WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER 10/2: Continued Clash of Champions Fallout, The Crowning of the Chief, Sami Defends Against Hardy, Alexa Brings Trance to the KO Show

WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER
OCTOBER 2, 2020
ORLANDO, FL. AT THE THUNDERDOME IN THE AMWAY CENTER
AIRS ON FOX NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EST
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM SPECIALIST

Announcers: Michael Cole and Corey Graves

Top Three Developments from Last Week

• Otis said he would not seek legal counsel regarding Miz & John Morrison’s threat to take him to court over the Money in the Bank contract. We learned only Miz’s name is on the lawsuit, and then Otis attacked Morrison.
• Lacey Evans defeated Alexa Bliss via DQ when Alexa refused to break a five count while attacking Lacey in the ropes. She then delivered another Sister Abigail.
• Roman Reigns attacked Jey Uso ahead of their Universal Championship match at Clash of Champions. Prior to Roman and Paul Heyman coming out for their promo, Alexa Bliss was making her way to the back. She briefly stared at Roman & Paul.

Clash of Champions Results Pertinent to Smackdown

• Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Lucha House Party to retain the Smackdown Tag Team Championship.
  Sami Zayn defeated Jeff Hardy & A.J. Styles in a triple threat ladder match to become the undisputed Intercontinental Champion.
• Bayley defeated Raw Women’s Champion Asuka via DQ (to retain the Smackdown Women’s Championship. Asuka replaced Nikki Cross, Bayley’s original opponent, when Cross was announced as “not medically cleared to compete.” Sasha Banks attacked Bayley to cause the match to end.
• Roman Reigns defeated Jey Uso to retain the Universal Championship. Jey’s brother Jimmy returned to WWE television and threw in the towel to stop the match.

Items Advertised by WWE

We move past Clash of Champions and head towards Hell in a Cell, which was announced to be taking place on Sunday October 25. WWE is light on items advertised tonight, which is not unusual for them coming out of a PPV. That said, here’s what’s in their preview:

• Universal Champion Roman Reigns to be officially crowned as Tribal Chief
• Sami Zayn to face Jeff Hardy in Intercontinental Championship showdown
• Kevin Owens to bring “The KO Show” to Smackdown as Alexa Bliss joins

Roman Reigns to be Crowned Tribal Chief

In defeating his cousin Jey Uso to retain the Universal Championship this past Sunday, Roman Reigns persistently demanded he acknowledge him as the “tribal chief” or the head of the family. Jey refused and said not today. I mentioned earlier how the match concluded.

Since taking over as Roman’s “counsel,” Paul Heyman has declared him the tribal chief and going back to last week, he told Jey he could never be at the head of the table. Instead, he’s the one that “feeds the family.” During their exchange last week, Roman did acknowledge the Usos as the greatest tag team of this generation, and the family was proud. Jey couldn’t handle the pressure of being “the head,” but Jey questioned why it couldn’t be him.

Tonight, Roman is officially crowned the “tribal chief.” This past week on The Bump, it was discussed whether he could beat another cousin in the legendary Rock. There’s a lot of speculation that there could be a WrestleMania match between them come next year. If you’re into the Bump, here’s the clip:

Frank’s Analysis: I’m not going to try and get into Vince’s head and think about what they’re going to do tonight. It’s an angle to get to their next step. I’m more interested in where this feud goes if it’s going to continue. Technically, Roman did beat Jey but not via pinfall or submission, and Jimmy got involved on Jey’s behalf, so Hell in a Cell could be in their appointment books. I would guess they’re doing Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton from Raw, and they like to do a women’s match in the cell (Sasha vs. Bayley?), so maybe that bumps Roman and Jey to something else if the feud is going to continue. There’s also talk of Roman vs. Bray given the stare from Alexa Bliss last week. There are too many balls in the air to know for sure.

Intercontinental Championship: Sami Zayn (champ) vs. Jeff Hardy

There’s no doubt in any of our minds now. Sami Zayn is the undisputed Intercontinental Champion. In defeating Jeff Hardy and A.J. Styles Sunday night, he “handcuffed” Jeff’s earring to the ladder. He then handcuffed himself to A.J., but later pulled out a key to uncuff himself and was able to climb the ladder and get both belts. He was stripped of the title following WrestleMania when he was “unable to compete.”

Last week, Sami defeated both Jeff and A.J. in a triple threat match. Tonight, he defends the title one-on-one against Jeff. Here’s Sami in a few WWE exclusives:

Frank’s Analysis: I can’t see a title switch back to Jeff so soon, although you never know with Sami. Vince may want him to lose quickly by some fluke and be angry, because to him an angry Sami is an entertaining Sami. A.J. is in play as well. I’d like to see Sami hold the title for a while.

KO Show: Guest Alexa Bliss

It’s time for a Raw crossover as Kevin Owens comes back to Smackdown and will have Alexa Bliss as his guest. I mentioned the stare of Roman Reigns following her loss to Lacey Evans via count out, also discussed earlier.

As the weeks go on, Alexa appears more and more to be “possessed” by the “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt. WWE even put up a video featuring Alexa’s most sinister moments. Tonight, Kevin will no doubt have some real interesting questions for Alexa as he tries to figure out what’s going on with her. He got involved with Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan on Raw several weeks ago, which got them to reunite and now they have a tag team championship match in their future. We’ll see if he can get through to Alexa. I’m not one to promote these “top 10” videos WWE likes to put out, but here’s the video of which I spoke earlier:

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1311365822330425350?s=20

Frank’s Analysis: This couldn’t possibly lead to a feud between Bray and Kevin could it? I’ll tell you I’d rather see that now than something hot-shotted between Roman and Bray. Kevin’s not going to advance to the top of the card anyway, and they’ll probably want to turn him heel again, so why not feud with Bray? As far as Alexa goes, while I’m interested in this story, it’s still hard to see past her being all happy-go-lucky on Twitter. Bray hasn’t put up a thing in a month, pretty much since her lost the Universal Championship. I like that.

Other Match Results and Segments from Last Week

• Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley called Sasha Banks a crybaby, and said she admired Nikki Cross’ spirit, but she ought to pay attention to what she did to Sasha with a chair. This was ahead of what was supposed to be a title match between Bayley and Nikki before Nikki was deemed “not medically cleared.”
• Smackdown Tag Team Championship co-holder Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Gran Metalik of Lucha House Party.
• King Corbin defeated Matt Riddle. In a post-match interview, he said he’d grind until Smackdown was the “Bro Show.”

Final Thoughts

While I think Smackdown still has a lot of issues, I look forward to it more than I do Raw. The Reigns story is one of the best WWE has done in quite some time. I know I made comments about Alexa’s social media, but I’m still into what she’s doing. She’s always been a favorite of mine. It’ll be interesting to see how they move with the draft a week away. My guess is outside of advancing the top stories, nothing else really moves.

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Questions and discussion are welcome. Thank you for reading!