9 Ups & 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (1 Nov)
NXT TakeOver: Friday.
Wow. What a week it's been.
Given WWE were heading to Saudi Arabia on Thursday for another fan-last, money-grubbing farce that'd keep the promotion secure for another 100 years, the last thing we expected this Friday was a complete company takeover. But we got one.
Or should that be TakeOver?
With a huge swathe of WWE's roster grounded in Riyadh - pretty much everyone not serviced by their own private air force - and the company unable to engineer the necessary worm hole to bring them home, SmackDown was left in a bit of a bind. The Fiend? Gone. Roman Reigns? Nowhere to be seen. Buddy Murphy? Never again.
It would have been very easy to respond to this adversity with an episode even more staid than typical. Instead, the hog of restriction snuffled truffles of triumph. NXT arrived, and what a statement they made.
With any luck, they'll get more viewers than they usually do on USA. It's far from guaranteed.