SmackDown Review 23/4/19: Kevin Owens Heel Turn!!
Welcome to the SmackDown Review for the 23rd April edition of the show. Becky Lynch's SmackDown title contender is revealed. Some superstars are still being traded? And we saw a shocking heel turn in the main event. Read our SmackDown review and find out what we thought of the show. Elias and Shane McMahon beat down Roman Reigns Shane comes out and said he doesn’t have much time so he is going to introduce himself by Greg Hamilton just once. He then went on to talk about Roman Reigns punching Vince last week. He praised his father and compared Reigns punching Vince was as same as disgracing the US flag or disrespecting the Mount Rushmore. This was some good heel work by Shane which got some heat from the crowd. He said that he is not going to fine, suspend or fire Reigns. Instead, he is going to settle this in the ring. Shane ordered Reigns to come out. Reigns grabs a mic looks at it and throws it outside. Shane does the same and stands up to fight him. Elias runs in from behind. Roman tried to fight but he just couldn’t fight them both. Shane and Elias beat him down and left them laying in the ring. This was a good heel promo from Shane. He said that what kind of man attacks someone else’s father. When he had done the same just weeks ago. Shane is a great heel. And Roman getting cheered by the crowd is a good sign. He is a good wrestler, but maybe not the best at the mic. So I think it is a good idea to keep him away from cutting promos for a while. He is very much over with the crowd right now. Elias vs Roman is not the best of feuds, but it is not the worse either. Segment Rating: 3.5/5 Kayla did a backstage interview with Kofi, With Xavier Woods and Kevin Owens jumping in the frame in the middle of the interview. Kevin Owens is just a stand-in for Big E as he just said what Big E lines... Or was he? InterContinental Champion Finn Balor vs Andrade After being on Raw last week Andrade is back on SmackDown to face Finn Balor and win the Intercontinental Championship. That’s what Zelina and Andrade told us standing in the Gorilla just before their entrance. This was an OK match. I prefer their Raw match last week over this one. was dominating the match. The finish was when Vega tried to interfere in the match. She went on the top rope to dive onto Finn but missed when he moved out of the way. The ref was still there. So it had been a DQ anyway. Why would she do that? Andrade caught her and carried her across the ring. He was attending to her which gives finn an advantage to deliver a shotgun dropkick in the corner followed by the Coup de Grace. Andrade getting pinned is not the best thing for him. I thought he might win here setting him up for an intercontinental championship match. But now, I believe, he will be in the Money in the Bank ladder match. I think he was somewhat protected by Vega interference. But why would Vega do something stupid like that? It made no sense. Match Rating: 3/5 We see Elias backstage challenging Reigns to a match at MITB by singing a song. I guess that is how they will work their way around on SmackDown to make time for Elias' song. He was joined by Shane who left the arena with him in a car after saying Roman will never accept your challenge. Kairi Sane def. Peyton Royce Before the match, IIconics did their usual “make fun of their opponents” promo. This was, as usual, a great mic work from the IIconics. They kept referring to Kairi as Kerry which was really funny. Billie made an excuse for Peyton, who got pinned by Kairi off the insane elbow last week. She said Peyton was definitely not hydrated enough and was caught up by the element of surprise. It was good to see the crowd join in on the IICONIC again which seems to be a regular thing now. However, the women’s tag champions just keep getting pinned. The match ended pretty quickly the same way as last week with the InSane Elbow. After the match, the rest of the absolution, Mandy and Deville came out to face off with Paige’s new team. I think it's leading to a three-way feud. There is nothing of a match to rate here. This was more of a segment. Segment Rating: 2.5/5 Before the next match, we saw Aleister Black sitting in a dark room. He was talking a bunch of nonsense. He said some words about his character and what his character is. But I don’t get much from this. I think it will be just these promos for weeks now which I am not excited about. Lars beats down Everyone This was supposed to be a match between Chad Gable and Jinder Mahal. But Lars attacked Gable midway through his entrance.Then he got in the ring and beat down the Singh brothers after Jinder got away. Truth came to to have revenge from the last week but he got beaten up as well. Lars left Truth laying in the ring after two gutwrench running powerbombs. I am all for Lars to beat down people. I think Chad could be a great feud for Lars first match. But it seems like they are going for truth, which I guess will work as well. Segment Rating: 3/5 Roman Reigns accepts Elias’ challenge for Money in the Bank backstage when approached by Kayla asking the same. Bayley confronts Charlotte and Becky Charlotte came out to recap what had happened at WrestleMania 35. And as ususal Charlotte claimed that She never lost and deserves the SmackDown Women’s championship. She demands Becky to come out. Becky came out and said that she has already defeated Charlotte a countless time. She wanted to beat the women who had never been beaten. She wanted to beat Ronda Rousey. Then came a great exchange of words between Becky and Charlotte. They really went back and forth. They were cutting each other sentences instead of waiting for others to complete. Becky said that Charlotte deserves nothing and she wants to face new challengers like Bayley, Ember Moon, Mickie Jame but the management keeps getting Becky tied up with Charlotte. Bayley came out after this and said that Becky might have beaten Charlotte countless times but Becky has never defeated her. Bayley said that why don’t Charlotte earn her match against Becky by facing her. Charlotte warned Bayley to go in the back of the line as Smackdown is still Charlotte's. But Bayley just knocked the mic off Charlotte’s hands. This was a great promo from all of the women. Great back and forth argument between Charlotte and Becky. We also got to see a badass side to Bayley standing up to herself and shutting Charlotte off. Promo Rating: 4.5/5 Charlotte Flair def. Bayley There was some good fast paced action in the beginning. Charlotte worked over Bayley’s leg throughout the match setting up for figurre four later. The crowd chanted “Charlotte No Belts” midway through the match.LOL. The pace picked up again at the end. Charlotte went for a figure four but Bayley rolled her over. Charlotte kicks out and hit a spear for the win. I really wanted Bayley to win here. It is not good for her to lose clean. And I have seen Charlotte and Becky many times already. It will be a good match at Money in the Bank, but so would have been Bayley and Becky. I don’t know which of the two blondes will win at MITB. It was a good match however, I do not agree with the booking decision. Match Rating: 3.5/5 Next we got the exact same Firefly FunHouse promo from Raw. I love this. As I said in the Raw Review this has a lot of potential. WWE Champion Kofi Kingston def Shinsuke Nakamura via DQ Kevin and Woods had setup a pancake commentary table to do the commentary for the match. They kept cutting to it in between. The match started with a well 18 minutes left for the end, which is more than enough for a TV match. But with more time there comes more time to fill. So they did, with some slow paced action. Kofi landed on his feet off a monkey flip. He stood up across the ring and mocked Nakamura’s “Come on!” taunt Kofi stomps Nakamura when he tried to go for the Kinshasa. He followed it up with an SOS but the pin was broken by Nakamura’s partner, Rusev. I will cover the beatdown as a separate section. I thought this match is going to get all of the time but it was just a set up to what happened next. Average match overall. Match Rating: 2.5/5 Kevin Owens and Xavier Woods came down to save Kofi. Woods dive outside onto Rusev bit gets hit by Kinshasa from Nakamura. Owens was attending to Kofi in the ring and Nakamura came from behind. Kofi saved Owens which made the incident that came afterwards more heartbreaking. Kevin Owens hit Kofi with a superkick. He ripped off the New Day T-shirt he was wearing and continued to beat down Kofi. There was some great character work from Kevin Owens. Woods tried to help Kofi but Owens delivered a powerbomb on the apron to him. He looked on with a sadistic expression on his face. This was heart breaking, brutal and an amazing story at the same time. I am excited about this feud moving forward lets see how it goes. Segment Rating: 4.5/5 SmackDown Review Final Opinions This show had an average first hour but a really great second one. I really liked Bayley badass like persona. She didn't win but I hope she wins the title in the near future and continue with the same character. I loved Kevin Owens' heel turn. He had turned heel on every one of his friends and it is always heartbreaking to watch. Overall this was a pretty good show. I really enjoyed both Raw and SmackDown this week. A good week for WWE. SmackDown Review: 4/5 Read the full article











