On the “Season Premiere” of WWE Friday Night SmackDown, Roman Reigns returns to begin a new feud. Triple H, meanwhile, introduces two new faces for the show
The hot fall season has officially begun at wrestling market leader WWE – accompanied by the comeback of recently paused champion Roman Reigns and two major personnel reveals.
The “Season Premiere” of the Friday Night SmackDown TV show saw the introduction of Nick Aldis as the new General Manager of Friday’s show and the addition of Kevin Owens, previously active on RAW on Mondays, as the newest member of the squad.
While Owens was introduced as late “compensation” for Jey Uso, who had moved to RAW, Reigns had his programmes mapped out for the coming months: There was a confrontation with shooting star LA Knight – and for the first time in a while, an encounter with Cody Rhodes, who looks to be his opponent again at the year’s highlight WrestleMania 40 in the spring.
Roman Reigns begins feud with LA Knight
The return of the “Unidisputed Universal Champion” Reigns, who has reigned for over three years, framed the show, with Knight challenging him at the beginning of the show, and Reigns sending him into a match with family member Solo Sikoa, part of his grouping Bloodline, at the end.
Knight won the match with the help of megastar John Cena, who fought off an unfair interference from Sikoa’s older brother Jimmy Uso. Reigns attacked Knight afterwards and gave him a Spear – he was met earlier on the way to the ring by Rhodes, who had earlier defended the tag team titles with renegade Uso brother Jey against Austin Theory and Grayson Waller. There was an eye duel that the cameras caught at an emphatically long time.
Nick Aldis new General Manager
In between Reigns’ two appearances, WWE executive “Triple H” Paul Levesque introduced a new face: Longtime British wrestler Nick Aldis – husband of WWE legend Mickie James – will henceforth fill the fictional role of GM in charge of match scheduling on SmackDown in front of the camera.
Aldis – once known as “Brutus Magnus” or later just Magnus in the former number 2 league TNA (Impact), was a high-profile wrestler off the WWE stage, holding the World Title in both Impact and the traditional league NWA. At the 2018 show All In, which preceded the formation of AEW, he was the opponent of Cody Rhodes, who took the NWA title, which was hugely prestigious in its earlier days, from Aldis at the time.
For several months now, Aldis has been working behind the scenes at WWE as a producer, his career similar to that of Adam Pearce, whom Aldis replaced on SmackDown and who has now been declared the sole GM of RAW.
At 36, however, unlike Pearce, Aldis is not yet necessarily at an age that would suggest an end to his full-time wrestling career.
Kevin Owens from RAW to SmackDown
As the first big announcement in the new role, Triple H left it to Aldis to introduce Kevin Owens as the new SmackDown member.
The roster change separates the former WWE Champion from longtime friend and companion Sami Zayn, with whom he held the tag team titles in the main event of the first WrestleMania night this year.
It looks like Owens will now focus on his solo career again.
