WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER 10/22: New Rosters Take Effect, Crown Jewel Fallout, Angry Beast

WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER
OCTOBER 22, 2021
WICHITA, KS. AT THE INTRUST BANK ARENA
AIRS ON FOX, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Michael Cole and Pat McAfee

Match Results and Key Segments from Last Week

• Edge opened the show talking about his upcoming Hell in a Cell match with Seth Rollins. Seth did the same later in the show.
• Finn Balor beat Sami Zayn to advance to the finals of the King of the Ring tournament.
• Sonya Deville & Shayna Baszler defeated Naomi.
• Zelina Vega defeated Carmella, who was distracted by Liv Morgan, to advance to the Queen’s Crown tournament.
• The Usos defeated the Street Profits in a Street Fight to retain the Smackdown Tag Team Championship.
• Sasha Banks defeated Smackdown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch in a non-title match via a distraction by Bianca Belair.
• Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar signed the contract for their title match at Crown Jewel. Roman questioned how Brock could sign the contract without reading it. Brock said he went over it with his advocate, Paul Heyman, Roman’s “wise man.”

Crown Jewel Results Pertinent to Smackdown and Exclusives

• The Usos defeated Shelton Benjamin & Cedric Alexander to retain the Smackdown Tag Team Championship.
• Mansoor defeated Mustafa Ali.
• Xavier Woods defeated Finn Balor in the finals of the King of the Ring tournament.
• Roman Reigns defeated Brock Lesnar with the help of this cousins, the Usos, to retain the Universal Championship.

Arena

Smackdown pulls into the Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita, KS. The 11-year-old multi-purpose arena has hosted WWE events from time since March of 2010. You’d have to go back to January of 2019 to see when the last episode of Smackdown emanated from this venue.

No matches are advertised for the show as of this posting. They are hyping tonight as a “new era” of Smackdown and are advertising follow-up on a match at Crown Jewel.

Brock Lesnar Reaction to Crown Jewel Loss

Yesterday at Crown Jewel, Brock Lesnar came up short in his attempt to regain the Universal Championship for the first time in over two years. He held the title on multiple occasions for two years starting in 2017, ultimately losing to Seth Rollins at SummerSlam 2019. Brock returned at this year’s SummerSlam and ultimately challenged Roman Reigns for the title.

Last week during the contract signing for the match at Crown Jewel, Brock alluded to Paul Heyman still being his advocate despite being Roman’s “wise man.” During yesterday’s match, there was a ref bump and then Heyman threw the belt in the ring. It wasn’t to whom, but Brock picked it up after Paul said, “you know what to do with it.” The Usos attacked Brock with dual superkicks, then Roman hit Brock with the belt. A new ref came out to count the pin for Roman.

According to WWE.com, Brock will be on the show to “beat Roman senseless” after yesterday’s match.

Frank’s Analysis: Let me stipulate that I did not and will not watch yesterday’s show. If there’s something I missed and needed to know, feel free to tweet at me. Otherwise, I’ll take that as I didn’t miss anything important. For whatever reason, they didn’t want to reveal Heyman’s true loyalty. If he is ultimately with Brock, people will care, but they’re not going to feel bad for Roman. If he’s ultimately with Roman, then all remains status quo. I’m sorry, but this story is not as intriguing as it looks. I’m more curious how they’re going to handle the Raw Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair being on Smackdown and the Smackdown Women’s Champion being on Raw. If they do a title switch like they did last year with New Day and the Street Profits, it might be my breaking point with WWE.

Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!