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Friday Night SmackDown emanated this week from Buffalo, New York inside the KeyBank Center. The Women’s Tag Team Championship remains on the waists of Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill after beating three other teams at Crown Jewel, while doubt continues to cloud the friendship of Women’s Champion Nia Jax and Tiffany Stratton after an attempted Money in the Bank cash-in by Stratton and a loss by Jax to Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan.
Bayley made her way to the ring for the first of two scheduled matches on this week’s show. Facing off against Candice LeRae, problems between the two have been mounting since LeRae pinned Bayley in a tag team match also involving Nia Jax and Naomi three weeks ago. Michael Cole continues to build the underlying story of their feud; with Candice holding animosity against the Role Model going back to their pre-WWE days, Bayley herself saw LeRae as an inspiration and would attend several of her independent shows, believing that she worked just as hard as LeRae did to make it to where she is today, especially as the now-Poison Pixie was the only female wrestling in California at the time.
Meanwhile in the ring, LeRae dominated over Bayley both during and after the commercial break, but a dropkick from the top turnbuckle would be countered by Bayley into a clothesline, leading her to take control of the match. LeRae appeared to slow down a bit after hurting her knee. It quickly turned out that said injury was a ruse to try and roll up Bayley, but LeRae’s roll up was quickly reversed into a victory for Bayley.
Candice was then seen walking backstage, quickly confronted by Tiffany Stratton, who mocked her for her loss and called her win over Bayley three weeks ago a fluke. The Buff Barbie reminds The Poison Pixie that she’ll have to work harder than that to get Nia’s respect. Nia Jax walks into the room, asking her friend if she went to Nick Aldis in order to schedule the match. Stratton responds and says that if they beat them, they would be first in line for a title opportunity and that they would rule the tag team division. Jax hopes that Stratton’s plan works.
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair walked out to take on Nia Jax and Tiffany Stratton. The action would start with Stratton trying to boast to Cargill, but getting hit with a fallaway slam before tagging in Jax, who would make her impact known with a Samoan drop to Cargill before a commercial break.
After the break, Cargill remained overpowered by Jax, but was successfully able to reverse a suplex and sent The Irresistible Force outside the ring and tagging in Belair, who came with a fast-paced flurry of attacks against Stratton. Jax would return to the ring and with Stratton, nearly put Belair away as Cargill broke up the cover in time. Candice LeRae would get involved in the match, pushing The EST off the turnbuckles and infuriating Stratton, who instructed her to get out. Naomi would then arrive onto the scene and start beating on LeRae. The commotion between the two, Jax, and Cargill at ringside helped Belair perform the KOD on this year’s Ms. Money in the Bank for the win.
Finishing off the women’s content this week was a video package from SmackDown general manager Nick Aldis. He says that the women of WWE have broken every glass ceiling, overcome every obstacle, and have proven themselves to be the definition of talent, resilience, athleticism, and even ruthlessness. But above all, they have redefined success for women in professional wrestling. SmackDown is full of world-class female athletes who push themselves to the limit night after night in order to leave a legacy. He unveils a championship belt, revealed to be the Women’s United States Championship. The championship will not be awarded, or handed over, it will be earned by whoever is willing to go above and beyond and seize the moment. Opportunity knocks, and it’s time to answer and make history.
Michael Cole would follow up on this exciting news, revealing that women across both Raw and SmackDown could challenge for the title.
Here’s what’s set to take place next week on Friday Night SmackDown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
WWE Women’s Championship: Nia Jax (c) vs. NaomiShare your thoughts on this week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown in the comments below.
