{"id":97281,"date":"2021-07-30T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=97281"},"modified":"2021-07-30T09:38:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T13:38:30","slug":"preview-wwe-smackdown-bianca-belair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/07\/30\/preview-wwe-smackdown-bianca-belair\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: WWE SmackDown (7\/30\/21) \u2013 Who&#8217;s Next for Bianca Belair?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Friday Night SmackDown<\/strong> is here! In typical <strong>WWE<\/strong> fashion, very little has been announced for this show. In fact, as of this writing, we only know about a certain Universal Championship feud becoming more complicated after last week&#8217;s conclusion. Therefore, this preview will mostly consist of speculation over some of the bigger things to expect on the show, such as finding out who is next for<strong> Bianca Belair<\/strong> on SmackDown. We are on the road to<em><strong> SummerSlam<\/strong><\/em> and things are getting heated, so let&#8217;s dive right in.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roman Reigns shifts his focus to Finn B\u00e1lor this Friday\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NypsIOgKR2A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Who is Next for Bianca Belair on SmackDown?<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-84507\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/02\/Bianca-Belair-e1612586196198.jpg\" alt=\"Bianca Belair\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Bianca Belair, current SmackDown Women&#8217;s Champion, is without a number one contender. Ever since <strong>Bayley<\/strong> got injured last month, Belair has kind of been stuck in limbo. Last week, she overcame<strong> Carmella<\/strong> once more; during a special match which took place at the annual <em>Rolling Loud<\/em> hip hop festival. She is, quite simply, a star &#8211; but right now, she is a star with not much to do. So: who is next for Bianca Belair? <strong>Sasha Banks<\/strong> might very well be returning soon, as WWE will want a woman of her undisputed star caliber at this year&#8217;s highly ambitious <em>SummerSlam<\/em> show. With Banks no doubt wanting to avenge her loss to Belair at <strong><em>WrestleMania<\/em><\/strong> this year, this makes sense. Additionally, there is the recently debuted <strong>Toni Storm<\/strong> &#8211; who <em>stormed<\/em> to a dominant victory over <strong>Zelina Vega<\/strong> last week. Between Banks and Storm, Belair has a potential big match to look forward to at <em>SummerSlam<\/em> and tonight should mark the beginning of the journey to that match.<\/p>\n<h3>Roman Reigns, John Cena and&#8230; Finn Balor<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-96907\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/07\/Balor-and-Reigns.jpg\" alt=\"Finn Balor and Roman Reigns\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/07\/Balor-and-Reigns.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/07\/Balor-and-Reigns-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Last week&#8217;s episode of SmackDown culminated in <strong>Finn Balor<\/strong> coming out to issue a challenge to Roman Reigns. Roman, of course, accepted; for whatever reason, he is not looking to wrestle with<strong> John Cena<\/strong> again and the challenge issued by Balor is, for whatever reason, more suitable. There is clearly something at play here; Roman knows what Balor is capable of. Balor became the inaugural Universal Champion in 2016 and the person Balor had to defeat to qualify for the final of the tournament to crown the champion was none other than Roman Reigns. Meanwhile, in 2017, Reigns overcame Cena in a passing of the torch moment. Granted, Roman is now a heel, but it makes little sense for Reigns to be fearful of the man. Regardless, he clearly is. So the question is: is Balor&#8217;s challenge legitimate, or is Balor somehow working with Reigns? Are we headed towards a monumental triple threat match at <em>SummerSlam<\/em>, or is Balor merely a stepping stone? Tune in tonight and hopefully, you will find out more.<\/p>\n<h3>Not Announced But Expected For Friday Night SmackDown<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211; Expect <strong>Baron Corbin<\/strong> to ask for cash. Hopefully, with the help of <strong>Kevin Owens<\/strong>, he can secure revenge on the <strong>Dirty Dawgs<\/strong>,<strong> Dolph Ziggler<\/strong> and <strong>Robert Roode<\/strong>, from stealing from him last week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Edge<\/strong> and <strong>Seth Rollins<\/strong> are embroiled in a hot feud which dates back seven years. Expect this to continue and grow even more personal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Toni Storm will no doubt be looking to keep building on her solid debut last week.<\/p>\n<h3>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday Night SmackDown is here! In typical WWE fashion, very little has been announced for this show. In fact, as of this writing, we only know about a certain Universal Championship feud becoming more complicated after last week&#8217;s conclusion. Therefore, this preview will mostly consist of speculation over some of the bigger things to expect [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2482,"featured_media":85696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[1445,328,111,165,77,159,76,598],"class_list":["post-97281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wwe-universe","tag-bianca-belair","tag-edge","tag-finn-balor","tag-john-cena","tag-roman-reigns","tag-sasha-banks","tag-seth-rollins","tag-toni-storm"],"modified_by":"Niklas George","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}