It’s Wake Up Time – Smackdown Live Recap – October 3, 2017

Our hearts at The Dark Match are quite heavy this week.  Between the ongoing suffering of the people of Puerto Rico, the unspeakable tragedy in Las Vegas and the devastating loss of one of the greatest musicians to ever utter a note, Mr. Tom Petty, we are emotionally drained already, and it’s only Wednesday.  If you’d like to aid in the relief efforts for Puerto Rico, here’s your chance, and we can’t stress enough the importance of donating blood when tragedies like Las Vegas strike.  Find a local donation center and donate as often as you feel like you can.  Also, the “Tom Petty Essentials” playlist on Apple Music is pretty awesome.

But the shows go on, so we must persevere.

Hell in The Cell

The entirety of this Smackdown was about getting us to Sunday night’s PPV, which has a freaking awesome card and I am still seriously considering finding a way to get to Detroit for it.

• Kevin Owens beat the hell out of Shane McMahon, first by luring him into the concourse and powerbombing him through a merch table, then when Shane crawled his way back through the audience, he beat the hell out of him in the ring.  No blood, at least not that I noticed, but he definitely took one hell of an ass kicking.  Generally, the guy that gets his ass kicked on the go-home show gets the win.  If they really want to get KO back to Raw, dropping this match to Shane might be a good way to go about it, but it ain’t going to happen.
• Shinsuke opened the show with an in-ring interview with Renee Young.  The Singh Brothers interrupted him to introduce Jinder, who attacked from behind.  The numbers game once again got the better of “The Artist” and he ate Jinder’s finisher which I won’t ever even attempt to spell because it never looks right.  Rumors think the India tour in December bodes well for Jinder at HiaC, I don’t see any scenario where they can have Shinsuke lose with the concerns regarding the racist comments Jinder made a few weeks back.  Also, does anyone give a shit about the World Championship right now?  Clearly WWE doesn’t, as it doesn’t really even seem like they’re focused on anything but KO and Shane.
• Tye Dillinger got a roll up win over Baron Corbin.  Cheap but I’ll take it.  AJ Styles cut a Titantron promo while an angry Corbin was still in the ring.  That should be a decent match.
• The Usos cut a promo (so naturally I fast forwarded because it never changes).  They were interrupted by The New Day.  While I know the match is going to be epic again, I’m getting really bored here.
• Natalya and Carmella defeated Charlotte and Becky as Charlotte tapped to the Sharpshooter.  Charlotte will most definitely win the women’s championship now.
• Bobby Roode squashed Mike Kanellis.  The match didn’t matter.  The Dolph Ziggler segment that followed went on for entirely too long just for Roode to get the better of the exchange with the “Glorious” chant.
• That teased return of Fashion Files never actually happened, but we’ll get a special edition (and hopefully some sort of answers) at HiaC.
• Randy Orton made quick work of Aiden English with the RKO.  Rusev thought about sliding in for an attack post match, but Orton went down into Viper stance and RuRu retreated.

It wasn’t a bad show.  It’s definitely telling though that aside from the World Heavyweight Championship match, they didn’t even really have to do much hyping to get us excited for this card on Sunday.  I’m beyond thrilled to see New Day-Usos inside a cell because that match at Summerslam will most likely be in my top 5 for the year.  Charlotte being back was enough to keep me excited in the women’s division, but you’ve also got the potential for Carmella to cash in.  For all the bad about Baron Corbin, he’s talented in the ring, and AJ Styles will get even better out of him on Sunday.  I’m excited, are you?