Nothing screams “go-home show” like an assault on the commentary team. That’s how “WWE SmackDown” in Toledo, Ohio began, getting fans prepared for what’s to come tomorrow night at Wrestlepalooza.

Lesnar = Gunther?

OK, that comparison admittedly isn’t the fairest. At least Gunther had a reason to attack Michael Cole and Pat McAfee after his loss to Jey Uso at WrestleMania. On this “SmackDown,” Brock Lesnar attacked Cole and Corey Graves because … well, he wanted to, I guess.

Cole was “supposed to” interview Lesnar backstage later in the night, before he was told Lesnar wanted to do the interview now. As a result, the former world champion waltzed his way down the ramp to pick up Cole and throw him into the ring. Graves attempted to make the save and took two perfectly sold F-5s as Cole quite literally disappeared. He was just gone.

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Sheesh. McAfee sure is lucky his co-worker cared about him so much during their squabbles earlier this year.

Overall, this was just another empty, substanceless “Lesnar is a monster” segment. You know that thing everybody in the entire world is aware of? Yeah, let’s just remind you without any reasoning for his actions. Lesnar yelled into the camera that he’s coming for John Cena tomorrow, but that’s it.

There’s nothing particularly interesting about this Cena vs. Lesnar program beyond its relevance and addition to their history. However, Lesnar’s post-beatdown tease was where the fishing line was thrown out, as he ran into Paul Heyman on his way out.

Listen, if Lesnar joined The Vision, it would obviously be insane for a variety of reasons. It would be almost the exact same thing as Bronson Reed’s alliance with Seth Rollins, considering Lesnar’s history with the World Heavyweight Champion. Therefore, pretty illogical, especially for someone like Lesnar. At the same time, given Lesnar’s involvement in all these Heyman extensions, that might be the most interesting route to take.

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Cole hilariously tried to sell his helplessness afterward, proclaiming he isn’t sure Cena could have the answer to Lesnar. … Because it’s not like Cole and Graves are commentators or anything, right?

🧠 IQ of the Night

A smart heel is the best heel, and that’s what Drew McIntyre has become.

WWE contract signings can’t end with peace, and more often than not, that’s fine. This was a unique case, though. McIntyre was the expected initiator, but once he had Cody Rhodes where he wanted him, for another Claymore Kick into the announce table, he refrained.

The move was the reason Rhodes was written off for the handful of weeks that he was, so in-story, McIntyre knew he was about to cost himself his title match if he did it again. That all would have come after he thanked Rhodes for giving him a nice, fair title opportunity, unlike the times he was screwed in recent opportunities. Along with Rhodes’ callback to their tag team title win 15 years ago, it was a pretty great and quick main event segment.

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Despite McIntyre’s restraint, he did land a super believable-looking stomp to the champion’s dome.

We’ll talk about this momentarily, but this is another one of those cases where I really like the title changing hands after this. The match was revealed to be the main event tomorrow night, and a McIntyre win would feel like a good, massive moment, considering the ESPN era kickoff nature of Wrestlepalooza. Let him shine and become the ultrawise supervillain everyone knows he can be.

Zero

… Is the number of people who want to see Nia Jax involved with Tiffany Stratton and or Jade Cargill.

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What makes this whole feud revisit and Jax’s shoehorning into the title picture even worse is the fact that WWE knows no one wants this, as indicated by Stratton saying, “No one wants you near this title.”

It’s all a colossal troll job. That’s entirely how Jax’s promo felt, too.

The former champion annoyingly mocked Stratton, calling her annoying. She claimed to be the most dominant “alpha female” on the roster, despite losing to both the wrestlers she attacked last week. Regardless, she’s now just been gifted a title shot in a triple threat match with the two on the next “SmackDown.”

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Faithful Uncrowned readers know I love triple threat matches. But I cannot express to you how massive a bucket of (expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive and another expletive) this is. I implore all “SmackDown” viewers to change the channel anytime Jax appears until WWE decides to try with this title scene. That’s right. Don’t even watch the match show next week.

That’s why I’m here watching for you, after all.

Let me make this clear, not to end on the most sour note imaginable. This isn’t a Jax problem. Although she’s been booked too strongly at times, she’s improved tremendously over the years. It’s a lazy booking issue with a lack of contender variety. No matter how good Jax has been since she held the title, or when she did, we’ve seen these pairings to death, and there’s nothing new coming out of them, and everyone involved is suffering from it.

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Anyway, as for the real guaranteed goodness of the week.

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

WWE just decides to cook whenever backed into a corner, which means an open challenge for a title. That’s what’s happening with the U.S. Championship, and Sami Zayn is a great torch carrier. This week, he was challenged by Carmelo Hayes.

I mean, what do you want from me? The match was an absolute blast, and Zayn stunningly scored the pin with the Blue Thunder Bomb after a kick (not quite the Helluva) in the middle of the ring as a counter. A nice, rare and creative finish. More Blue Thunder Bomb pins, please.

There is one problem with this concept, however. It never feels like the challenger has a real chance of winning, and it would be nice to see a surprise upset once. Hayes would have been a good guy to do it with, and even though there’s been no indication to believe it could have happened, I sold myself a very wishful ticket. Hot potato a title in situations like this. There’s nothing wrong with that under the right circumstances.

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🔨 Demolition of the Night

Nick Aldis does not care about any damage caused to your venue’s locker room.

Damian Priest’s feud with Aleister Black simply won’t die, and that’s whatever. But it’s leading Priest to a more unhinged version of himself, which is probably best for him right now. And as a result, we saw Elton Prince very casually thrown through a wall. Classic.

👍 FRIDAY NIGHT FIRE 👍

1. The Miz replaced Graves on commentary, and while he was maybe a bit too over the top for me at times, it was nice to hear a fresh, new voice on commentary. He wasn’t bad.

2. Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss (rightfully) defended their Women’s Tag Team titles against The Secret Hervice, earning the win off a double Natural Selection. That finish, honestly, felt incredibly weak from a kayfabe standpoint. But that’s what I’ve been saying about The Secret Hervice this whole time: They’ve been way too poorly booked ever to be considered a threat, and no one with eyes has taken them seriously.

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On another note, Chelsea Green and Alba Fyre are a much better team than the Piper Niven and Fyre combo. And because of that, they made a decent match out of the time given.

3. The Vision beat Fraxiom clean when Reed hit a Tsunami on Nathan Frazier. This was a random match no one could have predicted, but it was unsurprisingly fun, because Fraxiom rules. Put those dudes in a ring with Bron Breakker, and chaos is guaranteed. It was a fun time.

👎 DOWN & OUT 👎

1. WWE literally did two commercial segments for ESPN and Wrestlepalooza with R-Truth, Los Garza, Motor City Machine Guns and Rey Fenix. The man really cut his hair for this.

👑 This show was carried by Zayn vs. Hayes. I give this show a Crown score of: 5/10. 👑