Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: recaps, Smackdown, wrestling, wwe

WWE Smackdown: First Shots Fired in the Friday Night Wars?

WWE Smackdown competed, in a way, with AEW Dynamite this week, since Dynamite was preempted from its normal Wednesday slot by the NBA Playoffs and landed at 10PM, immediately after Smackdown, on Friday. And making matters even more heated, AEW fired shots at WWE on social media:

Did WWE pull out all the shots to upstage their rivals? Read on to find out as we tell you which WWE Smackdown video clips are worth watching this week.

We would watch a soap opera about Roman Reigns family drama

WWE does a lot of things wrong, and they get rightfully mocked for it. One of the things WWE did wrong for a long time was to shove underdog babyface Roman Reigns down the throats of fans for many years. But credit where it is due, all of that was worth it to lead to the current evil version of Roman Reigns. Watching him manipulate his cousin — "Which one are you again?" — is an absolute pleasure. And Roman is right, too: since joining up with him, Jey Uso has ascended to a main event level singles star. But with Jimmy Uso back and pushing his brother to be his own man and (somewhat counterintuitive) win the tag team titles, this family drama is sure to explode in the most delicious way in the coming weeks. Definitely watch these segments, where The Usos earn a shot at the titles next week by beating the Street Profits, only for Roman to plant doubts in Jey Uso's mind backstage.

Natalya and Tamina defend tag belts against jobbers

Isn't it a shame the way WWE blew the reunion of the Riott Squad and continues to use them as little more than jobbers? If you agree, then you definitely want to skip these clips.

Bianca Belair and Carmella face off in sloppy showdown

Carmella and Bianca Belair had a match on Smackdown. It wasn't a bad match, but there were some sloppy spots, mostly during Belair's offense. Whose fault it was is up for debate. Why not give it a watch and judge for yourself?

At least he looks good doing it

Seth Rollins cut an overly promo about Cesaro. Normally Smackdown would get this sort of thing over with at the beginning of the show. The gist of it: Cesaro sucks and the fans suck. Now, no need to watch.

Kevin Owens gets nailed

Apollo Crews needed Commander Azeez to help him escape the wrath of Kevin Owens… but he swears he can beat him clean. On PPV, of course. Don't bother with this one.

To shred or not to shred?

I get that Rick Boogs is supposed to be "over-the-top" with his heavy metal attitude, but what I don't understand is whether he is supposed to suck at guitar. Because his playing sounds very sloppy, but I can't really tell if it's his fault for sucking, or WWE's fault for being bad at sound mixing, or if he's sucking on purpose. Either way, I hate it. Skip this, even though WWE cut out the worst part of the playing, which was during the entrance. At least Boogs did help Nakamura keep King Corbin's crown though.

Like father, like son

In a retread of the angle where Dominik Mysterio was injured and Rey Mysterio took on the Dirty Dawgs on his own and won when Dominik came out anyway, this week Rey Mysterio was injured, Dominik took on the Dirty Dawgs on his own, and won when Rey came out anyway. Skip it.

It was a thoroughly lackluster episode of WWE Smackdown this week, even moreso than usual. But at least you only have to watch a few short clips of it. We watched the whole damn thing live last night!

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