WWE SmackDown 11/07/17: Jinder Finally Hindered
About Last Night is a quick reflection on the matches and segments, or random observations, from a wrestling show that sticks out to us the morning after we watch them. If you would like to get your comments featured, chime in below in our comments section or tweet us. You can also help support us on Patreon.
About The New Day…
The New Day continued to play a big part of the war with Raw heading into Survivor Series. This week, they appeared in the crowd near the end of Raw to serve as a huge distraction as they teased #UnderSiege Part II. This happened to be during the tag team championship main event, and it was enough to throw Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose that they got rolled up and defeated by Sheamus and Cesaro. This was a brilliant move, as Cesaro & Sheamus are way less of a threat to SmackDown in the champion vs. champion match. The New Day opened SmackDown with Shane McMahon as they celebrated this great plan until Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens decided to put a stop to it.
This clearly is setting up to a bigger match for Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, as it is likely they’ll get their delayed Shield reunion by taking on all three members of The New Day at Survivor Series.That match should be really great, even though I was looking forward to them fighting The Usos. Unless somehow they can get the titles on Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, who seem to be without a role right now. They seem like an excellent pairing for Raw’s new champions.
About Raining on Rusev Day…
Speaking of not having a role on Survivor Series, Rusev originally had an opportunity to join the men’s Smackdown team this week by facing AJ Styles. Then plans decided to go completely sideways backstage and Styles was given a shot at the WWE Championship and Rusev was forced to face a Randy Orton for a spot, despite Orton already having one. It was pretty obvious when they made this shift that Rusev would not be winning, and that’s exactly what ended up happening.
This hopefully will result in same last-second thing thrown together between Rusev/Aiden English and Elias at Survivor Series. They already announced that fifth slot on the Survivor Series team will now belong to John Cena for some reason, despite him being a free agent who last appeared on Raw.
About Benjamin & Gable vs. The Usos…
After already having a title change on Raw in the tag division, there was some serious worry about it happening again on SmackDown. Fortunately this wasn’t the case as The Usos retained against Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable… except they still lost. The Usos were counted out when Jey Uso couldn’t beat the 10-count on the outside after being chop blocked by Chad Gable. This was well played, as this was what The Usos had done to Chad Gable to take him out back in the American Alpha days. This pretty much solidified that Gable & Benjamin are now the heels while The Usos are the faces. Also helps that the Raw champions are heels. Here’s hoping in the rematch next week that The Usos are still able to retain… unless they say the Usos are “unable to compete” and a certain team of Canadians get put in their place in the match…
About The Battle of the Sexes…
WWE finally did it and put on a real match between a man and a woman. For a while it’s been looking like James Ellsworth and Becky Lynch had a bit of a feud going on, but it could never pay off since the company refuses to let the different sexes compete. Even in mixed tag matches they force the men and women to only fight their own sex. When they had announced on Monday, a lot of people assumed shenanigans or a quick squash. Instead, we had a bit of comedy but overall it was great back-and-forth match with both getting some offense. This was a huge step that hopefully gets followed up in the near future. Hopefully this leads to Candice LaRae getting signed and wrestling men, or even a dream of mine having Brock Lesnar fight Asuka.
About AJ Styles Winning the WWE Championship…
Brock Lesnar vs. Jinder Mahal at Survivor Series turned into the inevitable after the posters for Survivor Series surfaced online. I had even heard of the plans immediately after Hell in a Cell wrapped up. I had accepted this terrible trainwreck coming up, but something magical happened this week. Something happened to cause all the plans change. The Shield no longer have the tag titles are were now open for a 6-man tag against The New Day. John Cena is no longer refereeing the main event and is now a member of Team SmackDown. And Jinder Mahal is no longer the WWE Champion.
AJ Styles won the championship in Jinder Mahal’s best match in the WWE, and became the first person to win the title outside of North America. It’s a pretty big deal not because of that, but now we have dream match between AJ Styles and Brock Lesnar to look forward to. That is, unless something terrible happens next week where Jinder gets a rematch and wins the belt back in the biggest tease in recent wrestling history. They aren’t that mean, are they?
What did you think of this week’s SmackDown? Let us know in the comments!
