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Five matches took place as WWE SmackDown Live emanated from Manchester, New Hampshire this week.
The show began with an episode of Miz TV featuring Kane and Daniel Bryan. However, it descended into chaos when The Bludgeon Brothers and Sanity interfered, prompting a run-in from The New Day, to set up a 10-man tag team main event.
The first match of the night saw AJ Styles defeat Shinsuke Nakamura via disqualification following interference from Rusev. Jeff Hardy then intervened to help Styles, setting up a tag match between the four men which Rusev won for his team after a Machka Kick on Hardy.
Up next, the lumberjack match between Asuka and James Ellsworth largely centred around the rest of the women’s division battling it out at ringside, but “The Empress of Tomorrow” was still able to pick up the victory after making Ellsworth submit.
Elsewhere on the show, Andrade “Cien” Almas defeated Sin Cara, while Team Hell No & The New Day defeated SAnitY and The Bludgeon Brothers in the final match of the night.
Let’s take a look at five things that stood out to us from this week’s episode.
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#5 Daniel Bryan was right about long-term storylines
Daniel Bryan recently questioned during a candid out-of-character interview with the Gorilla Position podcast whether WWE can be trusted to tell long-term stories, specifically referencing a possible match against The Miz at WrestleMania 35.
While D-Bry’s comments probably didn’t go down well with WWE’s storytellers, he definitely had a point, and fans needn’t look any further than this week’s match between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura on SmackDown Live to see what he was talking about.
Styles and Nakamura have been feuding for the majority of 2018 over the WWE Championship, with their somewhat underwhelming rivalry culminating with a Last Man Standing match at Money In The Bank in June, yet they did battle once again in a meaningless non-title encounter this week.
The commentary team continually hyped how the match was a “WrestleMania rematch”, which was totally irrelevant because they have already had four televised rematches since WrestleMania, and the whole segment summed up Bryan’s thoughts about WWE’s inability to tell long-term stories.
#4 Rusev has little-to-no chance of winning the WWE Championship
Rusev will face AJ Styles for the WWE Championship at Extreme Rules but, in all honesty, it’s pretty clear from recent storylines that “The Bulgarian Brute” has no chance of emerging with the victory on Sunday.
We praised WWE in last week’s post-SmackDown Live article for keeping fans guessing over the potential winners of the upcoming matches at Extreme Rules. However, it’s safe to say that Styles’ eight-month reign as WWE champion isn’t going to end in Pittsburgh.
Rusev is still popular with fans, despite WWE continuing to portray him as a heel, but there hasn’t been anywhere near enough storyline build-up for this match for him to be seen as a serious threat to “The Phenomenal One”.
#3 Kane is hilarious!
The Miz seemed to touch a nerve in the opening segment when he described Kane as a “broken down demon”. However, his first derogatory remark about the 7-footer, labeling him a “cheesy nostalgia act”, was spot on – and that’s what makes Kane so great.
Over the last 20 years, he has constantly updated his character to remain relevant in various different eras, and it just so happens that his current persona – Daniel Bryan’s dysfunctional tag partner – has been unexpectedly hilarious in back-to-back weeks.
“The Big Red Machine” explained during Miz TV why he doesn’t think Justin Timberlake will ever get back together with NSYNC, while he even quoted some of the group’s lyrics later in the show.
Now if that’s not sports entertainment at its best, we don’t know what is!
#2 What next for Andrade “Cien” Almas?
After several weeks of waiting, Andrade “Cien” Almas finally got his hands on – and finally defeated – former friend Sin Cara on Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live.
At the age of 28, “El Idolo” is the youngest male Superstar on the blue brand right now, so there’s plenty of time for him to make an impression in the months and years to come, but where does he go from here?
His match against Sin Cara this week was very impressive and arguably the best part of the whole show, so perhaps he’ll move higher up the card and into a title storyline in the build-up to SummerSlam. He certainly wouldn’t look out of place!
#1 Asuka’s title chances just got slimmer
The biggest takeaway from this week’s SmackDown Live came at the end of the lumberjack match between James Ellsworth and Asuka when Carmella’s sidekick sprayed an unknown substance into the eyes of “The Empress of Tomorrow”.
SmackDown Live General Manager Paige confirmed later in the show that Ellsworth will be locked above the ring in a shark cage during Sunday’s SmackDown Women’s Championship match, which won’t help Asuka much when “The Chinless Wonder” will inevitably be on hand to throw the spray down to Carmella whenever the opportunity arises.
Of course, there’s a chance that their tactic will backfire, but it’s fair to say that Asuka's chances of leaving Pittsburgh with the title just got slimmer.
