LA Knight challenges Bray Wyatt, Sheamus VS Solo Sikoa
This week's episode of Friday Night SmackDown started with Bray Wyatt. Bray started off by apologizing to the cameraman that he attacked last week before he was interrupted by LA Knight. Knight told Wyatt that just cause someone came out as Uncle Howdy doesn’t mean that he isn’t still the prime suspect. The Megastar then said that he wanted to make his Royal Rumble debut special so he challenged Bray to a match for the show. All of a sudden, the lights went out and Uncle Howdy came down to the ring. Howdy stood alongside Wyatt before he stunned him with a Sister Abigail. I thought this segment was fine, Bray’s a good actor and LA Knight is a terrific promo. Also, I wasn’t too surprised to see Uncle Howdy take out Wyatt.
Grade: B-
Sami Zayn knocked on the Bloodline’s door before Paul Heyman came out and told him that he was impressed with his promo from last week’s show. This was short but sweet. The Bloodline continued to feature on the show as Solo Sikoa came out to do battle with Sheamus. These are two of the hardest-hitting performers in the company and that was clearly evident in this match. Sheamus has been on fire for years whilst it’s ridiculous to think that Solo hasn’t even been in the company for more than 15 months. In the end, the Usos used their smart tactics to help their brother before they took out the Brawling Brutes. Sheamus jumped onto the tag team champions before he was thrown into the post by Solo. Sikoa then got him back into the ring and hit him with the Samoan Spike to get the big victory. After the match, Solo and the Usos were looking to take out Sheamus for good before Drew McIntyre returned to make the save. He got a good pop and he ended up standing tall alongside the Brawling Brutes.
Grade: B-
SmackDown Women’s Championship: Ronda Rousey VS Raquel Rodriguez
Raquel Rodriguez looked to get the biggest win of her career in a match with Ronda Rousey for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. Raquel was allowed to look pretty good in this match but unfortunately, the match was a little sloppy at times. The story of the match was Ronda Rousey kept targeting the injured arm of Rodriguez but Raquel was able to evade it with her power game. In the end, Raquel hit her awesome springboard elbow drop but Shayna Baszler put Rousey’s leg on the rope. For some reason, the referee didn’t throw her out and the ending saw Rousey pull Rodriguez off of the top rope and she landed in the arm bar meaning Raquel quickly tapped out. This was more bad officiating from the referee as Raquel was holding the ropes for more than 5 seconds. Anyway, a decent match.
Grade: C+
After the match, Charlotte Flair made her return to WWE with brand-new entrance music! The crowd seemed pretty happy to see her and Flair challenged Rousey to a championship match right here, right now. Ronda accepted for some reason and you could tell that Shayna Baszler wasn’t particularly happy with this decision. The match started and Charlotte smashed Rousey with the big boot but the champion kicked out. Flair then attempted the spear but Rousey reversed it into the armbar. However, Charlotte managed to roll through and picked up the victory meaning Charlotte Flair is the brand-new SmackDown Women’s Champion! I’m happy with this, Charlotte is a star and she can put on brilliant matches whilst Rousey just can’t. It’s funny that she returns after over 7 months and wins the belt straight away, but I am very intrigued to see how she gets on in the Triple H regime. Messed up my 2023 prediction though!
Grade: B
Braun Strowman comes out to Gunther
The Bloodline were sitting in their locker room and Sami Zayn asked Roman if he was bothered by the crowd chanting his name. Roman laughed this off and praised him for his excellent promo from last week. We then went into a locker room and saw a bunch of lower-to-upper Midcard guys taking the mick out of Top Dolla for his terrible attempt at a dive. This clearly bothered the rapper as he pushed Ricochet. The two will do battle in a Royal Rumble qualifying match next week. Imperium then came out and Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci hyped up Gunther’s Intercontinental Championship reign before we saw a pretty cool video package. Braun Strowman then came out and demanded a championship match with the Ring General. Gunther clearly didn’t seem interested before Strowman beat up Kaiser and Vinci. In the end though, Imperium’s numbers advantage was too much for the “Monsters of all Monsters” and they were able to take control. However, Ricochet managed to make the save by hitting everyone with a chair. This was fine and it sets up Gunther to get another big win.
Grade: C+
Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn VS John Cena and Kevin Owens
The main event of the final WWE show of 2022 saw Roman Reigns team up with Sami Zayn to take on Kevin Owens and the 16-time World Champion, John Cena. The match started with a battle between long-time frenemies Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn before the Honorary Uce tagged in the Head of the Table. Reigns was on top of Kevin Owens before Owens laid the Champ out. As Roman made the tag to Sami Zayn, Owens tagged in John Cena and the Franchise player hit all his big moves. Cena then dropped Reigns and the two good guys hit a double Five Knuckle Shuffle onto their opponents. Cena then hit the Attitude Adjustment onto Roman Reigns before Kevin Owens “Stunned” Sami Zayn to get the victory. This wasn’t the longest match but you could tell the crowd loved it. To think that Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens have really come up together and are now involved in one of the biggest tv matches of 2022 is really quite special. The other thing I took from this match is even though Roman Reigns has been the biggest star in WWE for years now, John Cena is still the biggest star that WWE has ever had.
Wheres Sasha banks when you want her to win a belt 😑