3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (9 Oct - Results & Review)
New champions crowned; Raw bleeds into SmackDown; WWE's MITB build is hit and miss.
Bronson Reed made his presence felt as SmackDown went off the air, but Oba Femi didn't appear despite booming "OBA! OBA! OBA!" chants from the live crowd. Once the cameras stopped rolling, it was actually Cody Rhodes who rushed out to fend off The Vision and send the fans home happy. Live, Cody probably needed that, because his promo about Randy Orton was more of the same and failed to inspire.
"Failed to inspire" might sum up Friday's 'go home' show before Money In The Bank generally, to be honest. WWE crowned brand new Women's Tag-Team Champions, produced a fun segment involving Sami Zayn, CM Punk and Kevin Owens, and put on a cool 6-woman tag that previewed one of the ladder bouts on Saturday, but there was a lot to dislike too.
Again, Rhodes struggled with samey material after Orton had nonsensically travelled all the way to Lafayette to...travel all the way back home as soon as he arrived at the building. Logically, that didn't make much sense. Does Nick Aldis never phone up his talent to let them know what's what?
Sadly, a fresh main event combo pitting Trick Williams vs. Bron Breakker couldn't end the night on a high either. Triple H didn't give the former NXT pair much of a chance with the layout and formatting of their match/segment, and SmackDown going off air mid-Vision beatdown on some babyfaces suggested that WWE ran out of TV time and had to go dark ASAP.
MITB is next then. Before getting there, here's all the good and bad from Friday.