WWE SmackDown Live recap: King of the World

On SmackDown Live this week, we learn who will face Baron Corbin in the King of the Ring finals and Kevin Owens gets the classic McMahon treatment.

Like Monday Night Raw the night before with Stone Cold Steve Austin, WWE brought out a Legend for their Madison Square Garden stand. The Undertaker opened SmackDown Live on Tuesday. He’s here to recount his WWE history at MSG over the past 30 years. It’s his home and he doesn’t know how often he’ll be able to come home moving forward, he says. He wants us all to remember, however, how Madison Square Garden moments created such Legends, as himself, out of WWE Superstars.

But now, it’s time for a new era of Superstars, says ‘Taker. Enter: Sami Zayn. The Undertaker is very “huh what?” about it all, even though if anyone on the roster would roll out, be bratty and believe they were the very same “future of WWE” Undertaker was talking about it would be Zayn. To Undertaker’s credit, he is undead and Zayn’s character has undergone so many augmentations, so it’s fair if he can’t keep up with the show.

Zayn puts over Undertaker’s Madison Square Garden longevity and says he completely respects him. But — there always is one with Zayn — he doesn’t think that ‘Taker should be opening the show tonight and does a Dolph Ziggler-esque “should have been me” monologue, says that we’ve had enough of The Undertaker and that Zayn himself is indeed the future of the business (for which Undertaker must get out of the way). But he’s not here to take out Undertaker, he’s here to ask Undertaker to willfully leave the ring, The fans are not happy.

‘Taker goes to leave — even exits the ropes — before inevitably changing his mind. Zayn is choke slammed (to Hell) and peacefully rests.

Meanwhile, the night’s major storyline involves Shane McMahon, fresh off of jury duty and ready to be the center of attention. Backstage, McMahon talked with Chad Gable, who was set for a King of the Ring semifinal match against Elias on the night, but Elias has a broken ankle and can no longer compete. Gable believes he has a bye and will go on to the final automatically. But McMahon is insistent that Gable will indeed have to earn his way — he hasn’t figured out the opponent, it could be from Raw or SmackDown, it could be someone already eliminated in the KOTR tournament.

We’ll all find out later (that it’s McMahon).

And yep, it’s McMahon. It was always going to be McMahon. Great. He’s also recruited Kevin Owens as his special guest referee. Owens is not about this life but he also has no choice. Remember when he was defying and attacking McMahon and very much had a spine? Maybe we can recapture those glory days sometime soon. For now, he’s under McMahon’s thumb, afraid of jeopardizing his family’s financial stability.

Gable versus McMahon’s King of the Ring semifinal with Owens as referee thus is the main event. Gable squashed McMahon quickly, and such McMahon decides to make it a two-out-of-three falls match. A dejected Owens looks on as McMahon sneak attacks Gable from behind, smashes his head into the announce table and throws him into the timekeeper’s area.

Owens then dawdles on a backslide pin, costing Gable the second fall. He also gave a quick count in McMahon’s favor, though it didn’t result in a pinfall. Gable then connected on a pair of spinning neck breakers and a moonsault; Owens slow-counts it, again costing Gable the fall and the match. McMahon tries to introduce a chair, but Owens removes it, doing the one thing that equates to following the rules in an untenable situation as referee. Gable then locked McMahon into an ankle lock, McMahon taps and there’s nothing for Owens to do regarding its outcome.

So yes — Gable will be facing Baron Corbin at the King of the Ring final at … Clash of Champions … nope! It’s been moved to Raw next Monday, the casualty of a pay-per-view that was initially booked with too many matches.

But whew —  McMahon won’t be “King of the World” or whatever dumb nickname he’d give himself.

Post-match, among “you tapped out” chants, Owens emphasizes to McMahon he did all he could in his favor. McMahon attacks Owens for the effort and then fires (“fires”) him.

In the night’s other action, The Miz faced Andrade, and Shinsuke Nakamura, the Intercontinental Champion and The Miz’s Clash of Champions opponent, sat in on commentary and spoke solely in Japanese (Corey Graves acted as translator, or more likely, “translator”). Andrade had the upper hand as we cut to the picture-in-picture commercial break.

Once back from commercial, The Miz got the upper hand, but that also led to the action heading outside of the ring in front of Nakamura at the announce table. Nakamura attempted a confrontation, but Miz threw Andrade into Nakamura to neutralize him. Andrade recovered and capitalized quickly on Miz’s temporary distraction.

A botched finishing sequence followed (too bad, what it seemed to be would have been cool, moonsault, standing moonsault, Skull Crushing Finale counter for the win) but Miz managed to secure the win with Skull Crushing Finale regardless. Nakamura quickly hit the ring and connected with a Kinshasa, not surprising.

Mandy Rose came out to cut a promo on Nikki Cross, saying that she finds her ugly and embarrassing. This promo is ugly and embarrassing and it should never have taken place; there are other ways to build this tag team feud and even to advance that Rose is shallow and self-obsessed without this dreck.

Cross runs out and attacks Rose in what is apparently a singles match ahead of Rose and Sonya Deville challenging for Cross’ and Alexa Bliss’ WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship on Sunday. Cross wins, as she should.

Ember Moon confronts Bayley about her claims to allegedly care about elevating the women’s division while also attacking Becky Lynch. Bayley claims she hasn’t changed and that it’s not Sasha Banks’ influence that has caused the change in tactics; she is here to elevate the women’s division and her SmackDown Women’s Championship. Moon isn’t buying it, saying that Bayley is just scrambling for a way to get attention, because Lynch is so popular and Banks has returned, also overshadowing her. The two will have a match to help settle their differences.

Charlotte Flair, who is challenging Bayley for said championship, sits in on commentary for this one. Bayley takes control early and through the picture-in-picture commercial break. Per usual, the momentum swung Moon’s way briefly after the break, but Bayley rebounded quickly to win with a Bayley to Belly. Flair then confronts Bayley in the ring; the two, though, do not come to blows (Flair is in a white shorts suit and a great pair of heels, so good choice).

Heavy Machinery face Alex Keaton and Johnny Silver, a/k/a local talent, a/k/a indie wrestling’s Beaver Boys (who in indie canon have split up), following fueling up with a smoothie. Obviously, Heavy Machinery win, but hey: congrats to Alex Reynolds and John Silver for getting a WWE match in Madison Square Garden!

Erick Rowan comes to the ring to explain his actions regarding his attacks on Roman Reigns. He again reiterates that he’s no longer a puppet acting on others’ orders and that he himself is a mastermind, a manipulator and a schemer not just “a big brute.” This is interrupted by Reigns, who attacks Rowan.

The two battle outside of the ring, in the crowd and back to the barricade. Security tries to break it up but Reigns manages yet another Superman Punch and Rowan grabs a “fan” and tosses him onto Reigns and security.

They fight all the way up the ramp, culminating in Rowan throwing a jib camera into Reigns. Yes, these two will also meet at Clash of Champions on Sunday. Backstage, Rowan cannot stop saying “Roman” repeatedly, for what it’s worth.

Kofi Kingston is here to reflect on his 10-year career at historic Madison Square Garden. He also has a match on Sunday, defending his WWE Championship against Randy Orton, who, along with The Revival, have repeatedly attacked Kingston and taken out his New Day teammates Big E and Xavier Woods over the past few weeks.

Kingston says that it was in MSG that his WWE career “changed forever,” where he chose to step up to Orton years ago to prove that he belongs, putting Orton through a table in the process. Orton comes out, calling Kingston “stupid” yet again and details his own accomplishments and then says that he’s going to win on Sunday. He also calls Kingston a phony. This leads to a brawl.

It’s a pretty brutal one at that, which makes sense given how personal this feud has gotten (and its 10-year history). Kingston alighted the second-level railing and leg-dropped onto Orton, who was laying on a table, a call back to the MSG match 10 years prior that Kingston referenced earlier.

With Kingston standing tall in the Clash of Champions go-home show, maybe his fantastic reign as WWE Champion ends Sunday. That would be a shame, but if FOX wants Orton as WWE Champion when SmackDown moves networks in a few weeks, they get what they want. Money talks. But Kingston is also money, so keep that in mind.

What did you think of SmackDown Live this week? Where will we see Owens next (or NXT, if you get his Twitter drift)? Are you relieved that Shane McMahon isn’t in the King of the Ring finals? Let us know in the comments below.