SmackDown Results and Recap: Assault and Batter

Kimberly Schueler
The Miz distracts Daniel Bryan during his match with Shelton Benjamin.

The October 2, 2018 episode of WWE SmackDown Live—the last one before the Super Show-Down in Australia—included more fallout from the Rusev Day breakup, a surprise presentation from Becky Lynch, and Daniel Bryan vs. Shelton Benjamin.


The episode opened with SmackDown General Manager Paige addressing the situation between Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, as she showed the clip of the suspenseful ending to last week’s show and revealed that the Styles family was fine.

Her decision that Joe should be fired from WWE was met with boos and “No” chants from the audience, but they weren’t the only ones: Paige said that Styles also didn’t think that Joe should be fired, as he had vowed to deliver justice to the Samoan Submission Machine at his own hands at the Super Show-Down. She showed a video from the WWE Champion in which he apologized for not being able to be on the show and swore to “bury [Joe] alive” in Australia.

The Mixed Match Challenge team of Carmella and R-Truth (the Fabulous Truth) faced Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega in a mixed tag match. The teams exchanged taunts and blows, and things got inter-gender when Almas broke up a pin from Carmella to Vega, as he then caught her retaliatory superkick. Truth helped his partner out by punching El Idolo in the face. While the men brawled outside the ring, Carmella won the match by submitting Vega with the Code of Silence.

Backstage, Tye Dillinger told Paige he wanted a match with Randy Orton to get revenge for the Viper’s ambush last week. Paige tried to discourage him, but eventually gave in and granted him the match for later that night.

Dillinger really brought it to Orton in their match and even gave him a taste of his extra-legal medicine by taking things outside of the ring. But things took a turn for the sadistic when Orton trapped one of Dillinger’s fingers in a buckle on the ring ropes and tortured the digit. When the refs were finally able to call him off, Orton looked very pleased with his handiwork. 

The New Day entered the ring for what Big E called the pilot episode of “New Day Cooks.” (Hey, if Up Up Down Down works…) Kingston said the team needed a strong dose of positivity before their tag title defense in Australia and introduced their chef, Mr. Bootyworth, who makes their pancakes.

Just as Bootyworth was about to share the recipe with the WWE universe, the Bar entered the arena. Sheamus criticized the New Day for acting like children before their big match and a fight soon broke out between the teams that included Sheamus throwing flour in Xavier Woods’ face. With their opponents out of the way, the Bar advanced on Mr. Bootyworth, poured pancake batter on him, and yelled at him to get out of the ring. They posed to boos from the crowd.

Rusev and Lana entered the ring. Rusev talked about how their team broke up, and said that that English’s claims make him “want to tear his pale body apart.” When summoned to the arena, English appeared to be stalling by reciting facts about Milwaukee. But then he presented a webcam video that started with him practicing an intro song for Rusev about Milwaukee in a hotel room. Lana entered the room and said she had something she’d been thinking about for a long time that she had to tell English. The video ended abruptly after she uttered the words, “I want you.”

English claimed he couldn’t show the rest due to legal obligations and that he was courting an offer from TMZ, so he wouldn’t want to “cheat on them.” Rusev chased English up the ramp and out of the arena. Later he wouldn’t listen to Lana when she tried to explain.

Earlier in the show, we saw The Miz approach Shelton Benjamin backstage as he prepared for his match with Daniel Bryan. We were reminded of Benjamin’s career accomplishments and that the former World’s Greatest Tag Team member has been benched for a while, so he’s both well-rested and extra fired up to prove himself in the ring.

The Miz sat in on commentary for Bryan vs. Benjamin. Benjamin started aggressively and held his own but ultimately lost after Bryan was distracted by The Miz. After the match, The Miz kneed Bryan in the stomach and slammed him against the announce table, seemingly working to weaken his opponent before the Super Show-Down.

After Naomi hosted a presentation for breast cancer awareness, her tag partner Asuka entered the ring for a match with Peyton Royce (accompanied by Billie Kay). The former NXT Women’s Champion tapped out Royce after a short match.

SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch closed the show with what was advertised as a “Super Show-Down Surprise.” In front of a canvas covered by a cloth, she declared she had made her title the most relevant championship in WWE. She also said she learned that “being kind and being patient gets you nothing but being stabbed in the back and treated like a fool,” before showing a video recapping her feud with Charlotte Flair.

She said that she still feels disrespected even though she’s the champion because she hasn’t been getting the magazine covers, a new action figure with the title, and wasn’t even on the Super Show-Down poster. So she unveiled a new poster for the PPV: a picture of her standing over Flair with the title.

At this, Flair ran into the ring and the two women fought. Flair left the encounter on top with a fallaway slam into the poster and a modified figure four while hanging off the apron. Both women looked clearly ready to bring it, and tensions could not be higher between them going into the Super Show-Down.

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