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Lawful #6 hits stores on December 26th. Sung and Eric race against time to break the curse, but the Champion's pursuit may lead to an impossible choice with permanent consequences.
Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: recaps, Smackdown, wrestling, wwe
WWE Smackdown Review 8/13/2021: And New Intercontinental Champion!
SummerSlam swiftly approaches as WWE races against the spread of the Delta Variant to have that big packed PPV they've been waiting for. This week was the second-to-last episode of WWE Smackdown before that big event. Did it build interest for the show? Let's find out.
The penultimate episode of WWE Smackdown before SummerSlam opened with the PPV's biggest feud, as John Cena and Roman Reigns faced off in a promo battle. This promo battle was so big, it even had a commercial break in the middle, with Cena starting solo before the break and Reigns coming out after. It started out awkward but got decent when Roman said Nikki Bella wasn't down for "twenty years of missionary position" from Cena, and Cena referenced Jon Moxley and CM Punk. Roman also censored himself by accusing Cena of using tired old "D jokes," though Cena said the word "dick" moments later. Remember when The Rock came back and faced off in a series of promo battles with Cena in his prime, and Cena actually beat The Rock in those battles? This was nowhere near as cool as that, but still cooler than 99% of the drivel WWE puts out.
Shinsuke Nakamura beat Apollo Crews to win the Intercontinental Championship after both Rick Boogs and Commander Azeez were ejected from ringside. Crews' character had so much potential when he first started speaking with an African accent, but his title run went nowhere in the long run. Hopefully, Nakamura will have a better one. Unfortunately, this likely means we'll continue to be forced to listen to Boogs' mediocre, out-of-tune guitar playing for the foreseeable future. Couldn't he pull an Elias and toss that thing in a campfire?
The Street Profits once again believe it's Takeback Season for the Smackdown tag team titles. Takeback Season appears to last all year long (though the titles never actually get taken back). I blame climate change, personally. They did manage to beat Alpha Academy in a match though.
Seth Rollins cut a promo on Edge, the theme of which is that he's done everything Edge has done better. He had a video package to prove his case. He did have some valid points. One way in which Edge is better though is that people actually want to watch him.
In a shocking departure from the usual formula, The Mysterios fought the Dirty Dawgs instead of fighting the Usos for the eight billion skillionth time. Has WWE finally figured out that you can advance a feud without having the participants face each other every week for four months. Despite an attempted distraction from the Usos on the Titantron, the Mysterios won.
Baron Corbin came out to ask the crowd to donate $1000 each to him. He has a square credit card processor for his phone to accept the donations. Kevin Owens came out and offered to give Corbin $1000 if Corbin could beat him in a match, but if Corbin failed to beat him, he had to give up this new gimmick of begging for money, which is sad, because it's the first time Corbin has been entertaining in his entire career. So of course, Owens won. Afterward, a dejected Corbin backstage saw an opportunity, snatched Big E's Money in the Bank briefcase, and fled the building.
Sasha Banks invited Carmella and Zelina Vega (otherwise known as the entire Smackdown women's division) to her contract signing with Bianca Belair so they could jump Belair after the signing, which they did.
Well, it wasn't the worst episode of WWE Smackdown in recent memory. In fact, tag team division aside, most of Smackdown's SummerSlam feuds are at least mildly interesting. I also didn't doze off any point during the show this week, which is a feat in and of itself. Can Smackdown carry this mild momentum through next week and into SummerSlam?
WWE Smackdown 8/13/2021
5.5/10
Well, it wasn't the worst episode of Smackdown in recent memory. In fact, tag team division aside, most of Smackdown's SummerSlam feuds are at least mildly interesting. I also didn't doze off any point during the show this week, which is a feat in and of itself. Can Smackdown carry this mild momentum through next week and into SummerSlam?
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