WWE SmackDown Live Review - October 30, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

WWE Champion AJ Styles def. Daniel Bryan

On the surface, it was a dumb decision to rush into this WWE Championship match and not save it for Crown Jewel, but reportedly Bryan didn't want to be a part of the pay-per-view, and similar to John Cena, this was WWE's way of writing him off the show. I don't know why WWE couldn't have hyped it up for the main event slot, but whatever. At any rate, this was as excellent of a matchup as you'd expect from these two. What's scary is that I'm sure they could do even better with more time, so hopefully they get that chance in the future. It also looks like Samoa Joe isn't done in the title picture yet and I'm so stoked about that. A Styles vs. Bryan vs. Joe Triple Threat? Yes please.

Big E def. SmackDown Tag Team Champion Cesaro in a Trick or Street Fight

The New Day dressing up and coming out as The Brood (epic entrance theme and all) was something I didn't know I wanted until now. That was pretty damn cool. The match itself (if you can really call it that) consisted of your typical Halloween shenanigans, but I enjoyed it for what it was (hey, I'm a Halloween mark, so don't "@" me). New Day spitting "blood" in the face of Big Show was a nice treat and the whole thing was just fun. It also give New Day some much-needed momentum before their rematch for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship at Crown Jewel.

United States Champion Shinsuke Nakamura def. R-Truth

Tye Dillinger was originally supposed to vie for the title on this show after beating Nakamura by disqualification a few weeks ago, but apparently he was injured at a house show on Monday night. Truth served as his replacement. Why, you ask? No idea. It's pretty sad that Truth, Dillinger and Jeff Hardy are the only three people Nakamura has beaten since becoming United States Champion back in July. He's been in desperate need of a real rivalry for months and the belt could not mean less at the moment.

SmackDown Women's Champion Becky Lynch Addressed Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey

Man, there really aren't many people who are better on the mic right now than Lynch. She continues to kill it every single week and her latest promo on this show was straight fire, where she addressed her upcoming clash with Ronda Rousey at Survivor Series. It's well-documented that I'm not a fan of the brand warfare stuff WWE has been doing at Survivor Series in recent years, but that match should be an absolute banger.

Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio def. The Miz and Randy Orton

Shane McMahon announced earlier in the evening that if whichever SmackDown Superstar advances to the finals of the WWE Cup loses, then they will be fired from the brand. It makes no sense from a storyline standpoint (why would Shane willing want to lose one of his biggest stars over a silly tournament?), but at least it's a reason for fans to look forward to it. Nonetheless, this was a well-wrestled main event with an entertaining final stretch. Orton laying out everyone afterward with RKOs was a great touch as well.

Overall Show

WWE offered a ton of heavy hype for Crown Jewel on this show, and the blue brand was much more successful at getting me pumped up for the pay-per-view than Raw did. That said, I'm not highly anticipating the event by any means (I have the feeling it will be another glorified house show a la Greatest Royal Rumble and Super Show-Down), but at least SmackDown did a decent job of building up their side of the card on this show. Of course, the WWE Championship match was clearly the highlight of the night and you should definitely go out of your way to watch it, but everything else served a purpose and the two hours flew by as a result.