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WWE Crown Jewel gave fans some huge moments, including Tyson Fury’s victory over Braun Strowman, and Brock Lesnar’s squash of Cain Velasquez.
However, some traveling issues caused the Superstars and the support staff that traveled to Saudi Arabia for the event to get delayed and they were unable to reach SmackDown before the broadcast could begin.
This prompted WWE to think outside the box and take some drastic measures to make sure that SmackDown continued to deliver.
With SmackDown short of talent, especially in the men’s department, the company brought in the heavy artillery in the form of the NXT roster.
Along with Triple H, the NXT Superstars dominated the SmackDown locker room and made Friday Night their own on short notice.
In this article, we will look at the 5 reasons why bringing NXT in on SmackDown was best for business.
#5 Filled in for missing Superstars
The main reason that NXT was called up to appear on SmackDown last night was due to the fact that almost all the Superstars who traveled to Saudi Arabia for Crown Jewel were unable to make it back on time for the broadcast.
NXT’s roster is filled with some topnotch talent, and all the Superstars combined have managed to make the brand come up to the level of RAW and SmackDown over the past few years.
Therefore, the Superstars of NXT can be said to be of equal class, if not better, than the ones on SmackDown, contradictory to the statements that they’re merely development talent.
In that case, it was great to see the men and women of NXT step up on such short notice and revive the entire Blue brand on a night when only a handful of SmackDown regulars were available.
This was best for business, as not only did the NXT Superstars show what they’re made of, but also effectively filled in for the missing Superstars of SmackDown.
#4 Gave the Black and Gold Superstars more exposure
Exposure is something that all Superstars are starved of no matter how big they get. In that case, the company continues to give them bigger and bigger chances to get more “over” with the audience.
NXT recently moved to the USA Network and has managed to do a great job at attracting viewers while being considered the third brand of the company. It’s a shame that many fans of WWE are still unaware of the talent and the quality of wrestling that takes place in NXT, as they are mainly focused on RAW and SmackDown.
With the absence of the SmackDown regulars, WWE did the right thing by bringing in the top NXT Superstars to SmackDown and giving fans a taste of what exists on the third brand of the company.
While hardcore fans have been in touch with NXT for a long time, newer audiences, especially those on the FOX Network, got a taste of the talent on NXT which is at par with the best in the world.
Keeping that in mind, it was the right decision to give NXT so much exposure and so much dominance on SmackDown as the fans will now want to look forward to NXT and their Superstars, which can, in turn, increase the ratings of the show.
#3 Built potential Women’s Tag Team Championship contenders
Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville were all set to take on Carmella & Dana Brooke on the night, but they were also on the receiving end of an interesting surprise.
Backstage, Biance Belair of NXT attacked Carmella and Brooke and left them unable to compete. This brought out NXT’s top talents Rhea Ripley & Tegan Nox as the surprise replacements for the two babyfaces.
The NXT women were dominant and took Deville out quickly before Nox connected with the Shiniest Wizard to set up the elevated inverted cloverleaf for the submission victory.
The entire segment did extremely well, keeping in mind that Survivor Series will now feature all three brands.
With only one WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, we expect to see a triple-threat match for the title at the event or a non-title match in quest of dominance.
Ripley and Nox could prove to be spectacular together, even though they’ve had their differences, and could well represent NXT in that match.
Ripley and Nox played good heels during the contest, and they could take the momentum into their brand to become more dominant before Survivor Series to become a force to reckon with which will ensure that all three brands come at par during the PPV.
#2 A glimpse of Survivor Series
Just a couple of days back, WWE had announced that this year’s Survivor Series event will not just be a matter of brand supremacy between RAW and SmackDown, as NXT will join the two brands with its own barrage of top Superstars.
The announcement was groundbreaking, and another good step by the company in recent months. NXT’s move to the USA Network coupled with its inclusion in a main roster pay-per-view signals towards a full transition for the brand.
Over the past year, we have seen Superstars such as Johnny Gargano and Tommasso Ciampa appear on the main roster for a few matches before returning to their roots.
This week’s SmackDown provided even more NXT Superstars to prove their mettle attacking and taking on some of the best SmackDown talents.
The entire episode of SmackDown proved to be a good preview of what to expect from Survivor Series, and a few wins for the Black & Gold Superstars over the main roster Superstars shows that the company holds the NXT talent in high regard and won’t just be burying them at Survivor Series.
This preview is sure to increase fans’ interest in Survivor Series this year!
#1 Gave us a big Championship match
With Shinsuke Nakamura and The Revival not being able to return from Saudi Arabia, and Brock Lesnar already defending his WWE Championship at Crown Jewel, there seemed like there was no way a Championship match for the men’s roster could take place during the night.
The SmackDown Women’s Championship was on the line as Bayley defended her title against the energetic Nikki Cross, and managed to defeat Cross in the showdown.
This led us to believe that we wouldn’t see any men’s Championship matches on SmackDown until next week.
Thankfully, Triple H and Shawn Michaels were at hand to turn the tables on SmackDown. While the scheduled main event of the night was supposed to be between Roman Reigns and King Corbin, we got an even bigger match as Adam Cole put his NXT Championship on the line against the Planet’s Champion, Daniel Bryan.
The match was much more than anyone expected and we saw Cole and Bryan engage in a brilliant encounter. The dream match highlighted the night and the action was spot on. Since Bryan is arguably the top Superstar on SmackDown, a victory over him for Adam Cole now established him as an equal threat to the other two top Champions in the country for Survivor Series.
This match indeed was the Best for Business!
