Friday’s “WWE SmackDown” go-home show before Elimination Chamber was all about the United States Championship. Throughout the night, we saw three matches that led the winners to a triple threat to determine Shinsuke Nakamura’s next challenger. All the while, everyone and their mother were concerned about the company’s premier face, walking around like a little kid who’d lost his balloon.
Soul man
Wrestlers like R-Truth, The Miz and CM Punk confronted Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes about The Rock’s dilemma throughout the night. Their interactions were comical for different reasons, and they essentially all made fun of the soul thing.
Everything about this seems insane to me. Michael Cole even stepped in to warn Rhodes before The Rock delivered Rhodes a new “American Nightmare” truck. This was the final butter-up after giving the Undisputed WWE Champion a fancy locker room for the night.
If this isn’t just an elaborate ploy for The Rock to make a match with Rhodes, then it’s all weird.
One big super tournament
It looked like the U.S. Champion Shinsuke Nakamura was headed for a rematch with LA Knight after last week’s “WWE SmackDown.” Instead, several storylines were integrated into a big, one-night contender tournament โ including The Bloodline and what’s been happening with Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa.
The boys had a bit of a quibble backstage, apologizing for their recent accidents and explaining that they’re now turning their attention to the U.S. title. It feels random for them, but it’s an easy way to give us some unique matches. Fatu vs. Andrade, in particular, was a straight-up slapper.
We really needed this match. Andrade always reminds the world how great he is when put in spots like this, Fatu can’t do much wrong right now, and they made for one hell of a combo. Every move was 100 miles per hour and Fatu got the win with that massive moonsault of his.
The next match for this one-night extravaganza was LA Knight vs. Santos Escobar. Knight winning was a no-brainer. (YEAH!)
Knight really does feel like a modern-day Stone Cold Steve Austin, which makes his failure to go beyond the mid-card all the more upsetting. To continue the beauty of this tournament, Knight won with a mid-air BFT. Oddly, Escobar no-sold it by rolling out of the ring after the pin and walking out of the arena. We’ll have to see if there was anything to that.
The last U.S. title contender singles match between Braun Strowman and Carmelo Hayes was immediate shenanigans. Tama Tonga and Solo Sikoa tried to interfere and take out Strowman. It ended up not even being a match, as Hayes paid homage to Eddie Guerrero and won with the classic fake chair-shot spot.
We’ve already seen enough of Strowman vs. Hayes, so I guess it wasn’t the worst thing. And keeping Strowman involved with The Bloodline is fun, as was Hayes in the triple-threat final with Fatu and Knight. Let’s party.
WWE is doing a great job keeping me in their good graces with all these triple-threat matches lately, and the trio of Fatu, Knight and Hayes wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card.
Ideas like this with the U.S. title are so damn fun. The tournament story felt like it was shaped around The Bloodline, which made Knight stealing the win off Fatu’s moonsault to Hayes was somewhat surprising โ mainly because it came without any involvement of Sikoa or Tanga. Knight has already done a program with Nakamura, so it feels like a bit of a miss to not play with Nakamura and Fatu with the whole Bloodline saga, but I’m intrigued โ and that’s a good thing.
To cap the fun off, I had to wait to give out our…
๐ Uncrowned Gem of the Night ๐
It was Andrade tonight. Any of the winners of the singles matches could’ve gotten the nod, but Andrade vs. Fatu was the match of the night, and he’s just so damn good. The man deserves more, but he’s unfortunately stuck in a perpetual no-man’s land. But I see you, Andrade. Don’t worry.
The best thing for him might be to swap over to “WWE Raw.” He can wrestle with anyone on the planet. It’s just about finding a direction.
Elimination Chamber Roast Battle
This year’s Elimination Chamber really is highlighting the personalities involved. It started with Drew McIntyre cutting off a John Cena video package, which was a brilliant idea. The guy’s mic work on his own is arguably better than going back and forth. And then things escalated once Priest interrupted.
It became a predictable segment, with Priest reminding McIntyre of the various CM Punk drama that’s led to his repeated downfalls. McIntyre nearly went at Priest in the ring, which prompted Rollins to appear wearing the most insane outfit. It made for some brilliant jabs from Punk, who came out next.
And y’all, Punk was just verbally decapitating everyone.
Then Logan Paul pulled a fast one, coming out with John Cena’s entrance. This always happens to poor Canada and it gets funnier every time.
This was your classic multi-man promo battle. It ran a bit long, and Paul got too much time, but it was entertaining and had a creative start that teased a full circle moment.
Charlotte Flair has gone missing
Chelsea Green saved the start of Friday’s show by disrupting Trish Status and Tiffany Stratton’s segment. However, it quickly escalated back into another burial of the new women’s mid-card champions. It was champion vs. champion as an impromptu Green vs. Stratton match was made, and obviously there wasn’t a chance Green was going to win.
Green’s character is that stereotypical coward heel, but screaming not to have a match while being a champion is just a rough look regardless. This was all used to generate “hype” for the Nia Jax and Candice LeRae match at Elimination Chamber because they attacked Stratton to give her the DQ win. This booking couldn’t have been lazier, and all at the expense of Green for no good reason. Her spot could have been reserved for any heel on the roster.
Then Charlotte Flair showed up at the end to deliver the quickest promo ever on Stratton. WWE is lucky that Flair and Stratton will deliver a classic without a storyline, because this has been rough.
๐ UP & UP ๐
1. Sami Zayn invited Kevin Owens to chat in the ring before their big unsanctioned match at Elimination Chamber. Owens instead appeared on the titantron screen, showing him at Rogers Centre. Owens spoke into a mic despite being in an empty arena. (I notice these things, OK?)
The former best friends kept things pretty brief. Brief, but personal. Owens told Zayn everything that happened to him was all his fault, so he wouldn’t help his family after what he’d done to Zayn. This was some pretty nasty work, and they didn’t need to go long. We all know their history. This was good.
2. Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez defeated Bianca Belair, Naomi and Bayley off the Perez Pop Rocks finish pin of Bayley.
Bayley just dove all over the place at the match’s start. I don’t care about any of this anymore โ not until Jade Cargill returns. At this point, I don’t have high expectations for that, though. Regardless, the match was very good.
To the surprise of everyone โ especially Perez โ Alexa Bliss appeared post-match and took her out, which knocked this to a thumbs up. Either of those two is the correct choice to win the women’s Elimination Chamber match.
๐คท SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN ๐คท
1. Los Garza and The Street Profits were supposed to have a match. Or at least, there were until DIY hilariously attacked the Profits with their titles on. Then it just dissolved into chaos between every tag team. So, there was no match. OK, I guess.
๐ DOWN & OUT ๐
1. Cody Rhodes and some security guards that welcomed him into the building had the most poorly acted interaction ever.
2. Trish Stratus opened the show with absolutely no pop from the Canadian crowd. She’s from Toronto and they didn’t give a damn. It was painfully silent in there. Big yikes, man.
Her whole segment with Tiffany Stratton was pretty cringe-worthy overall โ if it wasn’t already obvious that their Elimination Chamber program was forced.
๐ The United States title carried this “WWE SmackDown” without even being on it. I give this show a Crown score of: 7/10 ๐
