Friday Night SmackDown Review - September 18, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Otis Attacked The Miz and John Morrison on The Dirt Sheet

Miz and Morrison took turns taking shots at Otis and insinuating that the Raw locker room will have their way with his girlfriend Mandy Rose now that she's on Monday nights. They may have gone a little far with that last line, but either way, their material was lame. It was a little less lame than usual, but still lame. Otis laid out Miz and Morrison as he should have, but it made the heels look like for goofs for not being able to take him despite having the numbers advantage. Of course, it all played into what happened with them later on in the evening.

SmackDown Tag Team Champion Cesaro def. Gran Metalik

WWE's tag team division is so depleted that they're seriously trying to make Lucha House Party a credible threat to the tag titles. Don't get me wrong, they're a talented tandem and I'm glad they're finally getting their just due, but I feel like this renewed push for them is about two years too late. This was a quality contest and Metalik had a solid showing, but him losing did nothing to make viewers think Lucha House Party has a legitimate shot of becoming SmackDown Tag Team Champions at Clash of Champions.

Lacey Evans Interrupted Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss on Moment of Bliss; Cross def. Evans

Despite laying out Cross with a Sister Abigail in last week's Fatal 4-Way, Bliss played it cool here and hinted it at being something beyond her control. The back-and-forth between them wasn't very good at all, and the segment was even worse once Evans came out and attempted to bully Cross. I applaud them for trying to make the most of it, but holy hell, this sucked. The match that followed was passable, but like the commentators mentioned, I have no idea how Evans wiping hand sanitizer in Cross' eyes was legal. On top of all that, Evans simply referring to The Fiend was apparently enough to put Bliss in a trance. I'm invested in the ongoing angle with Bliss and Bray Wyatt, but the trance stuff is stupid.

SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley Attacked Sasha Banks

I was worried when it was announced that Banks would be on this show considering how badly Bayley her up two weeks ago, but they were wise to have her do the sit-down interview via satellite from the Performance Center. Everything she said was logical, but I wish they would have held off on having her give her side of the story until she returned for real. Her acting wasn't the greatest, either, but at least Bayley's latest attack on her came off well.

AJ Styles def. Sami Zayn

Styles and Zayn have always had strong chemistry together, but who were viewers supposed to want to see win with both guys being heels? From an in-ring standpoint, however, it was entertaining. The finish was weird with Zayn attempting to cheat to beat Styles, the referee catching it, and then Styles getting away with the same thing. Post-match, Jeff Hardy went after both men and challenged them to a Triple Threat Ladder match at Clash of Champions where there can be no dispute who the rightful champion is. I'm tired of WWE running the Ladder match concept into the ground over the last year or two, but that has the potential to be a blast.

Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Jey Uso def. King Corbin and Sheamus in a Samoan Street Fight

That video package narrated by Paul Heyman that aired earlier in the evening highlighting the family history between Reigns and Uso was excellent. It's also worth mentioning that Big E returned by going after Sheamus in the parking lot beforehand. There really wasn't anything Samoan about the Street Fight and I'm not sure it was necessary to do this match again after the babyfaces won clean last week, but what we got from them in the time they had was solid. The aggression from Reigns was awesome, but Uso felt like a total afterthought here aside from picking up the victory for their team. The story they're telling with Reigns and Uso has been fun to follow, but Reigns annihilating Uso at Clash of Champions is going to be a sight to see.

Overall Show

I continue to like how there are several storylines on SmackDown that have my interest, even though not every one of them plays out as well as they should from week to week. For example, everything with the women on this show didn't blow me away and Miz and Morrison suing Otis does nothing for me, but on the whole, this was a fairly effective edition of SmackDown, especially when it came to building toward Clash of Champions next Sunday. The way the story with Reigns and Uso has progressed in the last two weeks has been terrific.