WWE SmackDown 10/27/2023: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show where John Cena is still just hanging out and getting throat-spiked while he waits for the SAG-AFTRA strike to end! There was a lot going on Friday night — "SmackDown" delivered some good matches and some great promos, added to the Crown Jewel card, and even taped a second episode for next week. We can't go over everything that went down, of course, because that's why we put together our live coverage/results page, but we're always here after the show to comment on certain things we enjoyed, or didn't.

So what did the WINC writers and editors (or, in this case, one of each, because we had a lot of people out today) think about the LA Knight/Roman Reigns contract signing? Were we swept away by Paul Heyman's promo skills or dazzled by Dragon Lee? Most importantly, did Kevin Owens really hit two faces with one punch? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 10/27/23 episode of "WWE SmackDown."

Obviously I didn't love LA Knight in either his contract signing segment or his match Friday night, because I am not an LA Knight, but instead of talking about him again, I want to talk about somebody I am a fan of: Roman Reigns. For all that I don't understand the big deal about Knight, I figured at the very least, once Roman got actively involved in this feud, it would pick up, because he would raise the bar. Unfortunately, there's not really anything in this feud for him to sink his teeth into as a performer, and he basically punted on his part of the contract signing. Which is disappointing, but also understandable considering how long it's been since Roman has had to have just a regular feud with The Guy Who's Hot Right Now.

Here are Roman Reigns' televised matches over the last calendar year:

• Jey Uso at SummerSlam 2023
• Jimmy and Jey Uso at Money in the Bank 2023 (tag match with Solo Sikoa)
• Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at Night of Champions 2023 (tag match with Solo Sikoa)
• Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 39
• Sami Zayn at Elimination Chamber 2023
• Kevin Owens at Royal Rumble 2023
• John Cena and Kevin Owens on "SmackDown" (tag match with Sami Zayn)
• Men's WarGames match at Survivor Series 2022
• Logal Paul at Crown Jewel 2022

That's an entire year where Reigns has been pretty much exclusively feuding with The Usos, Zayn, Owens, and Cody Rhodes. Even the Logan Paul feud leading up to last year's Crown Jewel was more about the stuff going on in The Bloodline between Sami and Jey. And with the two of them out, Jimmy Uso currently serving in a sort of dumb, lovable, football verbiage-quoting henchman type role, and Sikoa doing something else with John Cena, this is the first feud in years where Roman doesn't even have The Bloodline to play off. It's just him and Knight, and the story is "Knight is confident but Reigns is also confident," and there's just nothing there. At this point, when the feud isn't personal and Reigns isn't able to perform in the style he's best at, it almost just feels like a waste of his time.

First off, before I dissect the end of the match, let me just say that I am so happy to see that The Street Profits have finally gotten some new music after being aligned for Bobby Lashley for quite some time. Given that there was not a super distinguishable difference between their old and new characters up until this point, it's nice to finally see a big change.

That having been said, I was not a big fan of the way their match with Carlito and Santos Escobar ended. Carlito replaced Rey Mysterio at the last second, and Rey opted to watch the action from backstage. While he was doing that, Logan Paul blindsided Rey from behind, and Carlito ran to the back to help him, leaving his partner alone in the ring. This opened the door for The Profits to hit the sit out powerbomb-neckbreaker combination on Escobar and pick up the win.

I am all for WWE having Paul attack Rey as a means of creating build for their United States Championship match at Crown Jewel, but I think there was a much better way to go about it. I don't see a point in Rey being pulled from the match, as Paul could've just attacked him in the ring to cause a disqualification or even simply just cost LWO the match. If they were adamant about Rey not competing, then the other members of LWO could've checked on Rey instead of Carlito just up and leaving or one of them could've even taken his place in the match.

I understand the whole point of what they did, I just think it was handled in an illogical way.

I almost don't know what else to say about this other than "it ruled, you should watch it if you haven't already seen it." I know it was just a backstage segment, and not even a particularly long one, but it was seriously one of the highlights of what was honestly a pretty decent episode of "SmackDown." How can you not love a confrontation between Kevin Owens and A-Town Down Under in which Owens irrationally insists that yes, he actually could punch both Theory and Waller in the face at the same time, with a single punch, they argue that no, he clearly could not do that, that's impossible, he gets taken off camera by an interceding Jamie Noble (who incidentally agrees that he could do it) then runs back into frame and punches both of them in the face and the same time with a single punch.

Amazing. 10/10. I hope he starts doing that move regularly in matches like he's MJF or something.

And hey, Jamie Noble got a line of dialogue on a WWE show! I don't think that's happened since the days when Seth Rollins was ordering him and Joey Mercury around. Also, nothing beats Owens' delighted post-punch cries of "Jamie! Jamie, I did it!"

WWE has a lot of underrated performers on their roster, and Cedric Alexander is one of the best of the bunch. During his last match on the October 2 episode of "Raw", whilst he looked great in the ring, he lost to Bronson Reed clean in just over two minutes. Needless to say, it was really nice to see him get significantly more time (and offense) on Friday night's episode of "SmackDown" and showcase what he can do in the ring with Dragon Lee.

It seemed pretty clear from the get-go that Lee would be the one to emerge as the victor, but I didn't really even care much about knowing the outcome because both men gave it their all in the ring, putting on a fantastic and enjoyable match. Things ultimately came to a close when Lee delivered a double stomp off the top rope before delivering an inverted DDT.

I ended up liking the Cena/Heyman promo as much as anyone, because it was great, but I'm giving a "hated" to the stuff Cena was doing on the mic before Heyman came out. And it's not even because Cena was bad — he was actually pretty good. He talked about how he was getting older and how he might not have what it takes to win a singles match anymore, and when the crowd chanted "You still got it," he tremulously responds, "What if I don't?" Because he's an ACTOR now, DAMMIT.

Now, because I am the parent of a four-year-old and a two-year-old, both of whom love all things with wheels, my first thought at this point was "Oh, he's doing Lightning McQueen in Cars 3." It's the story of a great athlete who's gotten too old to compete with the up-and-coming generation, which is basically the scenario Cena is afraid of. The problem is, I know they're going to mess up the ending.

Not to spoil a movie that came out in 2017, but Cars 3 ends not with Lightning winning the big race himself, but with him helping his younger protégé win it, accepting the arrival of the new generation and his own status as "no longer the best" while still remaining part of the world he loves. I can't see any such nuanced storytelling in Cena's future. The more he insisted that he had to win at Crown Jewel, the more sure I became that he is actually going to win, and that's just kind of a bummer, because Solo Sikoa could really use that rub. Isn't that what Cena should be doing at this point in his career — lying down for the next generation? The best idea, to me, would be to structure the match around a bunch of big Cena hope spots, making him look like he can hang with Sikoa and teasing a Cena win over and over, only to have Cena's body finally fail him against the younger Sikoa, who wins a hard-fought contest. I think that would have both guys come out looking strong given this storyline.

But I don't think that, or anything like that, is going to happen. I think Cena wins. Lol.

I have all the respect in the world for John Cena, but the second he came down to the ring tonight, I was ready to hate whatever it was that was about to come out of his mouth. Despite him getting cheered in every city he goes to, I've gotten pretty tired of hearing the same spiel he's given for the last few weeks now, and I prepared for ten minutes of him doing just that. Things weren't looking good when the segment started off that way, and I figured I was right.

That was, until Paul Heyman showed up to interrupt him.

Heyman voiced his respect for Cena and his ability to connect and communicate with fans before telling Cena that he would be unable to do so after Solo Sikoa landed a Samoan Spike on him in their match at Crown Jewel. I quickly took back everything I had thought about where things were headed, and ended up loving the exchange between the two. And as if that wasn't enough, the cherry on top was having Sikoa attack Cena from out of nowhere and hit a Samoan Spike on him just to prove Heyman's point.