Opening Segment
AJ Styles does an in-ring interview with Renee Young, stating that it’s not fair that he’s in a 2-on-1 match for the WWE championship at Royal Rumble, but that life isn’t fair. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn come out to the ring, vowing to be the first ever co-WWE champions.
I always believed that AJ was the perfect champion for the Smackdown brand until this idea was put in my head. While you can rely on AJ to put on a good show both in and out of the ring, the concept for “co-champions”, if done with the right two people, can be hilarious and a good way to switch up the show a little bit. That being said, AJ will probably retain the title so he can defend it at Wrestlemania. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
Becky Lynch vs. Ruby Riott
Winner: Lynch submits Riott via Dis-arm-her
This match was solid—Becky made an impressive in-ring return and Riott was able to show off her submission skills. In my opinion, it seemed unnecessary for Charlotte and Naomi to make their entrances and stay ringside if they were barely going to acknowledge Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan. While they may have “argued”, the two teams stayed across the ring from one another throughout the entire match. This was a good match, but didn’t seem like enough of the women for the whole episode, especially with the first ever women’s Rumble in a few weeks.
Ascension vs. Bludgeon Brothers
Winner: Harper gets the pin on Viktor
It wasn’t long until the Ascension were back in the ring jobbing to tag teams again. While the bout wasn’t very important, it did look a little better that the Bludgeon Brothers took out Konnor post-match. Where was Breezango in this match? I know they had a match later on, but aren’t they the reason these two teams are fighting one another anyway?
Zack Ryder vs. Mojo Rawley
Winner: Mojo pins Ryder
In this match, Mojo debuted a darker, more brutal fighting style, which definitely worked to his advantage. Even though Rawley made a decent showing in this match, it won’t be surprising if he still gets silence next time he comes out to the ring. Hopefully, Mojo can bring it some more on the microphone, because people don’t really care about him right now.
Having Bobby Roode at ringside made people care a little more, but it didn’t make sense to me why he wasn’t on commentary. Roode is someone you can trust on the microphone, which can help Mojo even briefly, but it could help Mojo even more if he was at the announce table talking about it.
Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable work to #FreeTheTagTitles
This duo is proving themselves more and more each week. They seem to be leaning towards more heel-ish characters, whining and complaining when they lose. They call out “generic referee #2”, and Daniel Bryan comes out to tell them that the referee’s decision is final. Gable and Benjamin complain that they could beat them twice, so Bryan makes a best two out of three falls match between them and the Usos at the Rumble. I think this is the perfect opportunity for Benjamin and Gable. These two are already fantastic in-ring performers, and they get better week by week. This is a matchup that could go either way.
Rusev Day vs. Breezango
Winner: Fandango gets the roll-up pin on Rusev
It’s really cool to see someone like Aiden English, who, months ago, was being defeated each week in minute-long matches, finally get a small spotlight (in this case, literally) and shine in the ring. English was given a chance with Rusev and now they’re the most popular thing on Smackdown. Unfortunately, it was at the expense of Breezango.
Breezango is another example: they were given a little bit of time for their Fashion Files skits, and they took that opportunity to make something of themselves. However, putting them in those minute-long matches just for them to lose pretty much nullifies the fact that they’re popular anyway. It was a surprise, though, to see them get the roll-up pin. The fact that this is sort of reminiscent of Titus Worldwide pulling off a victory over the Bar from the night before worries me a little of Breezango’s position in the company. I really hope that Fandango and Tyler Breeze aren’t on the level of the Titus brand.
AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn
Winner: Randy delivers an RKO to Zayn and gets the pin
This match had enough twists and turns in it to make me not really care that Orton and Nakamura have been in the same position for weeks, just tagging along with AJ for whatever he’s doing in the main event. I hope they figure something out with those two soon, because it’s getting slightly annoying that they are just “there” each week. It was clever for Shane to restart the match two times, and he didn’t seem to be overreacting.
As Nakamura and Orton took turns delivering finishers and beating up Sami Zayn, AJ took Owens backstage and they kind of just disappeared. The end of the match was good, but it would’ve been nice to know where Kevin and AJ went.
Comments