WWE SmackDown results, highlights (July 11): The Wyatt Sicks win tag-team gold

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Nashville hosted a chaotic night of “WWE SmackDown” on Friday before this weekend’s massive slate of pro wrestling events. Despite all the action taking place down south over the upcoming two-stretch, not every title could fit on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Take the WWE Tag Team titles as Exhibit A.

Super powered

WWE did it. The Wyatt Sicks are the new WWE Tag Team Champions after being booked to be impossible to defeat. In a general sense, The Street Profits absolutely should still be tag-team champions. But WWE booked themselves into the corner where this change had to happen, otherwise the Wyatts would be buried by a single loss.

The match was fine. It was nothing special, especially compared to everything else the division has to offer. Again, this was more about hitting the story beats properly — and now it’ll be a matter of presumably picking off The Wyatt Sicks one by one to dethrone them. There still hasn’t been any explanation for why they would even want to be champions, but hey, this is where we are.

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

Why not set the stage immediately, huh? “WWE SmackDown” cooked right out of the gate with an opening Fatal 4-way match between members of the women’s tag teams competing for the title at WWE Evolution on Sunday. It was Sol Ruca vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Kairi Sane vs. Roxanne Perez. There was no way this could be bad, right? Right. It ruled and was our Uncrowned Gem of the Night.

OK, in all transparency, this was an excellent display for NXT’s Ruca, and not just because she was in the match, but it felt like it was supposed to be a highlight for her. 

It was certainly that and more. Everything she did with any of her three opponents was flawless, and the double Sol-Snatcher was sick. I didn’t love her looking like an idiot at the end when she got distracted by Charlotte Flair and the unnecessary outside scuffle, but that’s just how it goes.

The finish came right after Ruca got done taking care of business, as Sane went for the In-Sane Elbow on Bliss. Flair’s new frenemy countered the dive with a double kick and hit the Sister Abigail DDT for the win. Bliss is just wildly over right now, and if tonight isn’t a launching pad to get gold around her waist again, then WWE is wasting its time with her.

🥴 WTF of the Night

WWE went through a time machine into the early 2010s in Nashville. Where do we even start with this Jelly Roll appearance?

The artist came out midway through the show to start performing. I love music, but this wasn’t for me simply because of the genre, so it began on a missable foot. It was unclear whether this would be part of an angle or if WWE would merely allow a small concert to take place.

Ultimately, it was an angle — maybe? This was a cluster.

Logan Paul, the perfect heat magnet for this moment, came out to disrupt the singalong and lambast Jelly Roll with all the claims that can be made about him as a wrestler. Clout-chasing, not belonging in the ring, saying it was “his world,” etc.

Paul landed a solid roast line, and then a fired-up Randy Orton arrived to verbally unload on Paul, only to get kicked with a Claymore by Drew McIntyre. Paul then continued the assault on Orton, and Jelly Roll grabbed and threw him out of the ring. What?

The McIntyre and Orton element was shoehorned into this purely for Saturday Night’s Main Event “hype,” but it all felt so weird. And it’s setting up for … Paul vs. Jelly Roll? This whole segment served no one.

Now Jelly Roll will be in Orton’s corner against McIntyre. Alright, I guess.

👍 FRIDAY NIGHT FIRE 👍

LA Knight is still as over as ever, but he was part of the first bit of this show’s theme of total randomness. He and Jimmy Uso beat Solo Sikoa and JC Mateo in a tag-team match that was set up by the opening segment. Knight cut a great promo (as always) on Seth Rollins and his boys, which led to a Paul Heyman interruption before Sikoa and his squad followed. I don’t know why, but Uso then came to Knight’s aid before he got attacked by the four Samoans.

The match was fine, and the Knight-Uso duo got along better than I’d have expected. Their win came via a Uso rollup on Sikoa after outside distractions from a returning Heyman, who teased Knight with a call to Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed. This was all the setup needed to help Knight get the win at Saturday Night’s Main Event tomorrow, because Sikoa was pissed at Heyman. We’ll see if that comes to fruition, but either way, it was an interesting way to end “WWE SmackDown.”

🤷 IT HAPPENED 🤷

“WWE SmackDown’s” return to two hours is already suffering from the “cram-in” effect. Similar to the Jelly Roll segment, Trish Stratus and Tiffany Stratton’s segment was almost the exact same thing. (Minus the musical guest element.)

It was essentially a complete copy-and-paste of the infamous Stratton-Flair promo segment before WrestleMania 41. Wade Barrett mediated, and they exchanged playful barbs as if they were never friends the last time we saw them. The Nashville crowd did not react to anything either said before Naomi came out to tease her eventual cash-in. Can you guess what happened within seconds? Yep. Jade Cargill attacked her for a pull-apart brawl on the ramp. No real substance anywhere to be found.

👎 DOWN & OUT 👎

Ron Killings beat Aleister Black in their singles match. That should be a positive, and is without context. However, with context, this doesn’t feel like the right direction to go with Killings after the hot angle WWE had in the palm of its hand with his release saga.

Killings won via a rollup after he brought a chair into the fold, and they each tried to get disqualified by using the weapon. It was a three-minute match at most, and Black angrily tried to attack Killings on their way out of the ring. I guess this is how we get to Damian Priest doing something again, because those two came to blows afterward.

👑 This show was a scattered sprint more than it was a race. Without that Fatal 4-Way to kick things off in the ring, we’d be in rough territory. I give this show a Crown score of: 6/10.👑