WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER 7/30: Prince Wants a Seat at Table

SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…

WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER
JULY 30, 2021
MINNEAPOLIS, MN. AT THE TARGET CENTER
AIRS ON FOX NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Michael Cole and Pat McAfee

Match Results, Key Segments and Exclusives from Last Week

• John Cena returned to Smackdown and officially challenged Roman Reigns to a Universal Championship match at SummerSlam. Paul Heyman said Reigns would answer his challenge later in the evening, and mimicked Cena’s entrance theme.
• Finn Balor defeated Sami Zayn.
• Baron Corbin said the webmaster he used to set up his crowd funding website ghosted him and stole his identity. Later, Kevin Owens gave him some money, but it was immediately taken by Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode after an attack.
• Big E talked about winning Money in the Bank during a promo but was interrupted by Intercontinental Champion Apollo Crew & Commander Azeez, followed by Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode, followed by Rick Boogs & King Nakamura, and then a brawl broke out.
• Angelo Dawkins (w/Montez Ford) defeated Chad Gable (w/Otis) in the Rolling Loud Festival setting.
• Bianca Belair defeated Carmella to retain the Smackdown Women’s Champion, also in Rolling Loud.
• Edge talked about fighting to get back to wrestling and Seth Rollins costing him the Universal Championship. Seth later came out; they talked about their history and broke out in a brawl.
• Dominik Mysterio (w/Rey) defeated Jimmy Uso (w/Jey).
• Roman Reigns declined John Cena’s challenge at SummerSlam. Finna Balor then came out to challenge Roman, and he accepted.

Arena

As we continue to return to arenas with fans, Smackdown returns to the Target Center in Minneapolis, MN. for the first time since November of 2018. The 2019 edition of TLC appeared in this building as well. It opened for business in October of 1990 and is the home of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. WWE has a hype video out talking about Roman Reigns shifting his focus to Finn Balor:

WWE does not have any matches or segments advertised as of this posting, which is around 3:00 p.m. EDT. They just have the aforementioned video talking about Reigns focusing on the Finn Balor challenge.

Frank’s Analysis: If WWE didn’t persistently wait until the last minute to advertise matches and segments, I’d chalk it up to potential injuries or travel issues or other situations that may have them having to shuffle at the last minute. They haven’t earned my trust. That said, it’ll be interesting to see if they do the Balor vs. Reigns match tonight or build it up to another episode of Smackdown. I still anticipate it will be Reigns vs. John Cena for SummerSlam, but you never know, right?

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Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!