WWE SmackDown Smacks and Downs: Bayley vs. Charlotte furthers Sasha Banks feud

WWE SmackDown advertised a loaded show with two more Intercontinental Championship Tournament matches, a mixed tag match, and a champion vs. champion match pitting SmackDown’s Bayley against NXT’s Charlotte Flair. Here are the “smacks” and “downs” for May 22.

First, condolences to the family and friends of the late Shad Gaspard, who died earlier this week. I haven’t seen one negative word about Gaspard, and he seemed to lift the spirits of everybody he interacted with. A true father, he directed lifeguards to save his son first, ultimately resulting in his untimely death. Rest in Power, King.

Second, we all woke up to more unfortunate news this morning that wrestling wunderkind and Stardom star Hana Kimura died. No cause of death has been released, though many are pointing to the rampant cyber-bullying she endured mostly for her time on the Japanese show Terrace House.

Kimura was just 22-years-old. She wasn’t a part of WWE, but she was a part of the wrestling word. Condolences to her friends and family, including her mother in former pro wrestler Kyoko Kimura. Rest in Power, Queen.

Now, moving to SmackDown, after last week’s somewhat lackluster show coming off Money in the Bank, last night’s show was advertised to be better. The interesting thing is WWE didn’t advertise Braun Strowman, the Universal Champion, for the show (though he was on the show).

The major draw (even though it’s a match we’ve seen many times) was a champion vs. champion match as Bayley looked to defend her turf (and pride as Women’s Champion) against the interloping NXT Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair, making yet another jaunt through SmackDown. Was Bayley able to win one for the “blue brand,” or was Flair able to prove that she’s “genetically superior” to Bayley?

“Mr. Money in the Bank” Otis and his “peach,” Mandy Rose, teamed against Dolph Ziggler and Sonya “Daddy” Deville in a mixed tag match. As I wrote last week, Deville is on fire and carrying the feud between her and Rose, tangentially roping in Otis and Ziggler. Which pairing came out on top, and what does this entail for the future of these feuds?

We also saw two more matches in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament as AJ Styles faced long-time rival Shinsuke Nakamura and “The Charismatic Enigma” Jeff Hardy faced the perpetually angry and current rival Sheamus. Who will wrestle in the finals for the (illegitimately) vacant Intercontinental Championship?

Lastly, just what was that opening segment? Maybe it was a wise decision not to advertise Strowman, The Miz, and John Morrison for the show because that…that was something.

As a reminder of my criteria, I’m not going to run through each match/segment. Rather, I will identify a couple of segments that either worked (“smack”) or didn’t for whatever reason (“down”).

My criteria includes quality of match/segment and how it starts and/or builds stories. After all, we watch partly to be caught up in the stories. If a great work-rate match happens with no context or bearing on the stories, it’s going to be a miss.

Also, just because something is a hit/miss doesn’t mean it was an overwhelming choice. The selection could be 51 percent hit, 75 percent miss, and so on.

There are other subtleties to my criteria, but those are pretty much the parameters.