It is time for the Smacketh Down to be laid upon your faces. This is the final Smackdown before WrestleMania 36 night one. Grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy your virtual watch parties and let’s get into this review.
The show opened with Miz TV but what’s that? A curve ball, the Uso’s came out instead. They weren’t alone long before the new day came out. “OOOOOOHHHH PEOPLE AT HOME!!” That was pretty good. Finally, Thing one and Thing two, (Miz and Morrison) came out. This was Miz TV after all. Miz let everyone know that. He was the mouthpiece, Morrison stood at the ramp like Brock Lesnar and all hell broke loose. Miz and Morrison stood atop the ladders and held the belts up after they beat down the Usos and the new day. Fun intro to the show, the titles may be changing hands though at ‘Mania, we will find out.
Naomi vs. Lacey vs. Tamina
Sasha and Bayley joined Cole in commentary for this triple threat match. Tamina had to fight off the double team early in the match. The commentary was much more entertaining than the match early on. What time is it? That’s right, boss time. Things started to pick up in the mid match as Naomi finally recovered from outside the ring and mixed things up, she took Lacey out who was attacked by Sasha soon after. Naomi wiped Sasha out, but Bayley didn’t step up to help out the boss, what’s going on there? Naomi’s short burst of offense was shuddered by Tamina’s power. Tamina got the three count on Naomi. Bayley approached Tamina in the middle of the ring, shook her hand and said “Good job, glad to have you back”. Tamina shook her hand and then BAM super kicked the role model in the face. Sasha jumped in the ring, tried to offer peace but took a nasty Samoa drop that almost didn’t land right.
Backstage promo
Tucky is backstage pumping up the guns, he’s approached by Mandy. I’m sure she has a lot to say as Tucker would take on Dolph later in the night.
Filler match from WrestleMania 24
The awesome Ric Flair vs Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24 from 2008 is played in this spot. WOOOOOOO.
Backstage promo
Otis and Tucker backstage. Otis wants a little piece remaining of Dolph for his WrestleMania match. These two are seriously some of the best things happening right now. Otis got a text, and left. Tucker told him he did speak with Mandy, she asked about Otis. His mind was immediately elsewhere when the text came through.
Tucker vs. Dolph Ziggler
Tucker landed some powerful shots with malice, he did promise to leave a peace for Otis. Dolph tried to wrestle the big man but that didn’t work in his favor, Tucker kept the power game coming, Dolph ended up in the corner, got out of the way and DDT’d Tucker in the middle of the ring. After the commercial, Dolph had Tucker in a headlock but Tucker was able to reverse with a blow to the gut and they traded shots in the ring before Dolph was sent outside the ring, compliments of Tucker.
Tucker continued to whoop Dolph outside of the ring and even threw him against the steel steps. After that, he threw Dolph back into the ring, slammed him and got a two count before Dolph got a rope break. Outside the ring again, things started to heat up. Dolph raked the eyes or Tucker and then landed a zig zag onto the steel steps which caused the match to end. Hard hitting and fast match, this was a good one.
Mandy and Sonya came out after the match, right before Dolph was about to smash Tucker with the top half of the steel steps. The screen flashed, a mysterious person in a hacker hoodie showed up, “The truth will be heard”.
We see Mandy and Sonya backstage on Valentine’s Day, Mandy set her phone down and Sonya picked it up, texted Otis from Mandy’s phone saying she’d be late. Amazing moment as Mandy went backstage very upset. Sonya followed her, Dolph took off running up the ramp and Otis ALMOST got his hands on him. That was a great segment, I’m honestly surprised that this happened tonight. I thought this would be debuted at Mania. Love stories in wrestling either work or flop. This one has been perfectly executed by all talent involved from start to finish. This is better than the Snitsky, Lita, Kane triangle back in the early 2000’s.
After the commercial we see Mandy, clearly distraught, in tears. Sonya was also feeling the tears, I’m telling you all this is literally the best love story in recent memory.
Daniel Bryan vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
Shinsuke and Bryan started the match with some slick wrestling in the middle of the ring. Bryan ran this match early on as he threw Shinsuke all over the place. Bryan was confident, pointing to Sami at the announce table with Cole. Bryan kept up his offense, Shinsuke reversed from the top rope, giving Shinsuke the opportunity to shift the momentum.
Shinsuke kept up the heat, speeding up his offense and putting Bryan on the mat with a series of kicks. After the commercial, Shinsuke was still in the driver’s seat. Bryan built some momentum on a reverse, bounced off the ropes a few times and took Shinsuke down. Bryan needed to catch his breath and the yes kicks commenced. Bryan’s burst of offense got shut down, Shinsuke started landing some roundhouse kicks of his own to a downed Bryan. Shinsuke got cocky, Bryan caught him and kicked him, delivered a super kick and went for a pinfall, Shinsuke kicked at two.
Bryan gained momentum after that and maintained control of Shinsuke’s arm, wearing him down but the king of strong style reversed and kicked it up a notch. Shinsuke kept the momentum, this was his biggest burst of the match, he set Bryan up for a kinshasha. It was reversed into a half crab, Shinsuke reached the lower rope. Bryan stayed in control, kick after kick and the yes lock was attempted, but Shinsuke rolled through. Great wrestling here, after reversing, Bryan locked in a yes lock. Cesaro attacked, ending the match and all hell broke loose. Sami and friends beat up Bryan and Gulak pretty good, it was destruction.
John Cena answered the challenge of the Firefly Funhouse match challenge issued by none other than Bray Wyatt. Nobody knows what a Firefly Funhouse match is. John accepted the challenge by Bray Wyatt, promised he would beat him and finish what he started six years ago. John Cena called the fiend, “The oversized sex child of Wiz Khalifa and the WB Frog”, I died. The homie ramblin rabbit was ringside, and huskus, Abby, all the Firefly friends were there. The arena goes dark, the Fiend was there where Elias was thrown off, staring John in the face. Tense moment, would have been unreal with an audience due to Bray himself showing up right next to John in the ring. The Fiend must win at ‘Mania.
This was a kick ass episode of Smackdown! The ending was spectacular, the show started a little slow, but after that the whole thing was a blast to watch. Otis, go get your peach. I hope you all enjoyed the review and I hope if you didn’t watch this episode you did DVR it, it’s good TV. Great show.
Sonya DeVille Mandy rose love you
ReplyDelete