Friday Night SmackDown emanated from inside the Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio as we are less than 24 hours away from Wrestlepalooza, WWE’s first ever premium live event on the ESPN app, in Indianapolis.
With Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss retaining the Women’s Tag Team Championships earlier in the week on NXT against Tatum Paxley and Izzi Dame of The Culling, the two had another, more familiar challenge tonight in the form of Chelsea Green and Alba Fyre. Although Bliss and Flair showed off their teamwork in the early goings, control quickly shifted in favor of Green and Fyre before the first commercial break. When the show returned, Bliss was close to tagging in The Queen before Slaygent A pulled Flair’s legs off the apron to prevent the tag. Green meanwhile, repeatedly slammed Bliss head-first into the mat and isolated her in the opposite corner of the turnbuckles, but when she was distracted by Flair, Bliss took advantage to move out of the way and leave her running into the ring post. Fyre then tagged herself in and tried to keep Bliss away from tagging in, but Bliss was able to make the tag this time.
Once Flair entered the ring, it was a serving of clotheslines and chops for Fyre. Not even Green was safe, trying her best to get up but still getting two chops from Flair and falling to the mat. Flair was about to put Fyre in Natural Selection, but Green was able to distract from the ring apron. While Flair hit her with a big boot, Fyre’s fast thinking nearly brought the titles home by rolling up Flair, but the champ wasn’t going to give up the gold so quickly, throwing Fyre head-first into the turnbuckles. Now getting up on those turnbuckles for a moonsault, Flair’s attempt was stopped by Green pulling at her hair, which led to Fyre hitting a kick and a Swanton bomb. With Green doing the honors to pin Flair, Bliss would break it up, but would then become a target of a double-team attempt, which Flair ended up stopping, allowing her and Bliss to perform a double Natural Selection themselves for the win to retain their tag team titles.
Showing off their belts, it appears Alexa and Charlotte can finally put The Green Regime behind them as they continue to build momentum in the tag team division.
Speaking of tag teams, B-Fab was backstage with The Street Profits. The Fab Female has been in the middle of Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford’s issues with each other over the past few weeks, explaining to them tonight that they are brothers, and with that, there will be moments where they don’t see eye to eye, and that’s normal. However, if tag team gold is still what they want, the two will need to find a way to get past whatever their problems are and get back to what’s best for them as a team. She’s in the midst of continuing this conversation when Michin shyly interrupts to remind B-Fab that they need to talk to Nick Aldis about next week’s tag team match against Kiana James and the Women’s United States Champion, Giulia. B-Fab and her walk off, but she lastly encourages the two to talk things out; unbeknownst to her, while the two did talk it out, Bo Dallas and Erick Rowan of The Wyatt Sicks would attack them soon after.
Close to the end of the show’s first hour, Nia Jax made her way out to the ring. Grabbing a microphone, The Irresistible Force said that she’s sick of the women’s division on the blue brand and finds it embarrassing that the women call themselves “alpha females”, but wants to make one thing perfectly clear: she is the alpha female of this women’s division, not Tiffany Stratton, calling her annoying and stating that she had to put her in a “Tiffy time-out” last week when she attacked her and Jade Cargill, which led to her not being able to appear at NXT’s homecoming episode earlier this week (as reports have mentioned a possible injury from last week’s match).
Now shifting her attention to Cargill, if Jax could trade appearances with anybody in the division, it would be Jade because she looks incredible, but then mocks her by saying that if Cargill could trade in-ring ability with anybody, it would be her because Cargill could use the training. The fans begin to boo, but Jax says that she is great and fantastic all the way until she has to enter the ring, and then she gets annihilated by her, once again mentioning that she is the most dominant, she is the alpha, and she will annihilate any storm and any “Tiffy Time” any damn time.
Tiffany Stratton then makes her way out to the stage, and the Women’s Champion has some words of her own, telling Jax that the fans are sick of her running her mouth about her, and to quit obsessing and acting like she runs the division because nobody wants her near the title. As for Jade, she can go ahead and take that cape off because she’s not a superhero and is not here to save anything, and since the two of them are so committed to acting delusional, she’s committed to showing both of them why she is the one and only WWE Women’s Champion, and there is nothing they can do or say about it. Now walking down the aisle, several referees try to stop her when Jade Cargill’s music hits.
Cargill immediately strikes two of the referees and marches down the ramp, intending to get back at Nia when some more officials stop her from entering the ring. Nick Aldis comes out, ordering everyone to stop and warning the women of severe consequences if they take another step or throw another punch. He knows that the three of them want to tear each other apart, and he will give them the chance to do that next week because the Women’s Championship will be on the line in a triple threat match.
Wrestlepalooza airs tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on the ESPN app from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana, with the following matches going down:
- AJ Lee and CM Punk vs. Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins
- Women’s World Championship: IYO SKY vs. Stephanie Vaquer
Friday Night SmackDown airs next week from inside the Kia Center in Orlando, Florida. Here is what’s set to take place next week:
- Women’s Championship: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Nia Jax vs. Jade Cargill
- Michin and B-Fab vs. Giulia and Kiana James
As always, make sure to share your thoughts on this week’s edition of SmackDown, plus your Wrestlepalooza predictions, in the comments below.