Mr. Money in the Bank, Sheamus, kicked off SmackDown Thursday night from the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, NY. Sheamus lamented of when he returned from injury and took out Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler and the crowd chanted, “You look stupid!” He was basking in the glory of winning Sunday’s Money in the Bank match by exclaiming, “How stupid do I look [now]?”
Sheamus then basically gave the template promo every Money in the Bank winner gives after winning the briefcase, and one Dean Ambrose decided to interrupt Sheamus’ gloating. Before anything physical between the two occurred, Kane came out and made a match with he and Sheamus teaming up to face Ambrose in a Handicap Match. Luckily, the match barely got started before Roman Reigns interfered, setting up SmackDown’s tag team main event match.
But it didn’t seem like Reigns was too focused on that match, as he was still seething over Bray Wyatt’s promo from Raw, indicating he was not only focused on Reigns, but his family and daughter as well. When Reigns was ready to hit his spear during the main event, Wyatt came on the tron and started singing “I’m a Little Teapot” and distracted Reigns so Sheamus could get the win for his team.
This made me miss when Wyatt was red hot and the crowd would sing along with him to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Wyatt’s lasting words for Reigns were “Happy Father’s Day” as Reigns finally came to in the ring with that same picture next to him of him and his daughter that Wyatt was holding on Raw. It was one of the better endings to SmackDown in months, and it’s about time WWE starts booking their B show that way.
The WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Seth Rollins, addressed Brock Lesnar in a passionate promo about how much the main event at Battleground means to him. He said he has to beat Lesnar to cement his legacy. He then said he stood toe to toe with The Beast on Monday night in the middle of the ring and Lesnar did nothing.
Rollins showed a lot of confidence in this promo, and built himself up very well. He talked about how dangerous he was, that he’s the diamond Triple H thinks that he is, and that he’ll shine brighter than he ever has at Battleground. His final words on facing Lesnar at Battleground: “I can’t wait.”
Kevin Owens admitted he got carried away on Raw after powerbombing Machine Gun Kelly after his performance, and had apologized on Twitter on Tuesday. He then said he beat John Cena already, so it doesn’t matter if they meet again and any title is on the line. Cesaro then confronted Owens backstage, leading to a match later in the program.
It’s good to see they gave Cesaro something to do while his tag team partner, Tyson Kidd, is out for the foreseeable future with a severe spinal injury, according to reports. Let’s hope they continue using Cesaro in a manner that’s not wasting his talent on shows like Superstars or Main Event, and he gets a prominent role on Raw and SmackDown.
Bo Dallas had one of the best promos on the show, chastising Ziggler and Lana for leaving Rusev, leaving him a broken heart, broken body, and broken soul. Dallas called Ziggler literally the worst rebound ever, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about basketball. In probably the best moment of the promo, Dallas says he would swipe left and keep looking for a real man if his profile popped up, and all Lana has to do is BO-LIEVE!
I missed Bo. Fo sho.
But Rusev probably misses Lana more than I miss Bo, because he tweeted this creepy picture after Lana got back to the locker room.
And I’m not sure if The New Day fell out of favor with the powers at be, or if they just thought building another tag team was the way to go. While I didn’t like taking the Tag Titles off The New Day on Sunday, I think the Prime Time Players are long overdue a reign, so I’m excited to see how the creative team books them. With Woods losing on SmackDown to Neville, let’s hope the group didn’t just fall into the “King Barrett” category.
Match rundown
• Handicap Match: Kane and Sheamus d. Dean Ambrose by disqualification after Roman Reigns interfered.
• Brie Bella d. Paige by pinfall via a facebuster after Alicia Fox came down and shoved Paige off the top rope while the ref wasn’t looking, allowing Brie to capitalize.
• Dolph Ziggler d. Bo Dallas by pinfall via the Zig Zag.
• Neville d. Xavier Woods by pinfall via the Red Arrow. Big E and Kofi Kingston tried interfering, but the Prime Time Players stopped them.
• Non-Title: Kevin Owens d. Cesaro by pinfall via the pop-up powerbomb.
• Sheamus and Kane d. Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns by pinfall after Sheamus nailed Reigns with a Brogue Kick. Bray Wyatt appeared on the tron and distracted Reigns, allowing Sheamus to get the win.