AND THE NEW WWE CHAMPION! – Smackdown (Sort of) Live Recap – November 7, 2017

The WWE is still in Manchester, England, so there were plenty of spoilers for tonight’s Smackdown available online, but what’s the fun in that.  For those of you in my neck of the woods, they return home next week as Monday Night Raw will be at Philip’s Arena with Brock Lesnar and The Shield in full force, so don’t miss out on the incredibly reasonable ticket pricing and take advantage of the opportunity to be at the go-home Raw and to see the 2nd largest renovation in NBA history at the newly revamped arena.

Anyway, following last night’s Raw ending, you had to expect that we were kicking of with ya boys, NEW DAY!

New Day went rogue last night and put Raw “under siege” again.  They didn’t really do much, just show up and create a few minutes distraction from the audience and cost Seth and Dean the Raw Tag Team Championship to Sheamus and Cesaro.

In any event, Shane McMahon invites the New Day to join him in the ring where he thanks them for showing the fighting spirit that is the very essence of Smackdown.  After some awkward twerking from the Commissioner (like, Triple H’s wasn’t even this awkward), Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn interrupt.  The same general rhetoric from the tandem lands Sami Zayn in a matchup to kick off the show against Kofi Kingston.

In case you’ve forgotten how cool Kofi Kingston is in the ring, watch this match.  At one point he dodges being tossed out of the ring by going head first into the top rope and bouncing back, then when he’s tossed Sami to the outside, he does a bouncing springboard type deal from his belly off the top rope into a senton to the outside.  He’s awesome.

In the end, Kevin Owens helps Sami get a win.  This isn’t over.  It’s cool with me if KO and Sami are in the tag picture for a while though, since they don’t really have anything for KO and have never adequately utilized Sami anyway.

Who’s in the middle here?  Who? Who?

• Jinder Mahal cut a promo about AJ Styles being the appetizer to whet his whistle before he goes to Survivor Series and defeats Brock Lesnar.  Personally, he shouldn’t get a win in either of those matches, but he’ll leave Smackdown with his belt.
• Randy Orton def. Rusev via the RKO.  This match was for Rusev’s opportunity to join team Smackdown Live.  They’re wasting both how great Rusev is and how awesome he was during the siege.
• James Ellsworth taunted Becky Lynch in the back about the superiority of men to further hype the mixed gender match that’s coming up later tonight.  Lynch has been pandering for this forever, and I’ve so been waiting for her to get to beat his ass.
• Becky Lynch def. James Ellsworth with the Dis-Arm-Her.  This match was essentially a lumberjack match, as the entire women’s division was surrounding the ring.  You want to talk about one of the luckiest guys ever, for a company going through cost cutting roster reductions, this guy still has a job, and not only a job, but he’s prevalent in an ongoing storyline.  Listening to Corey Graves channel his inner JBL talking crap about Ellsworth was pretty great too.  Also, I have to point out that Becky Lynch has now defeated a “superstar” who has three singles victories over AJ Styles.  Just saying, let her accept an open challenge opportunity down the line.  I’m good with it.
• Following his loss, Carmella took out Ellsworth with a superkick, so maybe he is on his way out.
• Smackdown Live Tag Team Championship Match – Gable & Benjamin def. The Usos by Count Out, Usos Retain: Shelton Benjamin is still just incredibly boring.  Chad Gable did chop Jay Uso’s leg out from under him like the Usos did to him like two years ago while Jay was on the outside.  Gable’s effort ended up costing his team the championship as The Usos retain on a count out loss.  This match took place primarily during a commercial.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s edited out of the Hulu cut entirely.
• AJ Styles thinks Jinder is laughable, and he can’t wait to take the belt into Survivor Series so that The Phenomenal One can become The Beastmaster.

The Modern Day Maharaja defends against The Phenomenal One

Well, the Manchester crowd was definitely on the side of the Georgia boy, letting Mahal know it during his entire entrance.  I mean, so am I, just saying.  They also taunted Jinder like he was Eva Marie, giving him the “You Can’t Wrestle” chant throughout this one.

Jinder legitimately caught more heat in Manchester than he does speaking Punjabi in Alabama.  I was there for the Punjabi in Alabama, this is worse.

It actually helped, because this place went nuts when AJ Styles defeated Jinder Mahal with the Phenomenal Forearm to win the WWE Championship.  

It looked like he’d take the loss when he spent too much time focused on The Singh Brothers and took the (Spell Jinder’s Finisher and put it here, because I have no idea).  But he got a foot on the rope, landed a Stunner across the top rope, then the Forearm for the pinfall.

Tom Phillips also informed us that this is the first time ever that the WWE Championship has changed hands outside of North America, so that’s cool.