WWE SmackDown Grades: Kevin Owens Crashes The Party

2. Aleister Black And Ricochet vs. Rusev And Shinsuke Nakamura

The recent main roster debuts of several top NXT superstars have already led to some impressive performances and wins.  Some of the most impressive moments have come courtesy of Aleister Black and Ricochet, who have been performing as a cohesive tag team in recent weeks.

Black and Ricochet defeated the Raw Tag Team Champions, The Revival, on Monday night and followed it up with another tag team match last night against the new team of Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura.  Rusev’s wife, Lana, tried to talk down to them backstage, but Black and Ricochet wouldn’t let it affect them during this match.

This match was given a solid amount of time to shine, and it really shined throughout much of it.  This was a pretty physical, high-action matchup that saw a ton of high-risk athleticism from Black and Ricochet.  However, Rusev and Nakamura still had the match going in their favor for a while while subtly showing their opponents disrespect by calling them rookies.

The good times wouldn’t last for Rusev and Nakamura, however, and Black would eventually take out Nakamura to pick up the win for his team.  This makes two straight nights that Black and Ricochet have knocked off a tag team of established stars, so this is a team that can’t be taken lightly moving forward and they could work themselves into a tag team championship picture.

The Revival faded to black on Monday night while Rusev and Nakamura did the same last night courtesy of Black and Ricochet.

Final Grade: B+