WWE SmackDown 8/23/24 Review

Welcome to the first of my WWE weekly show reviews. Here I will go over the results of each show and give my thoughts on them in addition to what I think will happen later in each story line.

Recap of previous show:

So if you don't already watch these shows, then you should know that there is usually a small recap of a storyline. Not a recap of the whole previous show, just them showing what was the big talking point from the last episode. 

The show began by showing what happened last week where Solo Sikoa, along with Toma Tonga, called out Roman Reigns and Reigns appeared and attacked both of them and stood tall with the ula fala (what makes them the tribal chief) but out from nowhere came Jacob Fatu who attacked Roman and new bloodline hit Roman with a triple powerbomb and stood over the original tribal chief to close out the show. The new bloodline would appear later on this episode.

The Grayson Waller Effect w/ Cody Rhodes

The first actual segment of the show was the Grayson Waller effect, of course, hosted Grayson Waller alongside his teammate, Austin Theory. The guest for this would be the Undisputed WWE Champion, Cody Rhodes, who is set to defend his title against his good buddy, Kevin Owens. For the post few weeks, Grayson Waller and Austin Theory would get involved in this storyline berating Owens for feeling like he doesn't deserve the title shot and to give it up. Waller and Theory prepared a video package of Kevin Owens betraying his former friends in a way to persuade Cody into believing that Owens would stab him in the back. Cody responded by persuading Austin Theory that Grayson Waller is not really his friend and that he is using him. Waller combats this claim and Kevin Owens shows up and brings Smackdown GM, Nick Aldis, to make a tag team match between Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes vs Grayson Waller and Austin Theory. The big man makes it official for the main event and we have a brawl between the two teams where Owens accidentally hits Cody.

Thoughts: We already had this match a month ago in the lead up to summerslam but it feels like they had this match a couple weeks ago. Either way, I feel this thing with Grayson Waller and Austin Theory is dragging on wayyyyyy too long. It's been more than a month or maybe even two after they lost the tag team titles. There has been numerous times Waller has used Theory and Theory just looks like a total idiot for still being friends with him. They should've had them split after their loss to #DIY. On the other side, I am kind of intrigued to see a Kevin Owens heel turn, HOWEVER, this would be him turning maybe for the third time in the last 3 years. He turned heel in the end of 2021, then became a babyface again after maybe 6 months and has remained a face for 2 years. Him turning again would be big show type number, BUT Kevin Owen's as a heel is some of the best heel work I've seen with my own two eyes, and I think Smackdown lacks a very big heel that could seem like a huge threat to Cody's title reign. The biggest problem with this title reign, in my opinion, would be the lack of threat that it has faced. No one seems like a good option to take the title from him so Kevin Owens turning would sort of help.

United States Championship Match; LA Knight (c) vs Santos Escobar

LA Knight made his entrance first which was weird considering the champion almost always makes their entrance after the challengers. When both Escobar and Knight were in the ring, as they were being introduced like any other championship match, Angel and Berto attacked Knight to give Escobar an advantage but that saw all of Legado Del Fantasma being ejected from the ring and Escobar all by himself. Obviously, LA Knight retained his title with a BFT and a pinfall victory. Knight would later announce that he will defend the title again, next week in berlin in an open challenge.

Thoughts: Santos Escobar might be THE WORST assest on the Smackdown Roster. Like this man and his whole group has 0 aura or presence. The last time anyone cared about Escobar was when he betrayed Rey Mysterio. They could have capitalized on the momentum by having him face rey at Wrestlemania in a singles match but instead they turned it into a tag team match dragging Andrade and Dominik Mysterio into it. Dominik already faced his dad at last years Wrestlemania, why have him face him again this year. Heck, they could've just done LWO vs Legado Del Fantasma instead of dragging Dominik and Andrade because they didn't have any other place on the show. I think it would be best to send the whole group down to NXT and have him recuperate in order to gain back momentum. In regards to LA Knights open challange, I think the man to answer it should be Ilja Dragunov. He is half German and he's not in WWE's big show in Germany, it would be great disservice to him and his fans. Do I think he will beat LA Knight? Of course not, he won the tile this month but I do think the match will be great.

Naomi, Bianca Belair, and Jade Cargill vs Unholy Union and Blair Davenport

This was just the typical 6 women tag team match and Naomi, Belair and Cargill obviously picked up the victory.

Thoughts: I think it would've been very beneficial for the Unholy Union and Blair Davenport to have won this match. The Unholy Union are the women's tag team champions yet they are shown as 100x weaker to Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair who only have been teaming up since WrestleMania. At this point, it's looking highly likely that Belair and Cargill are going to take back those tag team titles which is a shame as it make it look like Isla Dawn and Alba Fyre winning only happened because it was in Scotland and it will also push back Cargill and Belair's eventual split.

The Bloodline (Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa) vs The Street Profits

Before the match the bloodline got in the ring and Solo cut a promo regarding bringing back the WWE title to the bloodline and told Jacob Fatu to give his tag team title to Tonga Loa as Fatu will now be Solo's enforcer, the same role Solo played in Roman's Bloodline. The street profits then interrupted and the tag team match proceeded where the Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa) retained. After the match the bloodline proceeded to beat down the profits and the former champs, #DIY, came for the save but they were also beat down.

Thoughts: I was heavily disappointed when #DIY lost the tag team titles after only a month. I think Cody costing the bloodline the title match would've put higher stakes on the Cody vs Solo match at SummerSlam. But none the less, tag titles or not, Solo has negative aura compared to Roman Reigns. We're just waiting for it to be revealed that the Rock is behind this new bloodline. 

Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes

Kevin Owens and Cody once again teamed up to face Waller and Theory leading up to their eventual title match at Bash at Berlin. The WWE Champion and the challenger beat Theory and Waller and after the match Kevin looks as he's going to hit Cody with the title but he just hands him the title and Cody is growing suspicious of Owens, but still celebrates and the show ends.

Thoughts: Like I said, WWE needs to speed up this split between Waller and Theory. It's been dragged for about two months. As soon as next week they should have Austin Theory look fed up and fight back against Waller. When it comes to the Title match between Owens and Rhodes, The match will be great and I've heard that people think theirs no story. I kind of agree to some extent but this episode really helped to establish some story into this rivalry.

Next Week: 

- WWE United States Championship Match: LA Knight (c) vs ???

- Carmelo Hayes vs Andrade 4

- WWE Women's Championship Match: Nia Jax (c) vs Michin; Street Fight

Overall:

This show was okay but it felt like it was missing something. It could be the absence of Roman Reigns since he was on the show for the past two weeks and his return was massive. I think its really harming the product by having a lack of threatening challengers for LA Knight and Cody Rhodes while the men's and women's tag team champions both seem some very unthreatening. Next week's show looks like a good card so we will see about that.