We’re now just a few days from WrestleMania 35, and SmackDown only confirmed its main event last week, with Kofi Kingston finally earning a WWE Championship opportunity against Daniel Bryan. A contract signing was planned for this episode, along with other segments with the purpose of providing a final push for Mania.
The KO Show w/ Randy Orton & AJ Styles
Kevin Owens’ talk show made another appearance to kick off SmackDown. After acknowledging Mania was this Sunday, but not divulging anything about his own involvement at the show (which may or may not be a swerve leading to KO making a huge splash at MetLife Stadium), KO introduced his guests, WrestleMania opponents Randy Orton and AJ Styles. As with their debate a few weeks back, both men exchanged major barbs, with AJ even bringing up Orton’s past of failing drug tests. After Randy said that Styles had replaced John Cena as “the office bitch”, KO calmly got up and amusingly walked away, realising what was to come. Sure enough, a fight broke out, ending with Orton catching Styles with a mid-air RKO to counter a Phenomenal Forearm. This mini-feud has exceeded expectations so far, and I’m hoping that it continues beyond Mania.
The Usos, Ricochet & Aleister Black vs. The Bar, Rusev & Shinsuke Nakamura
This was a decent if uneventful eight-man tag match. I’m not sure why Ricochet and Aleister are still not locked down to a brand, but then again, there is so much cross-band activity right now that the split as a whole has lost significance since Mania Season began. Anyway, the story here was not necessarily the action itself (which ended with both Usos catching Rusev with a double superkick for the pin), but the post-match scenes, with Alexa Bliss (the Mania host, but a Raw roster member) coming out. Alexa revealed that The Usos would face repercussions for forfeiting their spot in the tag team Gauntlet last week, and their punishment was a four-way title defence at Mania against all of the teams at ringside. Cue another brawl, which ended with Ricochet & Black standing tall. Bear in mind that they could win the NXT Tag Team Championships on Friday, the SD belts on Sunday, and having lost a title shot against The Revival on Raw, it wouldn’t be out of the question for them to lift the Raw titles too. It could be a historic few days for the NXT call-ups (or maybe not).
The IIconics then cut a quick promo about them winning the Women’s Tag Team Titles on Sunday. That’s it.
The Miz Promo
More notable was The Miz’ promo, where (after reminding fans of the season premiere for the second run of Miz & Mrs right after SD) he vowed to fight for his family against Shane McMahon, and noting that because Shane has a father, that makes him a son of a bitch. Linda McMahon didn’t deserve that swipe, did she? Anyway, Sanity came out for the planned three-on-one handicap match (made by a vengeful Shane, obviously), and then Shane O Mac popped out. After insisting on a grand introduction by Greg Hamilton, Shane said he wanted to watch this bout up close and personal (from the ramp).
The Miz vs. Sanity
A year ago, fans were excited at the possibility of Eric Young, Killian Dain and Alexander Wolfe landing on the main roster. Now, it is impossible to expect them to win a match, even when the odds are greatly in their favour. They had some offence against Miz, to be fair, but just as Mike was fighting back, Shane came out and (after Greg Hamilton began to do another big intro only for Shane to cut him off, which I thought was hilarious and hopefully the start of a running joke) said it was now Falls Count Anywhere rules. Shane also said that his new phone screensaver was an image of him scrunching up Miz’s dad’s face from Fast Lane and put it on the big screen. He ran off as Sanity fought Miz around ringside and eventually into the backstage area. In the parking lot, Miz (whose role was not too dissimilar to the much-criticised SuperCena from earlier this decade, though few will complain because it’s not John) rammed a mini-dumpster of sorts into a downed Eric Young’s face for the pin. Shane glared out of his limousine window with a heelish smile as he left the building.
Becky Lynch Promo
In a nice segue, as Shane left, a police car arrived, and out came Becky Lynch. She, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey had all been arrested in a wild and very well-executed angle the night before on Raw, but all three had apparently been released. Bex definitely had since she was here. Standing on the announcer’s table, Lynch noted the difference that a year had made, and noted how one punch to Charlotte at SummerSlam 2018 had begun the story that would end with her lifting both titles at WrestleMania. Fans are still firmly behind The Man, and right now, I would be extremely surprised if she didn’t triumph in the Mania main event this Sunday.
Eighteen-Person Mixed Tag Team Match
Described as the biggest mixed tag team match in WWE history, this bout merged a whole bunch of faces from both Mania battle royals into one filler bout, which should give you an idea as to how important they are right now. For the record, the babyface squad consisted of Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, R-Truth, Heavy Machinery, Carmella, Naomi, Asuka and Nikki Cross, whilst the heel team included Andrade, Luke Gallows, Karl Anderson (when did The Club go rogue again?), Shelton Benjamin, EC3, Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, Zelina Vega and Lana. It ended with another big brawl for a non-finish, and everybody took turns throwing each other out of the ring, which all culminated with Asuka dumping Jeff Hardy to the floor. Moving on. (Oh, and Lacey Evans wandered out again during the match; will she finally do something beyond strutting down the ramp this Sunday?)
Samoa Joe vs. Ali
It’s easy to forget that WWE were setting up a rivalry between these two in January. That feels like ancient history right now. Joe was thoroughly dominant here, and easily defeated (no longer Mustafa) Ali with the Coquina Clutch for the submission win, ahead of his presumed United States Title defence against Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania. I say “presumed” because we were meant to see Rey vs. Andrade here, but Mysterio had to pull out due to an ankle injury suffered against Baron Corbin on Raw. That Rey’s injury wasn’t heavily discussed, and the cancelled match wasn’t even acknowledged, suggests that this is a legit injury, but hopefully not a serious one. We’ll have to wait and see if the U.S. Title clash actually goes down.
WWE Championship Contract Signing
Michael Cole was here for some reason to mandate the official contract signing between Daniel Bryan and Kofi Kingston. Bryan had Rowan by his side, who stood menacingly as usual. Kofi had Xavier Woods and Big E, who were in a celebratory mood to say the least. Though Xavier tried to remain somewhat serious, Big E was a riot here, performing increasingly-ridiculous dances and facial expressions throughout, so much so that I’m amazed Bryan and friends didn’t burst out laughing. Daniel was too busy giving Kofi “life lessons”, which criticised how Kingston had stood by in the past and been unable to earn a singles title shot in the past. All while we had the fans chanting “Kofi” and “KofiMania” over and over, which always helps the cause of a babyface challenger. Bryan even got an “asshole” chant, which paradoxically is impressive considering how over Daniel was as a face himself. Kofi eventually cut him off and talked up the struggle he had overcome to reach this point. With TV time rapidly running out, Kingston vowed to beat Daniel (as he suggested Bryan knew, hence him demonstrating fear of him) and signed the contract to end the show. Kofi surely has to become WWE Champion this Sunday; it would be such a flat ending to a simple yet perfectly-executed storyline if he fell at the final hurdle at Mania.
On the whole, this wasn’t a great episode of SmackDown, but it did have its moments. And besides, it existed primarily to provide one final nudge for fans to watch the blue brand’s contributions to WrestleMania 35, and I would suggest that they succeeded with achieving that goal. (Also, look out for our Mania-themed articles this week, as well as our full review of the supershow itself!)