Last week, it was reported that Vince McMahon had made numerous last-minute changes to “SmackDown,” cutting at least three matches from the card. While we didn’t get Baron Corbin vs. Cameron Grimes, the other two matches were apparently delayed rather than canceled, as they both occurred this week — Bayley successfully defended her spot in the women’s Money in the Bank ladder match against Shotzi, and Butch won a triple threat match against Santos Escobar and LA Knight.
To be clear: We didn’t hate the matches themselves, nor did we hate the segments they preceded (in the case of Bayley/Shotzi) or followed (in the case of Butch/Escobar/Knight). Bayley vs. Shotzi was about what we’ve come to expect from a lower-card women’s match, i.e. competently wrestled but too short to leave a lasting impression, and the subsequent cutting of Shotzi’s hair could signify an effort to refresh the character, which she could probably use at this point. The triple threat, meanwhile, was fast-paced and tons of fun, and the Grayson Waller Effect promo parade segment kicked off by Logan Paul was good enough, though we still don’t understand why people are climbing ladders to grab briefcases with nothing in them.
This was all fine, but unfortunately, we had a hard time getting past the fact that these matches were supposed to have happened a week ago, and because of McMahon’s interference, four of the five wrestlers involved now have to wrestle twice in 24 hours. They were probably more than happy to do it, but that doesn’t change the fact that they shouldn’t have had to, and it’s a little weird that Corbin and Grimes, who aren’t wrestling tomorrow, didn’t wrestle tonight either. Add that to the general narrative weirdness of things like the Bayley/Shotzi match not even being acknowledged last week, then suddenly being back on, and it was just hard to get into it with the specter of Vince looming all around.