We begin Smackdown with a recap of last week’s events.
First match up..
Sasha Banks and Toni Storm vs Shotzi and Charlotte
Storm worked over Shotzi with a side headlock takedown, Shotzi with leg scissors and Storm escaped that hold. Shotzi with an armbar, Storm broke free with a kick and Banks tagged in with Shotzi tagging in Flair, which led to the “WOO” chants as Flair faced off with Banks. There was an impressive head scissors takedown by Banks, then a few pin attempts and Storm tagged in with punches. Flair with a forearm to Storm and then Flair kicked Banks off the apron to the floor. Storm did a hip toss takeover into a pin, Shotzi broke up the pin and sent Storm out of the ring. Banks and Storm were on the floor as the show went to break.
The match continued with Banks & Storm hitting a double team suplex on Shotzi leading to Storm getting a two count. Banks sent Shotzi into the turnbuckle, Storm in for a punch, Banks back in to block a kick and Banks hit a knee to the head. Banks knocked Flair off the apron, so Shotzi punched Banks. Flair tagged in with a hard chop on Banks, who went to the floor and Flair whipped Banks into the barricade. Back in the ring, Flair hit a backbreaker for a two count. Shotzi tagged back in going for a move against the ropes, Banks moved, Shotzi hit the ropes and Storm got the tag. Storm with atomic drops to Shotzi along with a forearm. Storm tried sending Shotzi into the ropes, but Flair tagged in and hit a fallaway slam that led to Storm rolling out of the ring to the floor. The faces were out on the floor again as the show went to commercial for the second time in this match.
The match returned with Flair trying to keep Storm from tagging out, but Storm kicked Flair and Banks tagged in with an arm drag across the ring. Banks countered a Flair slam into a cross body block for a two count. That was cool. Banks hit the running knees on Flair twice for a two count. They exchanged strikes, Banks got a rollup for two and Banks did a Mysterio-like counter of a move into a bulldog. Banks went up top, Storm tagged in, and Flair avoided a move from Banks. Sasha with a Backstabber to Shotzi, Flair then tossed Banks out of the ring and Storm jumped off the top with a cross body block for a two count, the referee counted to 3, but says it’s a 2 count. Flair countered a Storm move by sending Toni into the turnbuckle. Flair went up top, the first moonsault missed, Charlotte went for another moonsault, Storm got the knees up to block and then Storm did a cool jack-knife pin on Flair to get the win.
Winners: Sasha Banks & Toni Storm
Toni and Charlotte just seem sloppy in the ring together, they don’t seem to flow very well together, we had the strange moonsault botch last week, then we had the false finish/Botch in this match. Other than this, the rest of the match was great to watch and was by far the best match of the show, this is also a great way to elevate Shotzi and Toni by putting them with two of the four horsewomen!
Another backstage king woods segment, USOs come and interrupt to announce a match tonight then a match at day 1 for the tag team championship.
Natalya was interviewed by Megan Morant with Natalya talking about how she’s a Guinness World Record Holder that has the most matches and most pay-per-view matches of any woman in WWE history. Natalya laughed about Xia Li saying she was “protecting” when she attacked Natalya next week. Natalya said that Xia Li is a nobody while Natalya is the Best of All Time and Natalya threatened Li if she ever got in her face again. Nice to see some seriousness and intensity from Nattie, something we’ve been missing for a while.
Viking Raiders vs Jinder Mahal and Shanky
NO1 contenders match
The match started during the break with the Raiders working over Mahal with Ivar hitting a knee to the ribs while Erik hit a knee to the head. Mahal with a jumping knee on Erik. Shanky tagged in with a boot to the face followed by a sidewalk slam. Shanky with a back elbow to the face. Shanky with a hard chop to the chest followed by a clothesline. Mahal worked over Erik over in the corner with a knee to the face along with a clothesline. Mahal with a chin lock, Erik broke free, Ivar with a running cross body block. Ivar with a cartwheel into a clothesline on Mahal. Erik tagged in so he can slam Ivar onto Mahal for a two count. Mahal with a jawbreaker on Erik, Shanky tagged in, Erik avoided him and Ivar tagged in with a splash. Erik slammed Ivar onto Shanky into the turnbuckle. Erik with a belly-to-belly suplex on Mahal. Ivar went up top with a big splash for the pinfall.
Winners: The Viking Raiders
This was a decent match, The Viking raiders baffle me with how agile they are for big guys, and they work so well together as a tag team.
Shanky shocked me as he can actually wrestle for a very tall guy unlike most of the extremely big guys, he does the simple stuff better than I can remember anyone of their stature.
Decent Midcard match with the correct winners in my opinion.
Paul Heyman is backstage waiting for Roman, but Brock turns up instead. Alludes to Paul being a Brock Lesner guy and him being scared about seeing Roman
Happy talk
Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss have the desk that Drew McIntyre plunged Angela into last week.
They do some of their typical happy talk stuff and tell some terrible jokes.
Happy gifts the sword to Madcap, but he can’t get the sword out of the table, Happy does the same and also can’t remove the sword.
Drew McIntyres music hits
Drew lays them both out and takes the sword out of the table and swings surprisingly close to them as they scamper out the ring.
This was horrendous, Drew is way above this type of feud.
Sami Zayn is backstage with Adam and Sonya he wishes them a happy holiday he is arguing for another universal title shot, as he feels he was screwed out of his last one and starts rambling about conspiracies again
They instead put him in a 12 man Gauntlet match for an intercontinental title shot.
Ridge Holland w Sheamus vs Cesaro
Ridge doesn’t get his own music once again..
Ridge starts with a cheap shot to the ribs with his billy club before the match starts
Ridge works Cesaro's ribs for the bulk of the match, Cesaro gets distracted by Sheamus so that Ridge can get another hit to the ribs followed by a power slam for the 3 count
Ridge gets another cheap shot to the ribs on Cesaro after the match finishes
Winner: Ridge Holland
Almost a squash match, Cesaro seems better than this, but furthers the feud, it feels like someone is going to become Cesaros ally to continue this feud, this made sense from a storytelling point, but I love watching Cesaro and him being in a 2 minute squash match seems like a waste.
McIntyre is backstage looking for happy and madcap
Bring it to the floor
Naomi is out next; she comes to the ring to the ring with a microphone and says the only thing on her Christmas list is to face Sonya Deville 1 on 1
Sonya says she won’t fight her because she’s a official but Shayna Baszler will giver her a match, she distracts Naomi long enough for Shayna to attack her from behind, then instructs the ref to ring the bell.
Naomi vs Shayna Baszler
Shayna gets a leg submission locked in and Naomi reverses it into a roll up and gets the 3 count.. and that was all she wrote….
Winner: Naomi
I get that they’re doing this for a storyline, but just let Naomi and Baszler have a proper match! They’re both so good and there is other stuff that can be cut so that they can have a proper match!
I just hope the payoff to this storyline is satisfying because there’s a lot more story than wrestling so far!
Madcap and Happy are hiding in a dark corner and they get interviewed by Megan, Happy announces a 1 on 1 match between Madcap and Drew at day 1. Madcap looks shocked and horrified.
I don’t know how I feel about this match, for once hope its a squash match so Drew can move onwards and upwards!
Bow down
King woods and Kofi are out next for their tag team match against the USOs
New day vs the USOs
Kingston with an early SOS takedown for a two count on Jey. Jimmy made the blind tag leading to a kick to the head and Jimmy pounded on Kofi in the Uso’s corner. Jey tags back in with a kick to the ribs, Jimmy tags back in and puts Kofi in a chin lock. Kofi tried to break free and makes the tag, but The Uso’s prevented the referee from seeing the tag, so the referee made Woods stay on the apron while Kofi took an uppercut punch on the floor. That led to an ad break.
The match returned with the hot tag spot as Woods was the legal man against Jimmy with a jumping kick to the head. Woods hit the Honour Roll clothesline on Jey, and Woods hit a side Russian leg sweep on Jimmy. Woods with a running clothesline to send Jimmy out of the ring followed by a running dropkick on the floor. Back in the ring, Woods jumped off the top with a leg drop for a 2 count. Woods doesn’t always do that, but he got a lot of height and it looked great.
Jimmy with a step up enziguri, then Jey got a hold of Woods and sent Woods into the barricade. Kofi had made the tag for his team, he exchanged holds with Jimmy and then Jimmy hit a great superkick on Kofi for two. The referee never saw the tag, so Woods shoved Jey off the top rope to the floor. Jimmy complained to the referee about how they made the tag, so Kofi capitalized with a Trouble in Paradise kick on Jimmy for the pinfall win.
Winners: The New Day
This was a typically, brilliant, new day Uso match, I know I have said before that I could watch these 2 tag teams over and over, but boy are WWE testing that theory!
I Feel like the missed tags are going to play into something that happens at day 1.
This is my Skidmark of the week, I hated the shenanigans in this match, I can’t remember the ref missing a tag in any match, but this match it happened twice. I don’t feel like they can make this pay off in any way, I understand that they have to change it up a bit but this was not the way to do it! Rant Over.
Roman is back and has come straight out to the ring
He says he doesn’t like when his cousins lose but they’re family and they can get through anything because they’re blood
Then goes on to say that Paul isn’t blood.
He asks Paul a load of questions about Brock then asks if he’s a special counsel or an Advocate.
Roman asks why Paul is protecting Brock from him,
He says he’s not protecting Brock from Roman; he is protecting Roman from Brock.
Roman thanks him before firing him, and then hitting him with a superman punch and asks for a couple of chairs to hit Paul with a chair con to.
Brocks music hits
The USOs go to intercept Brock’s route to thing the ring and both get a F5 for their troubles.
Roman hits Brock multiple times with a chair but still manages to hit 2 F5s on Roman.
Brilliantly delivered promo from all parties, they’re playing Brock up as a monster again. First time we’ve seen Roman laid out in a long time.
Very intrigued to see where this story goes now, before this show I was almost certain that Roman was going to keep the belt till he beat Brock’s record, now I’m not so sure.
My Smackdown rating
4/10
I was really disappointed with this show, firstly it lacked a proper main event and lacked any great amount of wrestling in general, like last week. We only had 5 matches in total, for a total of about 20 minutes wrestling, not good enough for a 2-hour show in my opinion.
In the last 2 SmackDowns there has been less wrestling than in 1 match of AEW. Very disappointing.
The only silver lining is that this show furthered some storylines again,
Very average matches throughout the show other than the New day - USOs match which will always be class and the Women's tag team match that kicked us off, but like I often say Sasha Banks doesn’t miss...
Smackdown really is the Roman Reigns show, If he gets injured or gets put off TV for any amount of time, they're going to have to pull something out of the bag to make Smackdown tolerable.
I hate to be so negative but I really struggled with this show….
On a more positive note, I’m going to be appearing on the Recharge Wrestling podcast on Sunday the 20th. Please listen out for that!
On that show were going to be doing our best and worsts of the year!
Going to be a great show!
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