Friday Night SmackDown aired this week from the inside the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Team Blue women’s locker room has a new champion to pledge their allegiance to, and that’s the new interim Women’s Champion, Chelsea Green, who beat out four other women in a ladder match at SummerSlam to claim the title.
In other SmackDown-related SummerSlam news, Fatal Influence defeated The Bella Twins and Paige, in which Brie Bella broke her scapula (shoulder blade) and featured Nikki attacking Paige afterwards. What’s next for all of the blue brand Divas coming out of The Biggest Party of The Summer? Let’s get started and find out.
Cathy Kelley interviewed Charlotte Flair to discuss her match with Jade Cargill later on tonight. When asked what it is about Jade that gets under her skin, Flair says that when Jade first arrived to WWE three years ago, they stared face-to-face and she saw strength, presence, and someone who wanted to be the top girl. Tonight, she’s not fighting for her spot to be the top girl, for gold, her legacy, or her career, she is fighting for Alexa Bliss, her best friend who brought her back to life; having to hold Bliss’s daughter a few weeks ago and tell her “Mommy’s gonna be okay”, she says that Jade has her attention now and now she has what she wants: Charlotte’s spotlight, and tonight she’s going to kick Jade’s ass in her spotlight, so she sends her a final warning: two alphas, one ring, and if she’s half the woman that she says she is, she’ll come out alone without The Baddies.
Chelsea Green threw a celebration after winning the WWE Women’s Championship last Saturday at Night One of SummerSlam.
Green began the celebration by addressing the support of her fans, appreciating them for sticking with her from the beginning and pledging their allegiance. Because of each and every person in the crowd cheering tonight, they are a huge part of the reason why she walked out of SummerSlam as their new WWE Women’s Champion.
While she’s thanking the fans, it’s also right that she thanks herself, because she’s also the reason that they’re all here, and lastly, she wants to thank her beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, blonde bombshell of a best friend, Tiffany Stratton, welcoming the Women’s United States Champion out to the ring. Green apologized to Stratton for pushing her off the ladder during the ladder match, but she knows that their friendship is stronger than that. She also mentions that she called her out because she wants to make a toast to strong female friendships.
Stratton says that is actually why she’s out, as she wanted to talk to her about something, but the two are interrupted by Fatal Influence. Jacy Jayne says enough with this “cringey little soap opera” that Chelsea and Tiffany have going on right now. Jayne believes that if it wasn’t for Tiffany, she would have been in that ladder match on Sunday and SHE would be the one standing in the middle of that ring as the WWE Women’s Champion, and the fans all know it.
Lainey Reid adds that all of Fatal Influence would be draped in gold the way that it was always meant to be, but as Fallon Henley notes, instead, we have Chelsea Green, the self-proclaimed “Hot Mess”, out here representing SmackDown; what makes it even worse is she actually thinks she deserves it.
Green is not interested in hearing their words because she wants to celebrate her moment, and Jayne reassures her that they are not there to do so, but since Tiffany took her chance at the title, she leaves her no choice but to take away the the thing she loves the most, the Women’s United States Championship. Claiming that Chelsea destroyed Tiffany’s hopes and dreams of being “Tiffy Two Titles”, she thought to herself, why not put the final nail in the coffin and take the belt, which would make her “Tiffy No Titles”. Stratton says she’ll give Jacy a title match next week, if she gives her and Chelsea a shot at Lainey and Fallon’s Women’s Tag Team Championships tonight. The trio accept, and Jacy calls for a referee.
The match began with Chelsea and Lainey playing for their respective teams before Tiffany and Fallon were tagged in. Henley would hit some vicious strikes to Stratton before commercials, with Fatal Influence taking control over Green during that portion. When the show returned, Green was able to make the tag to Stratton, who hit an Alabama Slam and a Swanton bomb onto Reid, but was attacked by Fallon, who got back into the ring.
Chelsea would throw Fallon out of the ring, and now the legal participant for her team, tried to put Lainey into the Un-Pretty-Her not once, but twice, with Jacy getting involved behind the referee’s back by pulling Stratton off the ring apron. The leader of Fatal Influence soon found herself thrown into the barricade by the Buff Barbie as Fallon hit a baseball slide to Stratton to keep her down and out. Fallon and Lainey would take the dazed Green and executed the Fatal Flaw to win the match and retain the Women’s Tag Team Championships.
After the match, Green and Stratton were attacked by Lash Legend and Nia Jax, the Irresistible Forces, inside the ring. Jax proceeded to leave the ring and grab Chelsea’s Women’s Championship and taunting her by posing and dancing with the belt as she held it up high.
Backstage, Candice LeRae had to continue listening to Sami Zayn complain to her still motionless husband Johnny Gargano about the issues between Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, CM Punk, and Kevin Owens over the WWE Championship. LeRae motioned to Zayn when Punk confronted him; Punk mentioned giving Gargano or her a title shot before Zayn, who he advised to get to the back of line when it comes to title contention. Zayn begins to yell at Johnny when Candice questions why he’s doing so, with The Poison Pixie telling him to calm down.
Elsewhere in the arena, Jade Cargill and The Baddies (B-Fab and Michin) were discussing how Jade already beat up Alexa Bliss when Cathy Kelley walked up to interview them. Mentioning that Jade and Charlotte Flair would square off in the main event, B-Fab rudely cut her off, mentioning that they don’t care or give a damn that about what Charlotte has to say; she would think that with as many times as they put their foot down her throat, she would learn to keep her mouth shut.
Week after week, they have proven that she is nothing compared to Jade, with Michin stating that Charlotte is jealous of Jade because she is everything that Charlotte isn’t: a supermodel, abs of steel, the greatest wrestler of all time. The only thing missing is that beautiful WWE Women’s Championship around her waist. Jade says that this is just business as usual, as she plans on putting an end to the disrespect by simply whooping Charlotte’s ass.
Nikki Bella appeared in a pre-recorded vignette to explain her reasoning for attacking Paige after her and the Bellas lost their six-woman tag team match to Fatal Influence at SummerSlam last Saturday. She says she tried really hard to be supportive of Paige. She had worked hard every week to get to WrestleMania and then it was taken from her in late March when she injured her ankle, so she made a very unselfish call to someone who she thought was a friend in Paige, who went on to make her return to WWE and win the Women’s Tag Team Championship and Brie at WrestleMania in April.
Nikki takes credit for single-handedly reviving Paige’s career, and how does she repay her? By losing the titles and leeching onto Brie every chance she could when Brie deserved better. Nikki did everything she could to return and fight alongside her sister, and yet again, Paige failed them by taking the pin, which for Nikki, was the final straw.
She blames Paige for Brie being hurt and states that because of her, The Bella Twins aren’t together right now, so she is going to make sure that she feels the pain that Brie is feeling. She is going to make sure of whatever career she has left that it is going to be pure misery. She then gets up from her chair and walks off, ending the segment.
The main event between Charlotte Flair and Jade Cargill was underway, with both women starting things off with a stare-down. The two then locked up which briefly spilled into the floor outside the ring. Afterwards, Cargill took Flair down with a shoulder tackle, but Flair got up quickly. Holding Jade in the Queen’s Decree, Cargill was able to push Flair onto the commentary desk and throw her into the timekeeper’s area before commercials. Jade was able to stay in control during the break as she continued to apply whatever she could if it meant keeping Charlotte down.
The match returned from the break with Flair hitting a German suplex onto Cargill, with both ladies now down and out. Charlotte and Jade continued to brawl as they aimed their punches at one another. Able to kick Cargill in the face with a big boot, Flair hit a crossbody that Cargill was able to reverse into a quick, but ultimately unsuccessful pinning attempt. The Storm’s attempt at a jackknife powerbomb was stopped by Flair, who was able to stand up.
Near the end, Cargill hit an avalanche bomb from the top turnbuckle to Flair, which The Queen kicked out of. Now getting angry at Charlotte, Jade and her would slap each other, which turned the tables of the match into a Figure Eight that was only stopped by B-Fab and Michin, who distracted referee Daphanie LaShaunn, who nearly kicked them out before the music of Alexa Bliss blared in the arena to cheers as Bliss made her first appearance on SmackDown in almost a month.
With Bliss bringing the Lilly doll, the lights in the arena soon went out. The lights turned back on to reveal the sight of NXT star Tatum Paxley perched on the turnbuckle. Paxley hit a crossbody to Michin and B-Fab, with the distraction helping Jade fall victim to a Sister Abigail that left her in for a loop. Charlotte would take advantage to hit Natural Selection from the top turnbuckle to win the match.
Joining the already large group of women on SmackDown, Tatum Paxley had been a featured talent on NXT going back to early 2022, in the early days of the 2.0 era. Initially teaming with Raw superstars Ivy Nile and The Creed Brothers as part of the former Diamond Mine stable, Paxley would slowly begin to catch on with audiences when she became the obsessive follower-turned-friend of Lyra Valkyria, even turning her back on the bird lady for a brief time. After going on her own for a while, she joined up with Shotzi and Gigi Dolin for a short period before she was alone once again after the two were released from WWE following WrestleMania 41.
Paxley then found companionship in Izzi Dame and her stable The Culling, led by Shawn Spears, and would finally win the NXT Women’s Championship last October. The title reign was brief as Dame soon turned on her, but Paxley would find herself with gold once again after defeating her for the NXT Women’s North American Championship in March. Paxley then feuded with Blake Monroe afterwards and lost the title to Zaria in June, which now brings us here as we await to see how Tatum fits in – or not, knowing her – with the rest of the SmackDown women’s division.
Friday Night SmackDown airs next week from the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, with the following set to take place:
- Women’s United States Championship: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Jacy Jayne
As always, make sure to share your thoughts on this week’s episode of SmackDown in the comments below.
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