Ahead of tonight’s SmackDown event, professional wrestling changed dramatically when Vince McMahon announced his retirement from WWE. The alleged hush money and non-disclosure agreements involving sexual abuse lawsuits and the wrestler scandals have been investigated by the media since October.
Following McMahon’s retirement, Brock Lesnar left the arena and wouldn’t be involved in the show. WWE then removed Brock Lesnar from all advertisements for the show.
However, Lesnar finally showed up, ending Summerslam with his match. With the winner of that match at this point yet to be announced, and the brand split looming large in August with rebranded WWE, SummerSlam is only getting more and more uncertain.
Brock Lesnar wrecks Austin Theory amid controversy
The Usos and Theory went after The Street Profits. They started the match off, as Stephanie McMahon laid out an opening promo. Soon enough, The Usos had taken control of the match before it escalated into a brawl between all six competitors. This led to a six-man tag match for the main event in which Vic Vega stepped in for The Street Profits and evened the odds against them with a win over The Usos and Theory respectively. Afterwards, Paul Heyman turned his attention to the Uso brothers, stating that they needed to make sure that their job was done; they were here just to take out Theory while their partner watched on.
The Street Profits & Madcap Moss wished they could defeat two WWE superstars known as The Usos with their Money in the Bank briefcase, only to be disqualified when the SmackDown superstar “The Theory” used it to attack one of them. After The Usos had hit Atmosis multiple times with the briefcase, Brock Lesnar’s music hit and he arrived to the ring. He circled it, stared down his challenger and readied to hit him with an F-5 before bringing all of his might behind a square-eyed powerbomb stunt on top of The Theory’s midsection and then busting him back in his face with a quick flurry of strikes. Finally, Lesnar tackled him by suplexing him onto the case, slamming it open-faced on him a few times before finishing him off with an devastating F5 that dropped him dead on top of the case.
What happened on WWE SmackDown?
Stephanie McMahon opened the show briefly discussing her father’s retirement before leading the crowd in a chant of “Thank you, Vince”
In response to Gunther striking Nakamura, the referee no-sells it, which allows Kaiser to hit the DDT and win.
Morgan and Rousey had a brief exchange backstage in which both said they would win, because of their respective shows, Morgan’s SmackDown title match. The two argued over who had more passion.
Happy Corbin attacked Pat McAfee. McAfee chased Corbin backstage before being separated by WWE officials.
With the help of their newly added ally, The Viking Raiders were able to defeat Jinder Mahal and Shamshark. With New Day at ringside, they were able to do more outside of the ring, leaving them both on a 10-count.
Sheamus announced to the chagrined Drew McIntyre that their match next Friday, which will be without disqualification or count-outs, will feature Irish weapons.
Raquel Rodriguez def. Sonya Deville via pinfall after a One-armed powerbomb
After Lacey Evans hit Aliyah with a cheap shot, the WWE diva walked away from the match with no rematch in sight.
