{"id":97745,"date":"2021-08-06T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T19:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=97745"},"modified":"2021-08-06T14:30:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T18:30:47","slug":"preview-wwe-smackdown-corbin-vs-balor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/08\/06\/preview-wwe-smackdown-corbin-vs-balor\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: WWE SmackDown (8\/6\/21) \u2013 Finn Balor vs Baron Corbin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday Night SmackDown<\/strong> is here once again and we have just the one match announced so far. This seems to be a return to the ThunderDome era of WWE<\/strong> tradition of announcing very little in advance of these shows. Thankfully, we are well versed in filling up these previews with what we think might happen. Last week, we successfully predicted the return of Sasha Banks<\/strong><\/a>. This week, we are predicting the return of Vladimir Kozlov<\/strong>, Mike Knox<\/strong> and Mordecai<\/strong> as an NWO<\/strong> type trio. You heard it here first. Let’s dive in and preview our only certain match tonight: Baron Corbin<\/strong> vs Finn Balor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Baron Corbin vs Finn Balor<\/h3>\n
\"Baron
Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Poor Baron Corbin. No, literally, poor<\/em> Baron Corbin – without any money and cares left to give, the former King last week attempted a new “Heist of the Century” by interrupting the contract signing between Finn Balor and Roman Reigns<\/strong>. The contract signing was set to culminate in Reigns versus Balor at SummerSlam<\/em> <\/strong>but, instead, resulted in Roman Reigns versus John Cena<\/strong>. We have to admire Corbin’s attempt to make himself Reigns’ opponent, but it was not meant to be. By taking out Balor and costing him his match, Balor is now looking for revenge. On tonight’s episode of SmackDown, a down on his luck, former King will have to deal with a vengeful Prince. We don’t fancy Corbin’s chances.<\/p>\n

Not Announced But Expected For SmackDown<\/h3>\n

\"Sasha<\/p>\n

– Sasha Banks<\/strong> returned and initially jumped to the defense of Bianca Belair<\/strong> against Carmella<\/strong> and Zelina Vega<\/strong>. By the end of the show, which these four women main evented in a six-woman tag team match, Banks had brutally turned on Belair – turning heel in the process. We mentioned in last week’s preview that Banks will likely return looking to avenge her loss to Belair at WrestleMania<\/em><\/strong> earlier in the year and it appears she has returned to do precisely<\/em> that. Things are now heating up in the SmackDown women’s division and tonight, we will no doubt see a continuation of this feud.<\/p>\n

– Last week’s six man tag team match between King Shinsuke Nakamura<\/strong>, Cesaro<\/strong> and Big E <\/strong>versus Apollo Crews<\/strong> and the Dirty Dawgs<\/strong> (Robert Roode<\/strong> & Dolph Ziggler<\/strong>) culminated in Nakamura getting a pinfall victory Crews. Surely now, a future Intercontinental Championship match awaits. “Nigerian Royalty” facing off with the Japanese “One True King” writes itself, no? Expect this feud to begin tonight.<\/p>\n

– Toni Storm<\/strong> debuted on SmackDown two weeks ago but was notably absent from last week’s show. Might we see her return to action tonight?<\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n

Stay tuned to the\u00a0Last 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\u00a0WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday Night SmackDown is here once again and we have just the one match announced so far. This seems to be a return to the ThunderDome era of WWE tradition of announcing very little in advance of these shows. Thankfully, we are well versed in filling up these previews with what we think might happen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2482,"featured_media":97746,"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":[509,359,1445,111,165,77,159,118,598],"class_list":["post-97745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wwe-universe","tag-apollo-crews","tag-baron-corbin","tag-bianca-belair","tag-finn-balor","tag-john-cena","tag-roman-reigns","tag-sasha-banks","tag-shinsuke-nakamura","tag-toni-storm"],"modified_by":"Niklas George","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97745","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=97745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}