SmackDown Preview: LA Knight vs Sheamus and More

SmackDown airs tonight (Aug. 4) with a live show from Wright State University’s Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio. This is the final episode of SmackDown during the five week build towards SummerSlam, which takes place tomorrow night.

Sheamus doesn’t realize what’s about to happen to him

Sheamus and LA Knight both came up short in the recent United States Championship Invitational. Their consolation prize is that they now get to compete in the SummerSlam Battle Royal presented by Slim Jim.

On last week’s episode of SmackDown, Sheamus and Knight exchanged some trash talk in Adam Pearce’s office. The Celtic Warrior sounded very confident about his chances against Knight, and even mocked his catchphrase. Pearce then made a singles match between the two wrestlers official for tonight’s episode.

What Sheamus doesn’t realize is that LA Knight is the fastest rising star in WWE and he is not someone to mess with right now. The Brawling Brutes, on the other hand, have barely been able to pick up any wins in recent months against the likes of Pretty Deadly and Austin Theory. Sheamus is actually the underdog here, whether he knows it or not, and his night is likely going to end with some Blunt Force Trauma.

The title scene

WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns is a part-timer who isn’t advertised for the show tonight, but “The Real Chief” Jey Uso will be in the building. How will he prepare for Tribal Combat against Reigns tomorrow night at SummerSlam?

WWE is advertising appearances on tonight’s show from Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair, and WWE Women’s Champion Asuka. Like Jey Uso, nothing specific has been mentioned other than they will be preparing for their triple threat title match tomorrow night at SummerSlam. Will Money in the Bank contract holder IYO SKY crash their party to remind them all that she actually has the best chance to walk out of the biggest party of the summer as the new champion?

United States Champion Austin Theory defends the gold next week against Santos Escobar. The challenger beat the champ a couple weeks ago in a non-title match, so don’t be surprised if Theory tries to injure him tonight to gain an advantage heading into the title bout.

WWE Tag Team Champions Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn won’t be defending the belts for a bit due to Owens’ injury. But will Sami decide to show up tonight and offer some words of advice to his former brother Jey Uso?

WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Sonya Deville and Chelsea Green lost their first match as champs last week. Will WWE find a local team to feed to them tonight to help make up for that loss?

Other stuff to keep an eye on

– Grayson Waller seems to really enjoy mocking The Rock. Will we get some kind of indication tonight that Dwayne Johnson is on his way to SummerSlam to lay the smack down on this jabroni?

– Bayley is running scared of Shotzi. Will Shotzi continue stalking Bayley from the shadows, or is it time to attack her head on