Friday Night SmackDown Review - October 29, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair def. Shotzi in a Championship Contender's Match

Flair cut a promo beforehand and was interrupted by, surprise surprise, Sasha Banks. They have a ton of history together and have had some great matches, but I don't have much interest in seeing them rekindle their rivalry at this point in time. The whole point of the Draft is to create fresh feuds, not visit old ones (at least not right away). Thankfully, it looks like they may be pivoting to Banks vs. Shotzi in the meantime. Flair vs. Shotzi was good (except for that ugly dive to the outside) and I was glad she got to shine in defeat, but it was overshadowed by the post-match angle with Shotzi brutally attacking Banks. Heel Shotzi is interesting (albeit unnecessary I think), but I have no clue why they're already turning Banks back into a babyface when she just turned heel again over the summer.

Drew McIntyre def. Mustafa Ali

Ali was a great choice to answer McIntyre's open challenge because we haven't seen it a whole lot, but then the match went all of two minutes, so that was disappointing. I get wanting to reestablish McIntyre's dominance on SmackDown, but this could have been a little longer. McIntyre winning with a submission for a change was a nice touch. Ali interrupting the commentators with his post-match promo was well done, but it left me wondering what they have planned for him next (if anything).

SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos Accepted The New Day's Challenge

New Day were doing more king stuff with Woods before The Usos interrupted. He's obviously loving life right now, but I honestly would have rather seen him enter the singles ranks for a bit with Kofi Kingston by his side than immediately go back to doing tag team stuff. Then again, I realize SmackDown has very few teams, so they didn't have much of a choice I suppose. The segment was solid, but it goes back to what I was saying earlier with Flair and Banks; I'd rather see fresh feuds coming out of the Draft then immediately dive back into old ones from a few years ago.

Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss def. Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs in a Trick or Street Fight

Before anyone gets on my case, the biggest difference I found between this and what we got in the main event of AEW Dynamite this past week was that this wasn't building a main event-level feud, whereas the Dynamite main event was. These four guys are in midcard hell anyway, so I have no problem with them being relegated to the holiday silliness, which I tend to enjoy more often than not. This was harmless fun. Corbin pinning Boogs (unfortunately) gets one step closer to contending for the Intercontinental Championship. Angel Garza and Humberto Carrillo costing the babyfaces the match seemed random, but we'll see where it goes.

Shayna Baszler def. Naomi (Sonya Deville Served as Special Guest Referee)

It's been almost two months and we still have no clue why Deville has it out for Naomi. Are we ever going to find it? Knowing WWE's track record with this sort of stuff, probably not. Baszler vs. Naomi could have been a treat, but it ended up being only a minute long with Deville screwing over Naomi. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting Baszler back on the right track, but this felt like a waste with how short it was. I don't want them to wait too long to book Naomi against Deville because people may lose interest if they do.

The New Day (King Woods and Kofi Kingston) def. SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos in a Championship Contender's Match

This was your usual New Day vs. Usos match in that was enjoyable and well wrestled. They've obviously had better matches in the past, but as a television main event, it was what it needed to be. New Day winning earns them a future shot at the tag titles, and if I had to guess, we'll likely get that matchup in the next few weeks with the hook being that whoever wins will face the Raw Tag Team Champions at Survivor Series. Speaking of that, where was the build for Survivor Series on this show?

Overall Show

Man, this "new era" of SmackDown isn't off to the strongest start. Flair vs. Banks, New Day vs. Usos, and Nakamura vs. Corbin are retreads of rivalries we've seen before, and even Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar (as compelling as it's been so far) has been done to death in the last six years. Speaking of Reigns, he wasn't seen on this show at all and the episode was worse off because of it. I actually started to fall asleep halfway through (and I almost never do) because nothing wasn't grabbing my attention. It wasn't an awful show by any means, but it was total throwaway with nothing standing out as special. Despite some new faces being moved over, it's already more of the same from the blue brand.