Tonight’s premiere of Friday Night Smackdown on Fox featured guest appearances from wrestling legends like The Rock, and big matches including a Four Horsewomen tag team match, a ladder match between Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon, and, in the main event, Brock Lesnar challenging Kofi Kingston for the WWE Championship.
Even more than his match with Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35, when he won the title for the first time in his eleven-year WWE career, Kingston went into his match with Lesnar as the underdog. Lesnar has held the WWE Championship four times in the past and has dominated the Universal Championship picture since 2017. On the real-life side of things, the same star power that has allowed the former UFC Heavyweight Champion to not wrestle a single match on WWE TV since he returned to the company in 2012 made his defeat of Kingston seem inevitable.
Though it seemed like Kingston had powered up considerably since the one previous time he wrestled Lesnar (a squash match in Japan four years ago), Lesnar was able to defeat him even faster this time. The Beast Incarnate pinned Kingston after one (1) F-5 to win the WWE Championship. You can watch the match and its aftermath here:
The crowd barely had time to heavily boo Lesnar’s win before Rey Mysterio’s music hit. But the luchador, who Lesnar had attacked on Raw this Monday, didn’t enter the arena alone. He was accompanied by UFC legend Cain Velasquez, who made his pro wrestling debut for AAA in Mexico this summer and whose history with Lesnar it had been reported WWE was looking to turn into an angle.
RIGHTS AND LEFTS!!!@cainmma is taking it to #TheBeast!!! #SmackDown @BrockLesnar pic.twitter.com/Mu3dTEf42D
— WWE (@WWE) October 5, 2019
Velasquez took down Lesnar with a double-leg takedown and set him retreating from the ring after some strikes. Shortly one of the most dominant wins of Lesnar’s career, the first episode of Smackdown on Fox ended with the Beast the most shaken he’s been in a long time. What’s next for Kofi Kingston is unknown, but it looks what’s next for the WWE Championship picture is a UFC rematch.
