Roman Reigns Starts the Show, The Rock Appears
After a recap of last weekend’s Elimination Chamber PLE, Friday Night SmackDown kicked off with Roman Reigns and The Bloodline and it’s fair to say that Roman was very angry at the lack of respect from the Arizona crowd. Reigns even said he was going to leave before Paul Heyman reminded him that The Rock was coming. After a commercial break, The Rock came out and cut a very long promo where he insulted the people of Arizona before he gave a counteroffer to Cody Rhodes in regards to his 1-on-1 challenge. Instead of doing that, Rocky challenged Cody and Seth “Freakin” Rollins to a Tag Team match in the Main Event of Night 1 of WrestleMania XL where if Rhodes wins, he gets a clean shot against The Tribal Chief for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship on Night 2. However, if (and when) The Bloodline wins, it will mean that Sunday’s contest will have no rules attached. Before Dwayne could finish what he was saying though, Roman Reigns demanded to be acknowledged by his cousin which The Rock did. I’m not joking, this took up 40 minutes of the show which is true Bloodline style really. I definitely find Roman Reigns to be very intriguing here as The Rock is clearly taking some spotlight away from The Head of The Table.
Grade: B
Naomi VS Tiffany Stratton, The Kabuki Warriors VS Bayley and Dakota Kai, Bron Breakker VS Xyon Quinn, Carlito VS Santos Escobar: Street Fight
LA Knight was looking for AJ Styles backstage before Randy Orton caught A-Town Down Under taking the mick out of Logan Paul rocking Randy with brass knuckles inside the Elimination Chamber. This set up the Main Event. It was then finally time for the first match of the night as Naomi was looking to get revenge on Tiffany Stratton. I thought the action here was pretty decent, with both Naomi and Tiffany hitting some good moves. The crowd were also behind Stratton which was nice to see, and in the end, The Center of the Universe hit the Prettiest Moonsault Ever to pick up a pretty good and valuable win.
Grade: B-
After a quick video package, we went straight into the next match as Bayley and Dakota Kai teamed up to take on The Kabuki Warriors in a match without the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships on the line. This was pretty straightforward stuff in the sense that Asuka and Kairi Sane controlled Bayley for the most part before The Role Model started to fight back. However, when she went to make the hot tag to Dakota Kai, Kai jumped off the apron because she is King Kota (after all) before Damage CTRL beat down the Women’s Royal Rumble Winner (including Iyo Sky). Why this match just randomly ended I have no idea, but hey, Damage Control’s theme song is now in Japanese which is actually pretty sick!
Grade: C+
Damage CTRL were laughing between each other backstage before Iyo Sky bumped into none other than Jade Cargill. Nick Aldis then walked in to play peacekeeper. Bron Breakker then made his way down to the ring to go one-on-one with Xyon Quinn and I honestly couldn’t believe it! I like Xyon Quinn, but where the heck has he been?! Also, this match only went about 7-or-8 seconds as Breakker wrecked Xyon with a Spear to win the match. I have no words!
Grade: C
After a video package highlighting the rivalry between The LWO and Legado Del Fantasma so far, Carlito and Santos Escobar collided in a Street Fight. The action here was good, with Santos taking the lead on things for the most part. Interestingly, Angel and Humberto showed up at one point to help Escobar deliver a sort of Super Phantom Driver which Carlito amazingly managed to kick out of (so fair play to him)! Cruz Del Toro and Joaquin Wilde then ran down to try and make the save, but it was ultimately the return of Rey Mysterio who made the difference as Mysterio took out the Heels, delivered a 619 to Santos Escobar before Carlito sent The Emperor of Lucha Libre flying through a table to secure the victory. Like I said, this was a good match that was well done.
Grade: B-
Austin Theory VS Randy Orton
After Nick Aldis caught up with Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate and LA Knight basically threatened the SmackDown General Manager, Kevin Owens joined commentary for the Main Event as Austin Theory took on Randy Orton. This was literally a house show match, with Orton hitting all his big moves on Theory whilst Kevin Owens was just jumping up and down with joy. I’ll be honest, I kind of want KO to be a special guest commentator at Mania (or at least NXT Stand and Deliver). Anyway, Randy was eventually able to get the win with a pretty cool RKO before Grayson Waller attacked The Viper from behind. This ultimately resulted in Waller receiving an RKO after Theory sold brilliantly (as per usual) for a Kevin Owens Stunner. Simple stuff, but sometimes it does work really well.
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