I absolutely adored the way they started Friday Night SmackDown this week, with Drew McIntyre showing up despite being suspended, being sent away by General Manager Nick Aldis, and getting attacked inside his own truck by raging WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. McIntyre could be heard complaining about the circumstances WHILE STILL UNDER ATTACK.
He ended up speeding off, tires screeching as he went, while Rhodes stormed out to the ring to demand Aldis reinstate McIntyre. He did this by storming right past Aldis, who was trying to talk to him. Something really funny about that.
Cody called Drew a cockroach while also threatening to maybe do a home invasion against him. He wants to just settle things up in a WWE ring, though, so how about they make it happen so he can do what everyone does when they see a cockroach.
How long until it’s on a shirt?
We weren’t done with the WWE champ on this evening, however. He went to Aldis, who had something entirely unrelated to discuss.
They turned the corner and added some stakes to the NXT championship match at Deadline. That’s right — Ricky Starks and Oba Femi were told that whoever won that match would get to move on to Saturday Night’s Main Event o wrestle an exhibition match against Rhodes. This is part of what Cena asked for, and they’re actually going through with it.
We can’t lose with the first match they came up with, that’s for sure!
The Finals of The Last Time is Now Tournament took place on this show, with GUNTHER meeting LA Knight to decide who would move on to face John Cena in his final match at Saturday Night’s Main Event on Dec. 13 in Washington D.C.
Knight cut a better pre-match promo than GUNTHER but the latter outright said the tournament was a foregone conclusion, and he was right.
They played it relatively straight with the match, working a methodical pace en route to giving Knight a near fall or two but never truly calling into question who was going to emerge the winner. Sure enough, GUNTHER made Knight tap out to seal his spot in one of the biggest matches of his life.
He told Cena earlier in the night to watch how he beat Knight and it’s worth pointing out he used an inverted cravate to do it, a move Corey Graves mentioned looks an awful lot like the STF Cena has used for years.
To really drive things home, GUNTHER told the camera that he is going to make Cena tap out. “You’re going to finally give up.”
Oh yeah, this is going to be great.
There were some great things on this show but a few misses too.