WWE SmackDown Live Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades for August 15

The New Day (Xavier Woods & Kofi Kingston, w/ Big E) vs. The Usos (Jimmy & Jey)

Result: The Usos defeated The New Day via pinfall

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

Full disclosure: before tonight, I was a bit behind on SmackDown. I missed an episode when I was away on vacation and hadn’t watched it by last week, so I skipped that one too (for now). So maybe I’ve missed something, but did the announce team finally bring up the different strengths of the different pairings of New Day members? Tonight was the “speed” group of Kofi and Woods, but Sunday is the “strength” group of Big E and Woods. It’s only been years of New Day being a thing, glad to see someone is taking the time to justify strategy behind the teams.

And calling this the speed group made perfect sense right at the get go. Kofi and Woods were bouncing around like crazy leading up to the ad break. You would think a team like Jimmy and Jey – known for their high flying – would be the quicker team in most of their matches, but not tonight.

But once the Usos slowed things down, they were in perfect control. Even after Kofi finally broke free and tagged out, Jimmy and Jey still never took too much punishment. The big problem I had with this one was – you guessed it – THE USOS HAVE PINNED THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS.

I get that it’s a different pairing on Sunday, I do. But why would anyone build to a big title match by having the champs lose cleanly (mostly, at least) less than a week before said title match? And let’s remember this when we get to Cena/Mahal later, okay?