Roman Reigns may be the man in WWE and the cornerstone of the entire company, but that also comes with the responsibility of knowing that it means the company is flourishing and all of the other superstars are doing their part very effectively if Roman does not need to be used as much as the primary focal point of the show. That was the case on this episode of SmackDown as some Roman Reigns was definitely sprinkled in and he did his thing – being crowned The Tribal Chief and all – but other superstars were highlighted for most of the two hours so Reigns ’presence was not too heavily relied upon.
This also makes perfect sense for Kevin Owens and his character direction because he’s a perfect example of the phenomenon I am talking about that occurred in 2002 when WWE was transitioning from The Attitude Era to The Ruthless Aggression Era. People like Triple H and The Undertaker were heavily relied upon to carry the company in its time of struggle. Fortunately, John Cena emerged as the man in WWE for about the next decade plus.
Back to this edition of SmackDown – it was a great night of in-ring action, with great matches at the end of the night in the main event and to open the show. Let’s start with the latter, as the night was kicked off with Roman Reigns giving Jey Uso another Universal Championship match at Hell in a Cell. AJ Styles would subsequently enter, claiming that Jey had not earned another title match and so would give it to someone who has – AJ. Jey went on to defeat Styles, cementing his position at the top of the card for right now – he has genuinely earned that spot.
A match between Roman Reigns and The Fiend is the endgame for Roman’s Universal Title run – The Big Dog’s fifth world title overall. This will not happen for several months – most likely at WrestleMania 37 (where there can hopefully be fans in attendance), and in the meantime, it looks like The Fiend will be busy embroiled in a feud with Kevin Owens (this means Kevin Owens will need to be drafted to SmackDown next week as part of the WWE draft).
He has engaged mostly in other people’s storylines over the past several months since defeating Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 36. This will give Owens something to sink his teeth into – there is also another layer to the story with the possessed Alexa Bliss.
Because Jeff Hardy lost an Intercontinental Championship rematch to Sami Zayn, Hardy has lost nearly all momentum in that particular storyline so it might be time for him to move on to a bigger title such as the Universal Championship. Right now there are two men who are most likely going to challenge Roman Reigns for SmackDown’s top prize (after Jey Uso of course) which are AJ Styles in the Jeff Hardy. No one, however, stands a chance of taking the Universal Title off of The Tribal Chief, except, maybe The Fiend.
Styles is simply one of the best wrestlers of this or any other generation – plus he has a little bit of history with Roman being back to 2016. WWE is very keen on keeping the push of Jeff Hardy going to keep him happy with WWE and so he doesn’t get the inclination to join his brother Matt in AEW. Jeff will also debut his entrance music from 2009 during his most recent singles run with the company “No More Words.”
Bruce Prichard did an excellent job of orchestrating SmackDown so the events at the end of the program could be traced back to what occurred at the beginning – which is the ultimate goal of every great movie or TV show. This episode featured an outstanding thread of continuity.