Sasha Banks

The partnership between Bayley and Sasha Banks came to an abrupt end Friday night when the SmackDown women's champion unleashed a vicious attack on the Legit Boss after losing their tag match against Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax. 

WWE announced Saturday that Banks was taken to a local hospital for evaluation after the attack:

Bayley and Banks received a rematch for the women's tag team championship after losing the titles at Payback, but they came up short for the second time in five days when Jax pinned both after a crossbody off the middle rope. 

After the match, Bayley attacked Banks' leg that was weakened during the match. She ended the onslaught by wrapping Banks' neck around a chair before jumping off the second rope onto the chair. 

Even though Bayley and Banks have been one of the highlights of WWE television as a team for months, the breakup has been brewing for some time.

Banks helped Bayley retain the SmackDown women's title against Asuka at SummerSlam, but her partner didn't return the favor later in the night when Asuka defeated Banks for the Raw women's title. 

When Banks is able to return to television, her singles feud with Bayley will hopefully rise to the level of their partnership. It's unclear if WWE will do the match at Clash of Champions on Sept. 27 or hold it off for a later date. 

Heel Roman Reigns is surprisingly not a massive ratings draw for SmackDown.

Friday's airing drew 2.066 viewers and a 0.55 rating in the demo, down from 2.144 million viewers with a 0.6 18-49 rating on last week's go-home show for Payback. 

The episode was one of the strongest to date since SmackDown moved to Fox nearly a year ago. Reigns and Paul Heyman opened the show with a stellar promo to set up the Universal champion as the sport's most dominant heel.

Heyman's promo also set up the night's main event, a Fatal 4-Way to determine Reigns' first opponent for the Universal Championship at Clash of Champions. Jey Uso won that match after surprisingly replacing Big E, who was taken out by Sheamus in the opening hour to further their feud.

The result (aside from poor Big E's absence) was positive on a number of levels. Neither Uso has ever gotten a singles push despite being around for a long time, and Jey's victory sets up one of two promising options for Clash of Champions.

Reigns will either destroy his cousin in a vicious attack that cements himself as SmackDown's big bad, or this will all be a giant setup to Uso laying down for Roman and setting up a heel faction around the Universal champion. The latter option isn't nearly as satisfying immediately, but it could be for the betterment of the overall show. The Usos joining Reigns and Heyman as a heel faction would be must-watch and perhaps enliven the SmackDown tag team division.

The other major storyline coming from Friday night should shape the women's division for at least the next couple of months. Bayley's post-match attack on Sasha Banks was a long time coming—we all knew one of them would turn at some point; it was just a matter of who and when.

Bayley being the one to turn is a bit of a surprise, given Banks' best work of her career came as a heel in NXT, but it follows with Vince McMahon's love of the Heel Bayley character. The Banks-Bayley feud will likely be drawn out over months, with Sasha finally unseating Bayley as the face of SmackDown's women's division and (hopefully) finally getting a longer run as a champion.