Here’s a rundown of what’s in store for SmackDown’s foray onto FS1 tonight! And yes, it’s been pre-empted from FOX due to the ongoing MLB World Series. They’ve tried to counterbalance this with a lot of big names so let’s see what’s on tap!
This show of course is the hardsell for Crown Jewel which will be taking place next week on Halloween night, October 31st. This falls on a Thursday. It appears the plan right now is actually to fly everyone back from Saudi Arabia for SmackDown that next night. I do not envy anything about this schedule. As usual these shows are little else but bad news… but anyway, that’s next week.
For tonight, we got WWE SmackDown! And we have a fair bit to preview.
After it was burned down a week and a half ago, Bray Wyatt will be here with the return of the Firefly Funhouse.
Turns out, it’s a really easy thing to rebuild, given that it’s just a few fake walls! The decision to seemingly write it off on Raw was unsurprisingly met with a poor reception, just as many boos were audible during the segment itself. So yeah, didn’t take too long for it to come back! I’m curious as to whether or not we’ll see a buncha charred puppets, though…
We will see a special episode of MizTV, featuring Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, and the SmackDown-branded members of their assorted teams.
This means Shorty G, Ali and Roman Reigns for Hogan, and King Corbin & Shinsuke Nakamura for Flair. This will inevitably break down into a fight, which should be a solid one.
Nikki Cross will face off with Mandy Rose!
Nikki earned No. 1 Contendership towards Bayley’s SmackDown Women’s title last week, and will be looking to gain further momentum here against one half of Fire & Desire. There’s a non-zero chance that Bayley costs her this win though, wouldn’t shock me in the slightest.
The New Day (comprised of Kofi Kingston and Big E) will be going up against Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode!
Xavier Woods unfortunately has suffered a major injury over the past week. His achilles tendon required surgery and he’ll be out of action for quite a long time, though we may still see him offering his support from time to time. But Kofi and E are now left to fight in his honor in this battle between two former tag title winning tandems.
And the featured segment sees Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez coming face to face.
There’s been much speculation as to whether or not Cain’s ally and mouthpiece Rey Mysterio will be with him on SmackDown, considering that Rey has been drafted to Raw. They even made a note on Raw to point out that while Cain can go wherever he wants right now, Lesnar is exclusive to SmackDown, thus only Heyman could appear. So I think odds are good that Cain’s actually by himself and thus we probably won’t see a whole lot of talking here, atleast not from either of the competitors.
I of course will be giving the blow-by-blow when SmackDown hits air on FS1 in barely over an hour from this writing, so stay tuned!
