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WWE Smackdown Recap – Kevin Owens Makes a New Friend

Welcome to Bleeding Cool's WWE Smackdown report. We watch Smackdown so you don't have to. And we'll tell you all about it too… but first:

I just read your incredible piece on the mjf Jericho dinner segment, and wowowow. This was an excellent job in showing how little you know about pro wrestling.

While I can agree that yes the segment was entertaining, people who don't like it have every right to shred this as much as you praise it. This was not pro wrestling, it was a comedy skit, which while they have been used effectively, this one just didn't land for some people. But for you to try and argue that this segment is "sports based presentation" shows me just how high your IQ really is. And for you, a "journalist" to call people dumb for not liking something is the best way to come off as a flaming f***ing asshole. So next time you're about to write something without even a sliver of substance, maybe think about how big of a c*** sucking prick you'll seem like to your audience.

-Zach L

Zach, it is always great to hear from a fan. I'm Jude Terror, and this is The Shovel: Smackdown Edition. This recap is broken into three parts, and you're reading part one.

The Shovel - Weekly TV Recaps of WWE Raw, WWE Smackdown, Impact Wrestling, AEW Dynamite, and WWE NXT [Photo: Shutterstock]
The Shovel – Weekly TV Recaps of WWE Raw, WWE Smackdown, Impact Wrestling, AEW Dynamite, and WWE NXT [Photo: Shutterstock]

WWE Smackdown Recap for October 23rd, 2020 – Part 1

The WWE Thunderdome is filled with virtual audience members… maybe. It's not like we can trust anything WWE does anymore,  can we? Not since they now own the virtual identities of every single person that has ever appeared on one of those screens and, legally, can create a deep fake version of that person to use as a fake crowd member in perpetuity. I'm not saying that's what they're doing, but… can you say for sure they aren't?

Kevin Owens is in the ring for the KO Show. It's the first KO Show on Smackdown with Owens as a Smackdown superstar after the current draft, though not the first KO Show on Smackdown ever, or even the first one this month, since he hosted one with Alexa Bliss as the guest when he was a Raw superstar earlier this month. His guest is Daniel Bryan. Bryan comes to the ring. Canned crowd noise and possibly CGI humans chant "Yes! Yes! Yes!" enthusiastically. Owens thanks Bryan for mentioning him last week when he talked about the superstars he wants to face now that's back from his leave of absence. Owens says he wants to fight Bryan too. Aw.

Bryan talks about his vision for Smackdown's future, where the brand highlights the best superstars in the world. Thanks to the WWE Draft, which you may have heard altered the landscape of Raw and Smackdown, they have the best, fresh young talent in the world. Guys like Jey Uso (35) and Big E (34). Bryan (39) wants to see who will step up next (what's Ric Flair up to?). But he also thinks what would make Smackdown better would be to have a championship defended every week. A belt like the Intercontinental Championship, perhaps? Hmmm?

Owens wants to talk to Bryan about the tag team championships. He says he's never been a tag team champion in WWE. Bryan says Owens has betrayed a lot of friends. Owens says not to focus on that, but to focus on how great a team they'd be as Team Hell KO. Bryan points out Owens mixed up Bryan and Kane with his riff on Team Hell No. This segment is quickly going off the rails with jokes worse than… well, than the ones you might find in this column. Okay, maybe not quite that bad.

Dolph Ziggler comes out, and for the first time ever, I think to myself: thank god Dolph Ziggler is here. Robert Roode is with him. Ziggler says he heard them talking about hot, fresh young talent so here they are. They're "hot for teacher," he says, making a Van Halen reference. These guys are a combined 83 years old. Ziggler and Roode say they're the greatest tag team on the planet.

The Street Profits (both 30) come out, destroying the planet one bucket of disposable solo cups wastefully dumped on the entrance ramp at a time. They accuse Ziggler and Roode of being trapped in "1984," unlike the Street Profits, who are hip and with it. If they weren't, then why would they keep calling everyone "fam?" Cesaro and Nakamura come out next. You know what this is all leading to… a commercial break!

A chaotic brawl breaks out. Adam Pearce comes running out of the back, looking like a stepdad in a pornhub movie and Smackdown takes a commercial break. After the break, this has evolved into a four-way tag team match.

Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, and The Street Profits vs. Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode

  • Is there anything more pointless than an eight-man tag on Raw or Smackdown? They all follow the same pattern or meaningless time wasting leading up to the finish, which always happens after a sequence of everyone in the match taking turns hitting their big move only to then be hit by the big move of the next guy.
  • The finish this time is Montez Ford hitting a frog splash on Cesaro, after the aforementioned big move sequence.

Winners: Owens, Bryan, and The Street Profits

Michael Cole and Corey Graves introduce the segment you've all been waiting for: Law and Otis (oof). They're in the Court of Thunderdome. People's Court music is playing. Ron Simmons is the bailiff. JBL is the judge. Miz and Morrison have a lawyer. Otis is alone, representing himself. He's wearing a suit with the sleeves cut off. Miz's lawyer is about to present her opening argument, but Miz interrupts and says he'll take care of this. He lays out his case for why Otis doesn't deserve the Money in the Bank contract and Miz should have it instead. Otis argues that he deserves the contract because he won the Money in the Bank ladder match. Miz's lawyer thinks that's a good argument, so he fires her. They took an extra week to produce this segment, and it's still pretty lousy.

Smackdown is not off to a great start… but maybe they can turn things around. You'll never know if you don't click to read the next part of this week's The Shovel: Smackdown Edition!


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Jude TerrorAbout Jude Terror

A prophecy once said that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero would come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events. Sadly, that prophecy was wrong. Oh, Jude Terror was right. For ten years. About everything. But nobody listened. And so, Jude Terror has moved on to a more important mission: turning Bleeding Cool into a pro wrestling dirt sheet!
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