This week has been a struggle for me. Originally, I wanted to do a write up for the Raw episode but ended up not having the energy to come up with anything. In the end, I figured there wasn’t much to really motivate me into writing up a reasonable summary of that show. With that much time in between, I figured it’s better to just skip it and write up one for Smackdown. For this show, we’re in Louisiana at New Orleans, which actually will come into play a few times later.
Drew McIntyre vs. Jimmy Uso
The show started fast. Maybe this was one of the better matches for the night but I’m not a huge fan of Jimmy just because he honestly feels like a 3rd wheel on a unicycle. I like Drew only because of his stint with CM Punk and his evolving character but he hasn’t had anything to really sink his teeth into especially because he’s scheduled to participate in that Elimination Chamber. That said, given that the Elimination Chamber is a week away, it made no sense for him to lose here. I’m guessing they want to keep Jimmy Uso’s head above water with a fluke win but it didn’t do either guy any favors here. Drew got his heat back with a post match beat down but again I didn’t see a point by the match and result.
Solo Sikoa Arrives
There’s tensions between Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu with Tama Tongo tagging along. Obviously, Jacob is the guy the promotion wants to push but Solo is in a bizarre spot. Primary thing is that Solo apologizes for the accident and Jacob Fatu “allows” Solo to get away with the mistake. Also, Jacob replaces Tama with Solo in the main event.
Carmelo Hayes, R-Truth and the Miz
R-Truth continues to be delusional while Hayes is becoming the reluctant tag partner to Miz to help Hayes find his identity since Hayes is bland. Just stupid and a waste of time.
Zelina Vega Video
Zelina gets a public plea type of video to discourage looking at her size as her main weakness. I would agree if it weren’t for the fact that she’s been in the business for a while and hasn’t set the world on fire. Roxanne Perez probably is going to become the best tiny woman in the near time future whereas Zelina’s umpteenth reboot won’t convince the audience otherwise unless she figures out how to change her style and gimmick to get the audience behind her. Nothing against her personally but she needs something that’ll convince people she’s worth more than her presentation much like Liv Morgan being paired with Dominick.
Miz and Carmelo Hayes vs. R-Truth and LA Knight
R-Truth’s mystery opponent that he told Miz/Carmelo was going to aid him was a legend from Louisiana. So LA (i.e. the abbreviation if you live under a rock) Knight comes out as the legend from Louisiana. R-Truth has his entrance music and knows how to get himself over but it’s impossible to take him seriously in any context. Poor LA Knight was paired with a joke so that Shinsuke Nakamura could interfere and cost his team the match. The Miz and Carmelo do a nice double team move with the Miz scoring the pin over R-Truth. LA Knight avoids the direct pin himself and things point to him fighting Nakamura either at the Elimination Chamber for the US title or at Wrestlemania while Carmelo seems to respect the Miz finally for getting the pin. Unfortunately, for Carmelo and the Miz, I don’t care for either.
Tiffany Stratton in Ring Promo
I hate to break it to Tiffany but she’s awful as a promo. She’s not good speaking as a babyface. She comes off as cocky and the audience wasn’t buying it. They want to accept Tiffany as a babyface but whoever is writing her material is doing an awful job. Not to mention her voice comes off as conceited with the wrong intonation and inflection points that make her seem condescending, which makes her unlikable or at the very least unsympathetic. Things get worse because Nia Jax interrupts (with her accessory called Candice LeRae) and the only thing that can bring mercy to the planet would be twin drills being inserted into my ears. I mean, it’s more like Nia’s sheer awfulness is the only thing that can cancel Tiffany’s ineffectual ability to promo as a face, which still isn’t what you want since you want the face to get over on her own merit and speaking ability.
Tiffany Stratton vs. Candice LeRae w/ Nia Jax
I’m not a fan of Candice but I’ve been paying closer attention to Tiffany’s matches. I think she repeated her Great Muta’s reverse handspring somersault flip thing, which tells me how limited Tiffany is. She did pull off a rolling blockbuster/Samoan drop which I haven’t seen her pull off before, which seemed cool. Also, she missed her version of the Swanton Bomb. The biggest offensive thing to me was the heels being out of place to catch Tiffany when she did her Orihara Moonsault to the floor. I think Tiffany could’ve hurt her elbow or arm because when she entered the ring again you could see some blood where she might’ve nicked her arm. But I was really upset for Tiffany because her style is going to force her to slow down and expose her as being a limited worker soon.
There was one moment where Candice actually managed to get some heat with the crowd and here’s where I have a ton of issues with Candice. Candice strikes me as the type of person who’s collecting a paycheck up in WWE. She’ll do whatever they tell her and she can do enough and has enough experience to pull off certain moves. But she’s not a super star and has no idea what to really do in the ring. Like when the crowd was starting to get behind Tiffany, all Candice had to do was turn towards the crowd and yell, “Shut up!” Instead, it feels like watching someone who has a hard time trying to remember how things have been planned in the back as opposed to reacting naturally to the crowd. That’s why she’ll never get over (besides lacking height, personality and actual in ring ability). Is that a knock against her? Maybe but it’s the raw truth.
Charlotte had come out and was put on commentary. She talked about Tiffany basing her career off of Charlotte’s one move (which actually was done elsewhere) in the Orihara Moonsault. That said, the things Charlotte said wasn’t unnecessarily false. In fact, I completely agreed with Charlotte because she’s one of the few actually capable women wrestlers around right now. The WWE keep putting her in these positions because the other women in the WWE (not including NXT which has their own focus) are pretty bad. I mean, who else can Tiffany Stratton face that would be meaningful at this stage for Wrestlemania? People dislike Charlotte because she comes off as pretentious and fake (mostly physical appearance) but she’s one of the few top stars that can make and break people in the WWE at this stage where her credibility is enough that she can hand the torch over.
At any rate, Tiffany won with Nia immediately barreling her way post-match for a beat down. As Tiffany is getting her ass kicked by the heels, Trish Stratus runs in to help her and Nia awkwardly waited around to awkwardly slap at Trish on the ring apron. The heels manage to thwart the two babyfaces and Nia does a double fat ass Yokozuna Bonzai drop that looked as though she landed on Trish’s jaw. The whole post down beat down by the heels was awful mostly because both Candice and Nia are awful and no one wants to see either (when was the last time you heard a Candice chant?). I felt bad for Trish but for whatever reason Trish got rolled out of the ring so Charlotte could confront Tiffany to put their focus back on their Wrestlemania match. I mean where the hell did Trish go? She got splattered by Nia’s enormous rear like a pancake then faded into nothing. Couldn’t Charlotte just go up to Trish and say, “Long time no see, Trish!” This whole thing was horribly produced. Not to mention Charlotte does the obligatory pointing towards the Wrestlemania sign. Ugh. Fucking shoot me.
Cody Rhodes Backstage with Damien Priest (and Braun Strowman)
Damien talks about his Elimination Chamber win with Cody and Cody has no issue about Priest going after him (I have theories….). Braun then shows up to talk about respecting Priest, etc. so that they could team up to fight in the main event against Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu.
Naomi and Bianca Belair
More conspiracy talk about who attacked Jade Cargill. Again, the focus is on Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez which means that it won’t be them except probably that this angle is leading for Naomi and Bianca to drop the titles to Liv and Raquel at Wrestlemania with Jade returning and revealing the perpetrator (which I think is Bianca) to develop a 1:1 feud. Unless of course, Bianca wins to face Rhea Ripley. But I think Rhea is going to face munchkin I mean Roxanne Perez at Wrestlemania. I could be wrong (and probably will be) but my writer’s instincts along with the WWE wanting to push younger stars seems like the real motive here in all of this.
Alexa Bliss Video
She tries to sell how she loves the Chamber (which one?) but I can’t buy Alexa as Rhea’s challenger because she’s too small and not really good. Plus, I don’t really see Alexa vs Rhea as a good challenge for Rhea at Wrestlemania. My money is on Bianca Belair only because I think she’s going to turn heel soon if not at the Elimination Chamber (where it is possible the perpetrator is revealed) or at Wrestlemania where she works twice. But Alexa simply has been gone too long and outside of her Rumble return hasn’t really done much. I mean, once you see her in the ring, you stop caring.
Naomi and Bianca Brawl with Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez
I have no idea what was supposed to happen here. Just typical run in shit that barely was explained except to “further” the feud between these two teams. But I’m guessing that Liv and Raquel are going to take the tag titles soon so that Bianca can be split and feud with Jade. Naomi is one of the worst in the WWE but she gets pushed for no good reason.
Chelsea Green and Piper Niven
Chelsea wants to participate on the Elimination Chamber PPV but gets a Smackdown match by Nick Aldis. As I’ve said, Chelsea plays herself too over the top for me to care. Piper glares quietly in the background with her sunglasses. I’m hoping that it’s not Piper who gets a match against Chelsea. As much as I’m apathetic for Chelsea’s gimmick, having Piper turn on Chelsea at this stage feels premature. I’d prefer Chelsea to try and get her matches over and be taken as a singles competitor by giving her actual capable opponents just to make me care if they’re going this route with her. Otherwise, why have her in this position? Might as well just dump her.
The Rock and Cody Rhodes Segment
Okay, this part went on WAAAAAAAY too long. But it’s the Rock and they were going to hype up next year’s Wrestlemania event at the Louisiana Super Dome as though it was Amazon announcing their Prime Day Christmas special already. The Rock was giving off heel vibes during this thing and it was painfully self-felating both on purpose and because the Rock probably got a nice payday from all this. He gets poor Cody to come out and to make an extraneously prolonged story concise, the Rock said that he wants Cody’s soul at the end of the day.
I needed to cut the bulk of this awful segment out because it just went on too long without making much of a point outside of the probable ratings grab for having the Rock show up for this amount of time to do nothing except appear and announce next year’s Wrestlemania (which apparently was not announced at the Super Bowl) and effectively talk about his next WWE role, which is to be a Vince McMahon type of boss character as a “director” type for TKO while Cody plays Austin. There’s no other way to put it. This is McMahon vs Austin from ’98 – ’99 being setup.
HOWEVER, CODY IS NOT LIKE AUSTIN AT ALL.
Austin worked well as the protagonist in his rivalry against Vince McMahon because Austin was the anti-hero that the public needed. I wrote up a lengthy description at one point analyzing how Austin’s character worked in a previous blog post. On the other hand, Cody, while being generally loved, does not resemble Austin’s character in any fashion. Cody IS the corporate hero that already is owned by TKO. Heck, he’s so sterile and white that if you put him inside one of the space ships from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cody turns invisible like John Cena. Cody comes to the ring weekly in suits, he speaks with practiced, overly emphatic, unnatural and obviously very scripted verbiage. He slaps kids’ hands wishing he had the cool factor of Bret Hart. And his wife, whom no one liked in AEW, is desperate to find a career in entertainment but she’s been long neutralized because the WWE probably recognized her lack of talent for the better after viewing her reaction by the fans in AEW. This guy IS the corporate champion whose soul is owned by the WWE/TKO.
So unless Cody DOES decide to conform verbally in acknowledging the Rock (much like the ill fated Anakin Skywalker to Emperor Palpatine), this whole thing about the Rock making Cody’s life a living hell will fall flatter than Trish Stratus’ jaw after Nia’s fat rear pancaked her face. Honestly, I think Cody should just do the Anakin Skywalker, conform, turn heel, full embrace the corporate champion because at least it makes for a far more interesting story line than a lame repeat of a more natural story line of Austin vs McMahon that the WWE can’t repeat at this stage.
Quite frankly, I think the writers and the Rock are too awful to realize that this story isn’t going to work out and that they’ll just put up various barriers for Cody to run through. But I think the story line will slowly kill Cody as a baby face because the fans don’t like it when things are too obvious and the people that the WWE has an agenda for aren’t the ones the fans select. But more on that part in a bit.
DIY (Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano) vs. Pretty Deadly (Kit Wilson and Elton Prince)
Before this match started, for some goddamn unknown reason the WWE decided it was okay for DIY to speak. Neither guy can talk and are interesting by themselves so I zoned out and took a big ass Del Taco shit. The match itself was nothing but I listened in the background on my toilet and heard that the Profits came out along with the Motor City Machine Guns which leads me to believe they’re going to setup another stupid multi-man tag team match for the title where I couldn’t care less for anyone.
Kevin Owen’s Creepy Video
So now Kevin Owen’s is doing the Brian Pillman outside the house thing where he’s just hanging around Sami’s place and showing he can see Sami playing with his family. Maybe it was Raw where it occurred to me just how stupid the idea of this “unsanctioned” match is because if Sami hated Kevin so bad that he needed to fight the guy, why bother using a WWE ring? Why fight so hard for a match that is “unsanctioned” just to get a ring to fight someone where you have a personal grudge at that level? Why not just find Kevin Owen’s car in watching security footage then if the guy shows up go down and beat the fuck out of him? Even if the production and the execution of the promo are done well, it’s the logic in getting to a certain point that makes me hate the whole thing.
With Kevin Owen’s hanging around Sami’s house, wouldn’t Sami simply call the police after seeing the footage air on Smackdown and have Kevin Owens served a restraining order? This type of stuff drives me nuts because there needs to be some level of boundaries in wrestling. I want to get lost in the story line but when there’s large leaps of logic and where the quintessential aspects of wrestling get overblown to a nonsense reality, I start really hating it and not wanting to watch. As silly as the gimmicks were in the late 80s, early 90s, they weren’t as overblown compared to now. Those gimmicks merely added some color to what probably were lifeless people that needed some extra oomph to help give them a unique sense of identity. I would much prefer that than the reality-less vision of what modern wrestling is.
Damian Priest and Braun Strowman vs. Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa w/ Tama Tonga
Not much of a match to me but I guess this is Solo making his return from his vacation. He’s just not much in the ring to me where Fatu has the personality and clearly is the star in this group. Unfortunately, the guy the WWE is really pushing is Damian Priest. I don’t have any major issues with the guy but he’s missing something. His matches are mediocre, inconsistent and he doesn’t exhibit any unique personality that makes him stand out. Jacob got taken out by Braun to protect him while poor Solo was pinned. After the whole Bloodline vs Bloodline story evaporated, the only one to come out was Jacob but that’s fine because he’s got talent. Solo should be pushed down the ranks to fight against people like LA Knight over the US title. But I also think Damian Priest should be at that level because he’s not showing anything right now. Of course, Jacob will continue to be protected but they’re waiting to really pull the trigger on him. He’s the talent everyone probably wants to work with along with Bron Breaker. But I’m hoping that if they are planning a split between Jacob and Solo, we don’t get a multi month feud that kills Jacob’s heat. He’s too valuable to be wasted on Solo. One match to settle the issue then move Solo to Raw to chase a midcard title or something.
Now, let’s talk about Damian Priest. Given what he told Cody earlier and given what the Rock had mentioned about wanting Cody’s soul, I could see Damian Priest being the winner of the Elimination Chamber. There are rumors circulating that CM Punk will face both Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns in a three way at Wrestlemania, which sounds like the actual main event. That leaves John Cena as the best candidate to face Cody so that one of the previous eras most over stars gives Cody a big rub as he winds down his career.
However, we haven’t heard anything about Roman Reigns recently so unless he’s factored into the Elimination Chamber somehow (like a post match beat down), I don’t know where he’ll be for Wrestlemania. Clearly, we won’t see Roman Reigns vs Cody Rhodes again. That makes no sense at this stage. I would argue that while CM Punk vs Seth Rollins on its own would be a pretty huge match at Wrestlemania, the bigger one for Punk would be against John Cena. It isn’t the main event for the main title but it’s still John Cena and it’ll be enough to make CM Punk happy. But I’m not feeling the three way because we haven’t resolved CM Punk’s “favor” from Paul Heyman and I simply don’t want another stupid three way between three main event people at Wrestlemania. That feels like a waste. I could see Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns where Seth gets revenge against Roman though. It won’t be for the title but at least there’s good meat there.
With all that said, I could see Damian Priest in the main event against Cody Rhodes for the title at Wrestlemania. With Jey Uso taking on Gunther, I feel that the WWE is more inclined in taking high risks to build up their main event scene. I recall reading how one of HHH’s (or maybe the WWE office in general) concerns was to increase the number of main eventers. In Jey Uso’s case, I don’t doubt he’s going to win unless the WWE decides Gunther needs to get mega heat by embarrassing Jey Uso. Otherwise, the WWE will mostly likely take advantage of the “strike while the iron is hot” notion and continue pushing Jey Uso because they see him as a valuable commodity. Then it’ll be up to Jey Uso to either rise to the occasion or be exposed (where his title reign won’t last long and you can slot in say a Sami Zayn at Summer Slam just to see him propelled into the main event).
In the case of Damian Priest, this feels like one of those “die Rocky die!” moments that’s about to happen. But I could see a scenario where the Rock selects Damian Priest to be the true person whose soul he owns to beat Cody. Despite Cody’s natural corporate appeal, his reign was pretty much run by social media and he got over on his own initially. Yet he’s not the internal guy that I feel the WWE wanted to handpick and be the man. Damian Priest seems like a better candidate especially with that fresh start. And he probably would serve better as a heel since he’s just not hot after leaving the Judgment Day.
I was going to write how Damian Priest is that young, impressionable guy but he’s not really that young for a wrestler. He’s 42 and despite having height, that does mean the door is going to close fast because of how his body will hold up at this stage. Same thing with Jey Uso at 39. If there’s any reason to push either guys, it’s because they need more room at the top to work with and that these two aren’t spring chickens anymore.
Final Thoughts
Felt like another filler show. I wanted to write how painful RAW was after seeing it and avoided doing the review. But I have to say that Smackdown right now doesn’t feel hot. The Rock added nothing except 18 torturous minutes of nothing, poor Cody was nullified into near silence, the tag division could be shot at a kindergarten and no one would be able to tell the difference, the women’s division might as well be at a local Starbucks where a bunch of soccer mom’s complain about the PTA and how Johnny is being treated unfairly while complaining about their nails. I get that they’re trying to find the next thing but god was this painful. They really don’t have a unifying story line nor someone exceptionally over that they can rally behind.
Honestly, I’d prefer if the WWE would just go back to the format of 5-8 minute matches, no stories, just get people in and out as quickly as possible. That way you still get to show your talent but not bore people to death because someone without any clear talent impales people with their blandness for being on too long. Then focus one segment on the main story line that you want to sell and devote enough time for that. Otherwise, people are being spread too thin, you lose interest in the people you want to care about, the people who aren’t over are at least limited and can show case their 5 moves of doom or whatever then just move from segment to segment much faster. But man these shows are bland.
On a side note, I saw how TNA was being pimped out where a bunch of cameos or new signees were displayed. Some people I had no idea whom they were. I can’t remember but I did see something with Cora Jade and Oba Femi (or whatever) showed up and the TNA crowd started chanting “NXT!” That looked really bad for TNA. The last thing you want is for a “rival” promotion to be more over than your local talent. Given that there were a bunch of management changes in TNA, I wouldn’t be surprised if part of that is due to the owners of TNA going, “well, this shitty promoti0n hasn’t grown in a while. Might as well sell out to the largest to get more eyeballs!”
That said, sending someone like Cora Jade over….it’s really almost bottom rung. Some people might think I’m harsh but think about the exchange. She’s not really the women’s champion from NXT nor even a champion. She was Roxanne’s sidekick. So NXT is sending her over to get exposure, experience and hopefully get over over while TNA’s current women’s champion gets what? Or they have Cora stare at Tessa Blanchard whom apparently no one likes (but in all probability the WWE would like to sign if they can get the racist stink off of her)
But meh, I haven’t cared about TNA since 2007 when Hogan and Bischoff pretty much ruined a good thing. Vince Russo was bad but it got worse when those two showed up. I did try to catch TNA a few times during and after the pandemic but the tiny arenas with the echo chamber type of crowd made it hard to watch. I’m so apathetic towards TNA that even their backstage drama is moot to me. But I guess they did develop Jordynne Grace who looks fine in the WWE/NXT so I’ll give them that.