WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER 10/29: Airing on FS1, Encores to Follow

WWE FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN PRIMER
OCTOBER 29, 2021
WILKES-BARRE, PA. AT THE MOHEGAN SUN ARENA AT CASEY PLAZA
AIRS ON FS1, 8:00 p.m. EDT
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR

Announcers: Michael Cole and Pat McAfee

Match Results and Key Segments from Last Week
Universal Champion Roman Reigns opened the show with Paul Heyman and reiterated his position as the Tribal Chief and whom he was defeated over the past year. He sarcastically acknowledged “your boy Brock Lesnar” to Heyman. Brock eventually came out to attack Roman and then the Usos would assist Roman. Brock got the better of it all and attacked numerous ring side personnel. Because of his actions, Adam Pearce suspended Brock indefinitely, and then was treated to a F-5.
Drew McIntyre defeated Sami Zayn.
They held a coronation ceremony for King of the Ring winner Xavier Woods with his New Day partner, Kofi Kingston by his side.
Mansoor defeated Mustafa Ali.
Hit Row (Isaiah “Swerve” Scott & Top Dolla a/Ashante “Thee” Adonis and B-Fab) rapped on the way to the ring and then defeated Dustin Lawyer & Daniel Williams. It was Hit Row’s first appearance on Smackdown.
Happy Corbin (w/Madcap Moss) defeated Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura (w/Rick Boogs) in a non-title match.
Charlotte Flair (now of Smackdown) and Becky Lynch (now of Raw) exchanged women’s championships to their respective shows with Sonya Deville as the “moderator.” Controversy arose from this when Charlotte didn’t hand over the title but dropped it behind her instead. After picking it up at the behest of obvious angry Sonya, she handed it to her, and Becky threw the Smackdown title at Charlotte. Sasha Banks came out and fought with Charlotte.

Arena

Smackdown arrives in a regular spot for WWE programming in the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The arena opened its doors in 1999 and is home to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. It has hosted WWE events since 2005 and last hosted Smackdown in March of 2019 in the run-up to WrestleMania.

As of this posting, approximately 12:30 p.m. EDT, no matches or segments are advertised for tonight

Smackdown “Takes Over” FS1

WWE has emphasized and has advertised throughout the week that tonight’s edition of Smackdown will air on FS1. On their website, they say that Smackdown will “take over” the channel, and recap what happened last week. Two encores will air following the live broadcast.

Smackdown aired on FS1 two weeks ago to accommodate the MLB ALCS on Fox. Tonight, they make the move to accommodate the World Series.

#SmackDown is taking over @FS1 this Friday night including two encore presentations!https://t.co/WDDj8MANik

— WWE (@WWE) October 28, 2021

Frank’s Analysis: We’ll see if anything gets advertised later in the day, but my guess is they won’t put out anything significant since the World Series in on. They always have a significant drop-off in viewership when they move to FS1, so I get why they don’t want to put out anything special especially if they think most people will want to watch the World Series. It makes sense to have two encore presentations, giving people a chance to watch later.

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