11 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (3 Sept)
10. Big Bully
While Samoa Joe's backstage segment with Chad Gable was rough for his victim, Joe was in excellent form himself last night, coming over from Raw to put a cat amongst SmackDown's pigeons as the King of the Ring tournament rolls on.
It began with a Kayla Braxton interview. Joe claimed he was there to case the joint and watch his potential opponents, threatening to put whoever he faces in the finals to sleep. Soon, the WWE Universe will bend the knee, bow down, and call him "king." Or so he reckoned. Later, Joe brought his bluster down on Gable in a way that presented him as one of the night's biggest bastards.
So excellent is Joe's character work that he only needs to appear on the show for a couple of minutes to be one of the best things on it and while your writer is absolutely here for the hilarious online outrage that Baron Corbin's coronation would spark, Joe put himself over as a worthy contender to the throne on SmackDown.