WWE SmackDown recap for October 4, 2019: The Rock and the Man

The first-ever edition of WWE Friday Night SmackDown on FOX saw a major title change, a surprising debut, a new chant for King Corbin and so much more.

This week marked the debut of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX and it was quite the star-studded affair. It wasn’t the perfect show by any means but it was entertaining nevertheless. Plenty of people will be talking about this one going forward and it will be interesting to see the overall reaction of this show over the next several days.

But let’s not waste any more time. Here is your WWE Friday Night SmackDown recap for October 4, 2019.

It’s a McMahon family affair

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that SmackDown on FOX opened with Stephanie and Vince McMahon hyping up the show. The new set is incredibly nice. It really makes the set on Monday Night Raw look pale in comparison. The SmackDown opening video was also very slick and professional looking. It might be one of the best video openings for a WWE show in quite some time.

The Man runs Friday nights if you smell what she’s cooking

The Raw Women’s Champion is the first WWE Superstar to step into the ring on the night. We can’t help but feel her days on the red brand are numbered. FOX has been putting a lot of media and hype behind Lynch and we would be shocked if she’s not part of the blue brand after the draft next week concludes. We therefore believe that Sasha Banks gets the win on Sunday at Hell in a Cell to allow Becky free and clear to travel to SmackDown going forward.

Becky cut a promo running down how much SmackDown means to her and how she wanted to start the show right by having her tag team match, bat but she was interrupted by King Baron Corbin. They had a quick back and forth on the microphone but before anything could happen, out comes The Rock.

The crowd lost their minds, obviously. Rock runs down how he coined the phrase “lay the smack down” which eventually turned SmackDown into a word and a show. He gets some digs in on Corbin saying he looks like a broke Burger King “on crack.”

Corbin looked less than pleased as the Rock did his “Finally the Rock has come back … home!” line that we’ve heard him say throughout the years. Corbin finally cuts him off saying that WWE isn’t his home anymore, that he’s no longer the great one. Corbin says he’s the great one now and the “most electrifying king in sports entertainment.” He tells Rock and Lynch to know their roles and shut their mouths, channeling his inner Rock.

Rock asks Becky if he can take it from here and she obliges. The Rock tells Corbin just because he won King of the Ring it doesn’t make him a real “King.” Various emasculating insults are thrown Corbin’s way, as is typical of The Rock.

Corbin says he’s the King and he will dress and do whatever he wants. He says he’s superior to everyone and that Los Angeles only has one King and it isn’t LeBron James (They are in the Staples Center tonight, the home of the LA Lakers).

The Rock says that Corbin thinks he’s superior to everyone, he asked him if that’s what he thinks. When Corbin tried to answer Lynch quickly retorted telling him that “it doesn’t matter” what he thinks which got another great reaction from the crowd. They were eating this up as the Rock and Lynch share a fist bump in the middle of the ring.

Eventually, the Rock does praise Corbin’s accomplishments, calling him a “badass.” Lynch suggests he should be called a “super tough dude.” And The Rock then asks the crowd to chant that Corbin is an “STD”. Lynch said this nickname would stick with Corbin for life now and she’s probably right.

After this, Corbin had enough and took off his crown and robe to fight, but Lynch and The Rock proceeded to lay the … smackdown … on King Corbin with all of the Rock’s signature moves, which left The Rock and Lynch standing tall, side by side at the end of it all. There were rumors all week that The Rock wanted to work with Lynch, and if so, he got what he wanted. It served as a great moment to kick off a new era for SmackDown.

The Four Horsewomen of WWE collide

Although we had this matchup on Raw about a month ago in Madison Square Garden it stole the show that night and clearly WWE was hoping the women could do the same this week on FOX, as Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair again went up against Sasha Banks and Bayley.

We all know how well these four women know each other and it shows every time they step into the ring together. The crowd was hot for this one from the start; hopefully the crowd can remain loud for the duration of the broadcast.

Unlike what we saw on NXT earlier this week and what we have come to expect from SmackDown Live on Tuesdays, it doesn’t seem like we are going to be getting any picture-in-picture matches during the commercial breaks. So this will feel a lot more like Raw in that aspect going forward.

The match was great and pretty much everything we come to expect from these four women. As the match neared the end, referee Charles Robinson lost all control over the match and things got crazy from there. That all eventually lead to the finish, with Flair getting the submission victory over Bayley with the Figure Eight. At that point, there were only three announced matches for Hell in a Cell on Sunday; now, we have our fourth.

Erin Andrews of FOX Sports interviewed Kofi Kingston and the rest of the New Day in regards to his WWE Championship defense against Brock Lesnar. Kingston says he’s always the underdog and that this is no different than before. It is revealed that Xavier Woods and Big E won’t be at ringside for this title match as Kingston wants to defeat Lesnar on his own. Will he succeed? We will find out later on in the evening.

The Fiend overshadows the Champion versus Champion match

WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins is shown walking backstage before the commercial break and it’s announced that he will go one-on-one with the Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura next.

Once Rollins gets in the ring, and before Nakamura can come out, we have an impromptu edition of the Firefly Fun House with Bray Wyatt and friends. We once again saw Ramblin’ Rabbit die at the hands of Mercy the Buzzard inside a cage that was supposed to resemble Hell in a Cell. If you’re familiar with these segments you either love them or hate them. We fall on the side of the former here — we love the Firefly Fun House here at FanSided.

Once Nakamura finally came out and they started the match it took off in a hurry for the first couple minutes, and that was for a good reason, because it didn’t take long at all for the Fiend to make his presence felt. For some reason when the lights cut out Rollins ran to the entrance ramp while Nakamura remained in the ring.

It didn’t work out well for Rollins as The Fiend attacked him from behind with the Mandible Claw and then tossed him off the stage. The build for the main event on Sunday has been great. Let’s just hope that WWE makes the right call as far as the result goes.

Who’s getting fired?

Up next we have the ladder match between Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon, where the loser will be terminated from WWE. This will obviously go a long way in determining if Owens is on his way to the black and gold brand or not, following in the footsteps of Finn Balor. We should know by the end of this match.

This was your typical kind of match from Shane-O-Mac complete with the diving elbow from the top rope through the commentator’s table and the Coast to Coast. If this ends up being McMahon’s final match in WWE for quite some time, no one can say he didn’t give it his all.

With the well-documented history between KO and McMahon, it was no surprise that Owens knows how to make the boss’ son look like a million dollars. The highlight of the match happened following a commercial break, when Owens hit McMahon with a Frog Splash from the top rope and onto a laid out ladder between the ring apron. McMahon went right through it as the ladder bent like the letter V.

The finish of the match saw KO powerbomb the self-proclaimed “Best in the World” off the ladder and onto another one, leaving Owens free to climb the other ladder and retrieve the briefcase. This means Shane-O-Mac is officially fired. KO told him as such after the match and hit him with a Stunner to send him on his way. We’re sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of McMahon but at least for the time being, he’s gone.

Eight-man tag team action got WWE their SportsCenter moment

There was an interview between Kayla Braxton and Paul Heyman, done essentially just to show the highlights of the beatdown Lesnar gave to Rey Mysterio and his son Dominic(k) on Raw this past Monday night. If this was done as foreshadowing to lead to Mysterio costing Lesnar the match later on tonight that makes sense. If not, it was otherwise pointless.

Up next we see Braun Strowman make his way to the ring for an eight-man tag team contest, teaming with The Miz and Heavy Machinery against AJ Styles, Randy Orton, and the Raw Tag Team Champions, Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler.

This felt out of place but we guess it was done to try and get as many stars on the show tonight as humanly possible. It makes sense; WWE only gets one chance to make a first impression to someone checking out the show for the first time, so they might as well try to feature as many members of the current roster as possible.

Soon enough, the reasoning for this match was explained and WWE got their first of two SportsCenter moments in this one as Strowman had an interaction with boxing champion Tyson Fury who was sitting front row at ringside. After Strowman picked up the win for his team by pinning Ziggler with the running power slam, Fury hopped the rail but was held back by security keeping him outside of the ring as Strowman laughed at him.

Obviously this is a work, but where is it going? Will it lead to a match between these two? Fury is set to show up on Raw on Monday night, which could lead to an answer to these questions.

A Lumberjack match, outta nowhere!

Our next match featured Roman Reigns going one-on-one with Erick Rowan in a lumberjack match. Daniel Bryan joined Michael Cole and Corey Graves on commentary for this, which was likely was just another case of WWE wanting to get as many people on the broadcast as possible. Hence, lumberjacks.

The one spot where Rowan fought off 10 guys by himself including the Viking Raiders really made that tag team, in particular, look really bad. We definitely think that could have been handled better. The match was hard-hitting and it was fine for what it was. The moment when Reigns took flight, landing on Rowan and all of the other lumberjacks, was certainly a sight to behold.

The finish came when Luke Harper showed up and attacked Reigns, leading to the match being thrown out. Bryan left the commentary table and helped the Big Dog get rid of Harper and Rowan and sent them packing. After the match, Bryan offered to shake the Big Dog’s hand and he accepted it. So now we find out on Sunday if Bryan was the mastermind behind the attacks on Reigns all along or if he truly is a face going forward. It will be interesting if nothing else to find out what direction Bryan’s character takes after Sunday.

The Beast against the Underdog Champion — “that’s gotta be … That’s gotta be CAIN!”

We get a tale of the tape between Brock Lesnar and Kofi Kingston before the entrances, giving the match a big fight feel. There are only 11 minutes left in the show, however, with the entrances still underway. The match therefore is not going to last very long, regardless of the outcome.

https://twitter.com/FOXSports/status/1180300725630324736

And brief it was, with it lasting around 10 seconds, as Kingston hopped right into an F-5 for the three count, and now Lesnar is the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion. But the show wasn’t over yet. As Lesnar celebrated in the ring, Rey Mysterio’s music hit, and he didn’t come alone. Oh yes, he brought UFC Legend Cain Velasquez with him, the same man who recorded a TKO victory over Lesnar in the UFC in 2010 and taking his Heavyweight title at the time.

Velasquez has been training to wrestle for a while and recently performed for AAA in Mexico earlier this year. Lesnar looked on in shock as Velasquez did a double leg takedown on The Beast and pounded on him a bit before Lesnar was able to bolt and get out of the ring. He teased coming back several times but chickened out each time.

This is certainly a match that would get FOX excited and we aren’t at all surprised to see WWE take this route to make their new broadcast partners happy. It just would have been nice to see Kofi get in any offense whatsoever before being flattened in a matter of seconds. That was disheartening.

That wraps up the recap for the first-ever episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown on FOX. It was certainly an interesting show that we are sure people are going to be talking about all weekend long.

What did you think of SmackDown this week? What was your favorite match? Are you happy Lesnar is holding WWE gold again? Sound off in the comments section below!