AJ Styles battles Chad Gable to determine who will enter an Independence Day battle royal, The Usos face New Day in a surprisingly entertaining rap battle, Lana gets another title shot, and John Cena returns on a good episode of SmackDown Live!
Daniel Bryan makes a decision about the “controversial” women’s Money in the Bank match, Kevin Owens issues and open challenge, Dolph Ziggler takes on Shinsuke Nakamura, and more take place on this pretty good (sometimes very good) episode of SmackDown Live.
Despite some good action, the overall feeling of this year’s Money in the Bank felt a little disappointing on multiple levels.
The last stop before Money in the Bank had four good matches and some nice buildup for the show.
This was a good show that featured the SmackDown Live debut of Lana, a rematch between Styles and Ziggler, and a first time on SmackDown bout between Owens and Nakamura!
Money in the Bank continues to get shaped as Shane McMahon makes a historic announcement, New Day makes their SmackDown Live debut, and the competitors in the WWE Title Contract Money in the Bank match clash once again.
Even though half the matches on this show were nearly exactly the same, I enjoyed this show. The competitors for the 2017 Money in the Bank match are named (and fight) and Breezango works their way into a tag title rematch!
This year’s Backlash wasn’t great, but it did have some entertaining matches and a few mild surprises.
The Backlash 2017 Kickoff show was an average opener, featuring Aiden English versus Tye DIllinger.
The last SmackDown before Backlash didn’t provide anything new, but it had a pretty good opening match and a fun new episode of Breezango’s “Fashion Files.”
A big six-man tag match highlights a pretty good episode of SmackDown that also featured a special London edition of “Fashion Files” and a great promo from The Usos.
On his first night as a member of SmackDown, Jericho must defend his US Title in a rematch against Kevin Owens.
This was an okay show with some interesting moves from certain superstars.
This pretty good episode of SmackDown set up two title matches, one surprising and one not so much.
SmackDown had the same level of minimal excitement as RAW for its portion of the Superstar Shakeup, but two great matches on this episode with title implications make this a show worth watching.
With a lot of talking and three matches of varying quality, this was a pretty average kickoff show. Though the good parts were quite entertaining, there weren’t a ton of them considering the two-hour running time of the show.
Lots more talking on this episode of SmackDown, but the main event match worked to make this a show definitely worth watching.
Last week, no one was set to face Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania, but with this week’s SmackDown two people have a claim to a title match. Also, John Cena makes the best of a less than ideal situation (for everyone involved), Becky Lynch and Mickie James manage to squeeze three tiny matches into one normal match, Apollo Crews and Dolph Ziggler get really angry with each other, and more on this okay, but less than ideal episode of SmackDown.
This was a SmackDown with potential, but unfortunately the execution wasn’t there.
Bray Wyatt is forced to give both AJ Styles and John Cena a title match in an episode of SmackDown that was entertaining more for the few good matches than the rather forgettable talking segments.