This was the last Smackdown before the Elimination Chamber for today. I have to admit that after Survivor Series 2024, the WWE has been on a downhill run. Maybe it’s the Rock returning or the fact that the road to Wrestlemania has been sluggish without a solid story going in. But compared to the previous two years of the Bloodline story, the WWE has been torpid as ever and this Smackdown was brutal.
After the recap, we get Cody Rhodes entering with some security to play off the Rock’s whole “I want your soul” gag. I’m telling you right now, this is horrible. It’s not going to be horrible; it is horrible, borderline rotten. It’s typical Cody Rhodes wanting to demonstrate he’s not some conformer when in fact he’s the worst of the lot. He’s going to make John Cena feel as cool as Darth Vader from Empire Strikes Back at that One Night Only ECW show.
Trish Stratus and Tiffany Stratton in Ring Promo
And the rottenness continues with this stink bomb of a segment. Trish is decent at being a babyface because she talks with the crowd. However, Tiffany Stratton is just god awful in this role. I have no idea issue with her in ring work as a babyface. But her promo work just stinks. She still comes off arrogant, snooty and has that nasal valley girl tone that I would attribute to being the thing that broke Steve Austin’s glass. To make things worse, out comes Chelsea Green with Piper Niven dressed as the Mountie. Chelsea attempts to be a heel by telling the Canadian (i.e. hometown for her) audience that she’s better off disassociating herself from them. It would work for me except that it feels horribly unoriginal. With Piper Niven dressed as the Mountie my main thought about this segment was how there was 2 cosplaying wrestlers. Trish managed to save the segment but I prefer her being on her own.
Tiffany Stratton w/ Trish Stratus vs. Chelsea Green w/ Piper Niven
I don’t mind Chelsea chasing Tiffany since Chelsea is the US champion. But I barely paid attention to this because I was already upset with the previous segment. I guess there was a sloppy DQ when Nia Jax and Candice LaRae interfered. Maybe the most notable thing was seeing Tiffany perform a Swanton to the floor but I was more upset by her doing it because of how dangerous it was. Before this show, I watched a Misawa vs Kawada Noah match from 2005 which already upset me because it was dog shit. I might talk about that match after this Smackdown part of the post but I keep thinking how idiotic a lot of these wrestlers are for pulling off these risky spots.
More Solo / Jacob Fatu backstage drama. Another stupid triple threat match was announced. Then another wretched Cody “I want your soul” segment except with the perpetual joke in the company, R-Truth. I really hope this isn’t Cody’s idea because I’ve never been impressed by his thought processes from AEW. Maybe he’s trying to ham it up and make something work in the WWE but no one wants to see him in a comedic role. He’s going to Anakin Skywalker himself in a podracer type of way from Star Wars 1 at this rate.
Andrade vs. Jacob Fatu
More evidence that Jacob Fatu probably is the best worker in the WWE at the moment. I don’t care for Andrade at this stage but it’s clear that everyone wants to wrestle Jacob and we get to see how Jacob performs against a luchadore. Jacob made Andrade watchable. Andrade needs to get rid of that stupid double moonsault spot that forces his opponent to roll out of the way. Samoa Joe has a similar spot but he sees his opponent coming at him whereas Andrade doesn’t. Stuff like that make me not want to watch Andrade.
Tag Team Chaos
Beyond god awful. This reminds me of the night when everyone from the WCW locker room came out to brawl with the NWO and just looked like shit. It might’ve been exciting when it first happened but it was one of those things that lead to the decline of WCW because it occurred every week. More importantly, it occurred with a bunch of nobodies that got thrown out there much like this segment. At the end, I find the WWE tag division unwatchable at this stage.
Drew McIntyre with Cody Rhodes Backstage
Drew effectively tells people exactly what I’ve been saying about Cody in that he already sold his soul a long time ago. This is why I like Drew McIntyre.
Main Event Promo for Tomorrow (Tonight)
Essentially, everyone BUT Cena for today’s main event Elimination Chamber came out to add their 2 cents. They did a tease spot with Logan Paul faking Cena coming out to upset the audience. But it was unoriginal and made me mad because it simply states that Cena only is doing the big stuff at this point, which means to me that he shouldn’t win the Elimination Chamber. Everyone talked but no one did anything so this felt like a pointless segment that could’ve aired last week and have a brawl at the end of the show with all six people to sell the event. In short, it de-emphasized the important of the Elimination Chamber because you-know-who is going to appear later.
LA Knight vs. Santos Escobar
Okay, I guess whatever US title match was supposed to happen got cancelled in favor of a mini tournament. Why? LA Knight wrestles Santos Escobar for the one millionth time and the outcome is obvious. I guess both guys like working with each other but it’s the same shit and same match every time.
Sami Zayn in Ring Promo (with Kevin Owens cameo)
Another bad in ring segment with Kevin Owens doing nothing. I guess they don’t want anyone on their minor league PPVs to get hurt before the event so they just give lengthy promos that go nowhere and are boring. After this crap, the 5 man “main event promo” and the crappy women’s match earlier, I’m glad that I’ve got a Korean BBQ dinner scheduled for tonight because god I have zero desire to watch this PPV. Maybe the only important thing is finding out who is going to face Cody but with the Rock involved at this stage, I know I’m going to be disinterested in this year’s Wrestlemania.
Miz and Carmelo Hayes
I hate that they’re trying to make Carmelo Hayes less bland because it’s not working. He’s just generic and you can replace his spot with anyone else and nothing changes. Worse yet they’re trying to give him semi-comedy spots with the Miz which is the death knell.
Braun Strowman vs. Carmelo Hayes
Carmelo did the old Eddie Guerrero “cheat lie n steal” type of spot in faking getting hit by a chair while the ref was distracted. Poor Solo is now affirmed to be a midcard player as he and Tama try to interfere in this match and are in the Braun vortex. The fact that the announcers referenced Eddie Guerrero, who has been dead for 20 years or so and the fact that they can’t come up with more original booking to make bland Carmelo interesting or unique says just how creatively defunct the WWE is outside of their main event. And even then their main event is sterile.
Bayley, Naomi, and Bianca Belair vs. Roxanne Perez, Liv Morgan, and Raquel Rodriguez
There was a rotten segment before with Bayley, Naomi and Bianca talking about Jade. I’m convinced now that it’s either Bayley or Bianca as the culprit. This match blew chunks whenever Naomi got involved. She’s nearly irredeemable. She did a corner dropkick that clearly missed and the camera caught it. Then they went to the floor confused. I have no idea why but something was off in this match. They described Roxanne as an NXT wrestler. Why is she on Smackdown then? Roxanne is the most impressive of the bunch because she isn’t damaged goods like the rest of the participants and she can still move.
Alexa shows up post match to spike poor Roxanne. Roxanne is good because she made Alexa look decent there. Otherwise, Alexa is completely out of place. I have no desire to see her nor that fake horror group appear any longer.
Charlotte says some things about Tiffany and Wrestlemania but she looks bored. I swear she looks like Cher at this point in her life.
Shinsuke did an unintelligible video. My Japanese has gotten really bad over the years but he sounded like he’s on drugs. Please kill the gimmick. It’s as bad as that horrid Wyatt group.
Jacob Fatu vs. LA Knight vs. Carmelo Hayes
Jacob is the MVP right now. LA Knight took Fatu out so that Fatu continues to be protected while LA Knight got a pin on Carmelo. I didn’t pay attention here except to the result. I probably would have if it just was LA Knight and Fatu but I hate triple threats at this stage and find them to be part of the whole “lazy booking” trope.
Cody Rhodes with CM Punk Backstage
Punk offers Cody some advice. What happened to the “stab my friend in the front?” He’s focused on Wrestlemania and the main event but I’m thinking he’s not getting it at this point unless he’s the one that sold his soul to the Rock. I just wish someone would do something to be interesting. No one is interesting right now except Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fatu (and Gunther but that’s Raw).
Cody Rhodes and A Cameo
Now, that Cody was aimlessly and pointlessly wandering around the backstage to receive advice from everyone, he comes to the ring so that you-know-who, the Rock, could steal the spotlight again from a REMOTE location. Just like all of his post-Wrestlemania interviews, the Rock meanders and does this stupid “I want your soul” speech that wavers between good guy and bad guy. First, let’s just talk about “I want your soul.” Who the fuck says that? Okay, Vince McMahon but you knew Vince was the devil in the WWE. The Rock IS NOT Vince McMahon though. He’s more full of himself than ever. But why on god’s earth would anyone walk up to another human being and tell him/her, “I want your soul?” It’s so fucking stupid.
If Cody is supposed to repudiate the Rock, he’s going to get shit on really fast because Cody does NOT have the personality nor character to be this “I’m not a sell out” type. It worked with John Cena because of how he gained respect behind the scenes with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Once Cena became a babyface, he never changed and that’s why he’s a legend at this stage. It took him years to establish that aspect of his personality on screen as well as behind the scenes.
I can’t help but think of how Cody is infatuated with himself as this angelic character like when he faced Malakai Black and would wear white suits to the ring. At least with the AEW crowd, as annoying as they are, they could sniff out a fake rat, which is why Cody ran back to the WWE in part. But without that strong antagonist, Cody seems about as real as Trump’s campaign promises. I think at least if he turns heel, he’ll be interesting because he could act like a delusional moron which is better than whatever he’s trying to present now.
As for the Rock…..ugh. He had something with the Final Boss character in facing Cody at least year’s Wrestlemania. Then he decides, “Let’s hug.” He’s like Chris Jericho where he’s deluded himself into think he knows the business. This whole thing stinks and it’s hurting the creative. It feels like the business is more exposed than ever, making me want to do something else to occupy my time.
Final Thoughts
In a string of brutally bad shows, this one was no different. Nothing really happened. I’d argue that nothing was built for the Elimination Chamber. In fact, that PLE feels more like a must miss event that I can read the headline rather than watching. Maybe the men’s Elimination Chamber as a match itself could be interesting but the rest looks like trash. You can guarantee an angle or two are going to occur to set the stage towards Wrestlemania. The stuff with Cody might become the real main event thing for the PLE but the Rock has almost nothing to do with the Elimination Chamber right now and he effectively disrupted the selling point. So if he doesn’t do something big like introduce a new Bloodline (which doesn’t sound like the case) or be someone who pushes a new piece to the top like Damian Priest (not the greatest idea but at least the pieces are moving in a direction), then what’s the point. Again, I prefer Cody to sell his soul so that his main event at Wrestlemania feels important because he’s awful when he’s not chasing the belt and not going against a solid heel.