SmackDown recap & reactions: Watch your back

We first saw The Bloodline on on Friday Night SmackDown this week in the form of a pre-tape, where Solo Sikoa spoke of The Bloodline having all the titles at one point and how that only changed because Roman Reigns went soft. It never should have changed.

So he’s here to build a whole new, more powerful, more hungry, more aggressive family.

“And this family will rule for decades as long as I’m the Tribal Chief.”

He promised that everyone would acknowledge him by the end of the night.

Meanwhile, Randy Orton met up with Cody Rhodes backstage to tell him that while he knows the champ won’t want his help in the ring later when he’s surrounded by Samoans, he’ll be there either way. Then he said something interesting — everything comes to an end, and eventually this thing with The Bloodline will come to a close and a lot of people will be coming for his title. And Orton will have his back then too.

Cody actually looked like he believed him too. The poor sap.

Fast forward to the main event segment and they did a beautiful bit where right after DIY defended their tag titles, Fatu hit the scene and tore ass through Grayson Waller, Austin Theory, Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa. He looked every bit the athletic monster he is, flying all around and damn near giving Corey Graves an orgasm at bearing witness to what he can do in a pro wrestling ring.

Graves said something like “he’s sent from the gods and even they can’t save us from him,” which is admittedly pretty badass.

That led us into Sikoa demanding Worcester acknowledge him. They responded, of course, with loud “we want Roman” chants. If he comes back, he’ll be forced to acknowledge him too.

When Rhodes finally hit the scene to confront Sikoa, he kept it short and sweet — he wants the same thing as Solo, a title match at SummerSlam, and that’s exactly what we’re going to get. They did a good job of adding an emotional punch to this when Cody attacked, was obviously overwhelmed, and Orton came to his aid only to suffer the same fate.

Except they triple powerbombed him through the announcer’s desk while Cody was made to watch it happen.

This is both great for the story they’re telling with The Bloodline and the future story they’re going to tell with Cody and Randy, which I am certain is still coming once Reigns returns and Sikoa moves on to that. This was really well done all around.

Tiffany Stratton started this week’s episode of SmackDown to have her Money in the Bank contract celebration, which was really just her cutting a brief promo to say she’s going to win the championship at some point in the near future, and it could be any title.

Keep it simple, I guess.

Naturally, this brought out Bayley, the current women’s champion, to say that she’s impressed by Stratton and she wanted to give out some advice. She won the briefcase years back, when Tiffany didn’t even know what WWE was.

Stratton claimed 2019 was a million years ago. I think that makes us all old, y’all.

Anyway, they threatened each other a bit more but, of course, we had to be reminded of Nia Jax and the fact that she is the current Queen of the Ring and has a women’s title match scheduled against Bayley at SummerSlam next month. So this idea of Bayley kicking up a feud with Tiffany is silly because she won’t be champion for much longer.

Bayley tried to drive a wedge between Nia and Tiffany and Jax came back calling her “BBL Bayley.” That got quite the reaction. Ultimately, the heels stuck together attacking the champion until Michin showed up to even the odds, leading into her previously scheduled match with Jax.

They had a damn good TV match, with Michin looking impressive en route to what was always going to be a loss. Maybe the best part of the match, however, was when Stratton interfered by dropping a kendo stick on one side of the ring and then running to the other to distract the referee so Jax could grab the stick by yelling at him “come here, come here, it’s Tiffy time, it’s Tiff time!”

Amazing stuff.

After the match, Jax and Stratton left Bayley laid out. Tiffany looked conflicted, like perhaps she wanted to cash in, and even went so far as to go to the ref to start talking about it, but Jax went to her and put a stop to it. They left seemingly on good terms.

Hmmm.

Your LA Knight segment of the week:

Our boy met with SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis backstage in a scene we did not get to see for ourselves. Instead, he came out holding a folder that he took to the ring with him.

He won’t make excuses for his performance at Money in the Bank — it didn’t go his way, and that’s just a fact of life. But he doesn’t need the contract, he’s the walking embodiment of Money in the Bank.

He played footage of two weeks ago, where he rolled up United States Champion Logan Paul to pin him to qualify for the ladder match. This is meaningful for all the obvious reasons.

He qualified for Money in the Bank with that pin, sure, but he also pinned the U.S. champion. So with that in mind, he went to Aldis and got himself a contract for a match against Paul at SummerSlam. He signed on the dotted line right then and there.

The only thing missing is the champion’s signature, or as Knight called him “that edge lord.”

He promised to get it, and it’s clear that’s the match we’re getting. It’s a damn good match for a big event too.

All the rest

• Chelsea Green is wearing a neck brace because she is hurt from that Money in the Bank ladder match, noting she is now being called the Mistress of Mayhem. Piper Niven ran off Byron Paxton trying to interview her and if it’s possible, Green is one of the most entertaining acts on the show even when she only gets all of one minute of TV time.
• Andrade was interviewed to ask about what is next for him after his performance at Money in the Bank. He claimed the vision is the same before Carmelo Hayes came out of nowhere to claim he was the one who stole the show in that match. He feels like he deserves to be treated like the first round draft pick he is. Andrade cut him off and said ‘Melo is what’s next for him. I guess that settles that.
• Legado del Fantasma defeated Apollo Crews & Baron Corbin in what was a totally fine tag team match that didn’t leave me particularly inspired in any way.
• Naomi defeated Blair Davenport after the latter got a vignette showcasing what she can bring to the table as a wrestler on the blue brand. They haven’t done a great job of establishing her as any kind of real threat and, in fact, have mostly done the opposite. I’m also not convinced by Blair faking being nice and then attacking Naomi from behind backstage.
• DIY successfully defended their tag team titles in a rematch with A Town Down Under, thanks to Grayson Waller again screwing up and taking out Austin Theory. It appeared as though they were going to run the angle for the two to finally break up when Jacob Fatu showed up for the aforementioned ass whooping he dished out to everyone.

This was yet another good show from the blue brand.

Grade: B

Your turn.