WWE SmackDown 11/22/2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show where we all hold our breath while Paul Heyman introduces one of his old clients and slowly start breathing again when it turns out to be the right one! Yeah, if you don't think we have feelings about Friday night's double feature Heyman/CM Punk reveal, you're out of your mind, and that's far from the only thing we have to talk about! We also had some stuff to say about Chelsea Green advancing in the women's US title tournament, the continued feud between LA Knight and Shinsuke Nakamura, even more drama in the tag division, and all things Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes.

We're giving the women's WarGames build a reprieve this week, but if you want to know what happened with that — or anything else that went down Friday night — be sure to check out our "SmackDown" results page. If you're needing the opinions of the WINC staff, however, look no further — here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 11/22/24 episode of "WWE SmackDown."

Chelsea Green is one step closer to becoming the inaugural Women's United States Champion and I couldn't be happier about it, especially because it didn't make Bianca Belair look weak. Belair was taken out of the match after she saw her tag team partner Jade Cargill laid out, bleeding, on top of a car when it was all played out on the tron for the audience. Belair sprinted up the ramp, which was an excellent way to get both her and Cargill out of the tournament to focus completely on their WarGames match. There was a lot going on there with those two, so in my humble opinion, taking them both out of the mix is the right call while they're already holding gold. It also leaves things open to interpretation a bit – was someone trying to take Cargill out of the US Championship tournament, or was this someone's doing on the opposing WarGames team?

Green scoring the victory over Blair Davenport was great. Davenport hasn't been on TV enough lately to really be hurt by this, even though it does stink for her, I'm not sure many fans will remember who Green beat to move on. She'll be up against Bayley, who qualified last week, and I think Bayley is in a good enough spot that she can also take a loss, probably due to shenanigans. If Green makes it on to the finals, there's a possibility she faces her own tag team partner, Piper Niven, which is a great story itself. Green just has such a swell of fan support behind her, no matter what, that I think this championship would be perfect for her. Green can absolutely go when she's allowed time in the ring, so in addition to making the belt mean something with her personality, she can also change her character a bit to seem more like a threat in the ring.

Even if she doesn't go any farther and gets beat by a super credible former women's champion in Bayley, she's still going to look pretty strong and fans are only going to get behind her even more. So if Green is not the inaugural champion, and it's awarded to someone like Bayley or Naomi who have a strong foothold in the WWE already, Green will be well on her way to holding that gold at some point in the near future. Either way, I liked the way tonight played out, and it gives me hope to see Green get what she deserves and get a shot at the new championship. She would be a delight to see on the return of "Saturday Night's Main Event."

Written by Daisy Ruth

It's beginning to look like LA Knight will have to join Cody Rhodes in the Witness Protection Program.

I'm sure long-time viewers of these opinion pieces will groan at that joke, as it is the second time I've used it in direct reference to a Shinsuke Nakamura feud. While I understand that, I would also like you to direct your attention to the source of the joke — why am I able to make that joke at the beginning and end of 2024, and change literally nothing about it but a single name?

Just one week after Shinsuke Nakamura's shocking return back to WWE programming, it is clear that we are getting basically a carbon copy of Nakamura's disastrously boring feud with Rhodes. It seems like Nakamura can only be preceded by menacing video packages that alternate between drawn slides and clips of him speaking very closely into the camera. This lack of character progression is what killed his momentum when he feuded with Rhodes, and it's what probably will kill his momentum once he is done with LA Knight.

It is so embarrassing that Nakamura's character has remained static over the past 10 months. He is being put into a creative pigeonhole, and when this feud with Knight ultimately flops because they're not bringing anything new to the table, we will all be forced to sit back and wonder why, oh why does WWE continuously prevent Nakamura from evolving? We're not even asking him to win the title, or be the face of the company! We are simply asking him to show us a different character, a different side of Shinsuke Nakamura!

There is an argument that Nakamura's mannerisms are simply too iconic, inherent, or quintessential to his in-ring style that a complete character change is utterly impossible. While I don't believe that Nakamura's mannerisms are iconic — you need to be successful and a cultural mainstay to be iconic, and because of WWE's restrictive character development, Nakamura is neither compared to other people of his experience and caliber on the roster — let's entertain that argument. Chris Jericho has, historically and as we speak, managed to stay relevant because of his ever-shifting array of personas. Matt Hardy has done the same thing. They managed to claw their way into icon status because of their longevity, which exists because they are able to stay relevant through dynamic change. Even The Usos have experienced massive change, despite their overall characters staying the same for all these years. Why is Nakamura an exception? Why is he not allowed to soar into the realm of "iconic," and is instead doomed to stay in the purgatory of static gimmick development? Why is Nakamura being reduced to the same character twice in a row, when WWE has had more than ample time to reinvent his character?

I am downright ashamed that I get to make the same exact Witness Protection Program joke twice in 10 months. Maybe it's Nakamura that should go into hiding from WWE Creative.

Written by Angeline Phu

Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens have been longtime friends, but in the back of the champion's mind was the fear that Owens may turn on him like everyone else. Rhodes was correct when a "World Star"-esque video leaked showing Owens attacking his friend outside his tour bus.

Owens also turned on Orton and possibly ended his career with a piledriver. Clad in a sleeveless tuxedo shirt, Owens poured his heart out and answered, "why Owens why?" It was "The Prizefighter" who fought The Bloodline for four years. Roman Reigns tried to end his career multiple times while Rhodes was in another company. Upon his return, Owens stood by his friend and fought alongside him against The Bloodline. When Rhodes teamed up with his nemesis, Owens felt betrayed.

"The American Nightmare" couldn't handle the criticism, even though Owens is right. Rhodes told Owens he always plays the victim, which is rich coming from him (and I say that as a fan of his). He went further, saying Owens was obsessed with being the face of WWE. That was literally the entire crux of "finishing the story" — besides winning the title his dad never held, Rhodes has strived specifically to be the face of WWE. They never saw him as a main-eventer and cut him, so he went to Japan and the indies and started his own promotion. He took the opportunity to return to WWE and showed them that he could be the face of the company. Rhodes came off the heel in this promo and made me want to root for Owens.

Another part of the segment that wasn't clear was when the match would be taking place. Rhodes said he didn't care if their match was right then and there, next week at "Survivor Series", or at the resurrection of "Saturday Night's Main Event." According to the title of the segment on WWE's YouTube, it'll be at the latter.

At this rate, Rhodes should take a piledriver and drop the title to Owens.

Written by Samantha Schipman

As an admitted fan of Carmelo Hayes, I will always be happy to see him be given television time and always enjoy seeing him involved in a story. That being said, it doesn't always mean that WWE nails it every single time that they insert him into something.

Minutes prior to Hayes running into Cody Rhodes backstage and the two getting into an altercation (for a lack of a better term), Rhodes had an extremely tense and heated exchange with Kevin Owens. While the backstage encounter between Hayes and Rhodes was a means of setting up a match between them next week, it felt unnecessary and random. The Undisputed WWE Champion has been focusing all of his energy on seeking his retribution against Owens for putting Randy Orton on the shelf with an attack, so there was no need to take up more television time to set up a match next week between Rhodes and Hayes when there are better and more effective ways to feature both men on "SmackDown" whilst furthering ongoing storylines instead of staring up something new.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Much has been said about WWE's lack of care when it comes to each and every one of its divisions at a given time, but a sore spot especially in recent years has been the sporadic attention put into the tag division. So it's been really refreshing since the Motor City Machine Guns emerged to take the tag titles on "SmackDown" from The Bloodline, providing champions solely dedicated to the division they reign over and thus a connection to their challenger pool.

With MCMG's title reign has not only come an enhanced direction for the titles, but has also been shown to light a fire under the tails of the Street Profits and #DIY, two teams that have long been without drive or purpose on TV. Part of what has made the dynamic so compelling in recent weeks has been the layers of potential within the story's arc, each team's arc, as well as the arc of each character within the teams. There has long been a sentiment that Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins could focus on singles opportunities having spent so long and accomplished relatively everything there is to do as a tag team. Meanwhile, Tomasso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano's differences are storied, creating a sense of unease as the former goes off the rails and the latter trying his utmost to mitigate the damages. The only truly solid team in this currently, that seem to know where their heads are at, is the tag team champions. At some point, a rubber band is bound to snap under so much stress, but it's been left open to suggestion as to which one will go first.

Will Ciampa turn on Gargano, or vice versa? Will the Profits break up at long last, or will they turn and renew their focus? Could we finally be getting a heel #DIY tandem, with Gargano giving in to the hate alongside his partner? These are good questions to have, they present differing options for the story to go and each and every one gives a new dynamic for the three teams to work with. All of that was to say that I am enjoying the continued focus being placed on the tag team division, let's just hope WWE can build on it with more teams and characters further down the line (and let's have a little more of this over on "WWE Raw").

Written by Max Everett

The day I write a "Loved" segment about CM Punk is the day that Hell freezes over.

There is a scene in "Lilo and Stitch" where Lilo prays for an angel — the nicest one heaven has — to be her friend, before the movie immediately cuts to Stitch emerging from a smoldering mess of spaceship debris and smoke. That's exactly how it felt seeing CM Punk come out from behind the curtain in the final minutes of Friday's episode of "SmackDown" to be Roman Reigns' fifth and final WarGames member. We here at Wrestling Inc. were holding our hands together in a collective prayer circle for somebody, literally ANYBODY, other than Brock Lesnar to walk out of guerilla after Paul Heyman's stunning-as-usual oration, and CM Punk came out as an unhinged answer to our hopes.

Some may question the relevancy of CM Punk in a storyline as deep and complicated as The Bloodline's story, and in general, I do agree that the strings are thin. However, the same thing can be said about Bronson Reed — what kind of connection does he really have to Solo Sikoa's New Bloodline, apart from the fact that both of them are Pacific Islander? There generally tends to be an odd one out in recent WarGames teams: IYO SKY feels out of left field for this year's women's WarGames match, Shotzi felt like an odd woman out in last year's women's WarGames match. One could even argue Drew McIntyre's involvement in last year's men's WarGames match was more of a wedge-in. So, even though Punk's connections to this ongoing Bloodline saga are slim outside of his historic association with Paul Heyman, I don't think that it's a deal-breaker for an otherwise packed team line-up.

Others might read my dramatized introduction and wonder if I'm happy because of CM Punk, or if I'm happy because of the lack of Brock Lesnar. I'd argue it's a little bit of both, but let me defend my case for the former. After being in such a long-winded rivalry with Drew McIntyre, where the same points and the same gimmicks were used and reused ad nauseam, it is so refreshing to see Punk in a new setting. Whether you think Punk is washed or not, there is no denying that he brings a wealth of experience and star-power to the match; if he is going to be put into any WWE storyline — currently ongoing or prospective — it might as well be this one. There's also an odd comfort in knowing that Punk is so shallowly connected to this storyline. After his deep, dramatic (or traumatic) ties with McIntyre, it'll be fine to see Punk just mess around for a week, and then (hopefully) buzz off to another storyline, or retirement, or wherever he sees himself fit. If nothing else, there are few things more satisfying than hearing the iconic guitar riff of "Cult of Personality." CM Punk, I hope your old joints are ready for war.

Looks like Hell froze over.

Written by Angeline Phu