4 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (25 Sept - Results & Review)
1. PLE Quality Main Event
Speaking of "on fire".
One couldn’t say for sure who was going to win between CM Punk, Finn Bálor and Gunther going into SmackDown's main event. Good lord, this was one heck of a match. It was also the most star-studded Triple Threat of the series heading into MITB, no doubt. All 3 guys worked incredibly well together. Punk qualifying for the ladder match is probably the right choice, but any of these guys going into the next PLE would’ve been fine.
Between Punk vs. Kevin Owens, KO vs. Sami Zayn and this, it’s fair to say that SmackDown has had some cracking headliners lately. It's a luxury for creative to know they can plonk any combination of workers from this crew into the ring and rest assured they're going to get a good match out of it. Plus, there's always some storyline stakes into the bargain as well, so things are definitely clicking.
Gunther will blame Bálor for this defeat, so there’s another hot singles bout incoming. Meanwhile, Finn himself will point out that he likely had the Austrian down for the count before Punk did his best Edge by opportunistically poaching the pin and hogging all of the glory for himself. That's a good amount of story to work with when lining up Gunther vs. Bálor (either as another SmackDown main or for a future PLE).
There's an embarrassment of riches in SmackDown's main event scene right now. Long may it continue. Again, as the intro stated, the fact we didn't even need WWE Champion and top heel Sami Zayn shows the strength in depth around here.
What did you think of this week's WWE SmackDown? For more wrestling, check out 12 Wrestlers Who Looked COMPLETELY Out Of Place In Other Promotions and 11 Legendarily BAD Wrestling Runs (With One ICONIC Moment)!