SmackDown recap & reactions: Savage

My goodness.

There has not been a singular bad moment in this Roman Reigns saga.

The Tribal Chief entered the ring to start the show (after a sweet 10 bell salute to the late Pat Patterson) and Kayla… tried to interview him. She just asked some really lame amateur questions.

One of those questions was about how some say Jey Uso is being used as a pawn and that Reigns is manipulating him, in which the camera focused behind Reigns. The look Jey had on his face, man. “Do I look like a man who manipulates?” And Jey’s eyes dropped to the floor. Magnificent.

He put Jey over as one half of the greatest tag team of their generation. He said Heyman went to bat for Kayla and she blew it on both questions. Heyman interjected and said that Jey Uso has been in consistent main events and it’s led to big ratings at FOX

And then Kevin Owens interrupted to settle the score, but Jey grabbed the microphone from Heyman and accepted the challenge. “I wasn’t talking to the bus boy, I was talking to the head of the table.” Oh my god!

KO makes a challenge for TLC for the title, and Reigns responded by saying Owens is on the island of relevancy right now and agreed to Jey accepting, and also accepted the TLC challenge. But he won’t attack now, because he’s not a savage. He’s a gentleman and won’t attack because there’s a lady in the ring.

Ya know, the lady he was just calling an amateur and being mean to.

In the back, Jey was mad and said he had to accept the challenge because he was disrespecting the family. And this time, Reigns was cool with him. But he said that even though he loves him, there are consequences for everything. So f-ing brilliant.

The consequence? Jey Uso fighting all by himself in the main event.

Jey waited on the ramp as his music kept playing and the realization sunk in – Roman isn’t coming out. Or so we thought.

Jey started the match and a few minutes later, out came Roman and as he stood on the apron with his hand out for a tag, he ran into the ring and put a savage beatdown on Otis. KO saved Otis and attacked Roman, but Jey dove out of the ring to make the save for the Tribal Chief. For the second half, Reigns and Jey tag teamed Owens all by himself. But Owens got offense on Jey and Roman looked on with disappointment.

Then Owens did a Samoan drop and you could hear Heyman saying no no no. Angry Roman got in the ring and attacked Owens, then Jey climbed to the top and Roman told him to get down and tag out, because he closes the show. Owens attacked them both, and Roman locked the Guillotine in and the ref called for the bell.

Roman told Owens that he and his whole family will fear him and he and Jey took chairs and beat Owens with them, until Roman revealed what the real consequence was. He turned around and whacked Jey with his chair multiple times.

Oh my God, I never want this to end. This is the BEST! STORYLINE! IN! WRESTLING! And no I don’t care that the referee was being weird with his DQ call there. It is every great mob movie (GoodFellas, Godfather, Casino, etc.) in wrestling story form. I want a movie with this story. I had goosebumps.

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The Rest

Banks and Mella – This was a really good up until the weird snap at the end when Carmella took cues from RETRIBUTION and hacked the production truck. This may have been one of Carmella’s best promos on the main roster. She played the entitled pretty woman well and said that Sasha is jealous because while she scratched and clawed to get where she is, she was just able to waltz into the Performance Center and get to the top with half the work. I’m very interested to see how this plays out going into TLC.

Bryan, Rey Mysterio, and Big E def. Zayn, Ziggler, and Nakamura – WWE played a touching tribute video to Frank Sinatra’s My Way, Pat Patterson’s favorite song I believe. (Or at least his favorite Karaoke song) The most relevant things about the whole match was BIG E WITH NEW MUSIC AND THE CHALK IS BACK! Also, Sami and Bryan were going at it for a bulk of the match and I want them to fight forever. The 1979 Intercontinental championship Pat Patterson won was ringside. After the babyfaces won, Dolph Ziggler got the “take everyone’s finishes” spot and was actually very entertaining. I haven’t been this entertained by him in a long time.

Natalya def. Bayley – The EST was on commentary for this, and I was so happy because originally I thought they were just leaving her out of this when the feud really is between Bayley and Bianca. Bayley was dominating Natalya until it went to the outside, and Bayley decided to focus on Bianca. Naturally, Natalya took advantage of that. Natty locked in a sharpshooter and Bayley tapped, clean as a whistle! I should have expected that but it caught me off guard in the moment. Clearly we’ll be continuing with Bayley and Bianca. Bayley loses… a lot now. Maybe we should include that in a story here?

King Corbin def. Murphy – The Forgotten Sons are forgotten no more. Now they’re Corbin’s new henchmen. Totally didn’t realize it was them at first as their beards are gone and they are dressed like ninja businessmen. Corbin pretty much dominated Murphy in the first half, and then Murphy scouted Corbin’s slide out of the ring into a clothesline and gave him a knee to the face. But then the ex-Forgotten ones attacked the Mysterios (Rey and pink turtleneck Ricky Starks wardrobe rummager Dominik) and dove back into the ring after Murphy chased them. Murphy ran into an End of Days. Yes, Corbin can irk me at times but I absolutely love the very well protected End of Days. This one ain’t over yet!

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I… have no complaints about this show. I could nitpick, but honestly, this week (after Raw) was full of really great wrestling. When it’s good, it’s good. But when it’s great…man. Sometimes we need great wrestling in our lives.

Grade: A

What were your thoughts, Cagesiders?

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