn't care less about Ziggler and Roode at this point. SmackDown has a healthy amount of teams as of this writing, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Street Profits and probably Roode and Ziggler go to Raw this Monday.

Sasha Banks def. Bianca Belair

Considering this was a WrestleMania rematch (and I'm glad they referred to it as such) as well as the match we were supposed to get at SummerSlam, this absolutely should have been saved for next week (since the WWE Draft rules don't go into effect until after Crown Jewel) or at the very least announced a few days ago. That was disappointing, and although this was a quality main event, it wasn't what it could have been because of that. Banks getting her win back over Belair made sense and I wouldn't mind a rubber match with more time before the Triple Threat at Crown Jewel.

Overall Show

Per usual, I will be doing a separate post at some point in the coming days with my full analysis of every pick on Night 1 of the WWE Draft, but I thought most of the moves made sense and I liked how they did four picks per round so it wasn't as uneven as it usually is. The pools weren't announced in advance, so that was the problem with the way it was formatted this year. Aside from the Draft, this wasn't an overly eventful edition of SmackDown. Rollins' home invasion was entertaining, the opening segment was hot and some of the matches were enjoyable, so I'd chalk it up to being a solid show on the whole albeit a slight step down from SmackDown's usual standard of quality.

SEE MORE: SmackDown Reviews