SmackDown In A Nutshell: Kevin Owens Versus The Family

Friday night’s alright for fighting, especially with SmackDown In A Nutshell! This week’s theme: Kevin Owens versus the family.

Which family? Well that would be Roman Reigns and his family.

Of course, Kevin Owens will be taking on the family on Sunday. It’s Owens versus Reigns at TLC.

That means that this week’s SmackDown is, of course, the go-home show.

Not just any go-home…but the last of the year. TLC is basically all set now, and it’s shaping up nicely.

Kevin Owens will try to wrest the Universal Championship away from Roman Reigns, but that is not all.

Sasha Banks is slated to battle Carmella in a bid to retain her SmackDown Women’s Championship.

RAW has a few matches listed too, and who knows what could be added between now and Sunday.

But, for now, we have but one focus for this SmackDown…

It’s Kevin Owens versus The Family.

Let’s crack open this Nutshell!

Best Match of the night:

Honestly…the show was kind of light on matches.

Bayley against Bianca Belair was good enough for what it was, so take that one as an option.

Beyond that, I am going to just take the entire evening-long thread of Owens versus The Family.

That started the show, it ended the show, and it did everything it had to do, to make Sunday’s match feel like a really big deal.

Worst match of the night:

Riott Squad versus Billie Kaye and Tamina.

Just..why?

Star of the Night

Three way split, Kevin Owens, Roman Reigns and Jey Uso all getting some love here.

Honorable mention for Carmella, who continues to impress since she returned.

Spot of the Night:

We had, you know…a few table spots tonight.

Any were good.

Jobber of the Night:

Kevin Owens, for going through a bunch of tables?

The tables, for all breaking?

Could even give some love to Billie Kaye and Tamina here.

Upset of the Night:

Not this time no.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

I was torn here, but how about this one.

Chad Gable stopped Otis from using his caterpillar.

Like, holy sH#$ how far is Gable’s coaching of Otis going to go?

LOL Moment of the night:

Big E and Sami Zayn backstage had some chuckles over the awards coming up.

I also did laugh when Gable stopped Otis from doing his signature move.

Noteworthy Moment:

Street Profits once again retained, beating Ziggler and Roode.

Otis DID NOT do a caterpillar this evening.

Kevin Owens can take a licking and keep on ticking.

Overall lowlights:

For a two hour show, it just feels like some time is being wasted on really questionable matches. Like, I get it…green talent can’t get better without matches.

Just, maybe don’t always subject us to the green-ness.

Give the really good matches the spotlight. Let some greener talent go ripen up in NXT, or wrestle dark matches.

Overall highlights:

Carmella is really coming out strong here, this week was no exception.

Roman Reigns, Kevin Owens and all that jazz…

After the final bell:

We came into this night knowing it was the go home show for TLC.

It was known that the focus would be on Kevin Owens versus Roman Reigns, and by extension Owens versus The Family.

All in all, that did not disappoint. I felt satisfied with how that all played out.

We went off air with a beaten down Owens doing the babyface thing, fighting through the pain to sit on a steel chair and prove to Reigns that he was still fighting.

If I had to have a single gripe about the blue brand efforts this week, it might be that too much time was dedicated to the Owens-Reigns feud.

However, when you are a top feud, you get top booking. That is what we saw here.

Might only be two advertised SmackDown clashes for TLC, but the brand did what it had to do in order to get us hyped for those two.