This week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown opened with chaos. The scene we were greeted with featured Jey Uso on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance, Jacob Fatu standing over him shouting at General Manager Nick Aldis to go find out who did it.
Trick Williams and Je’Von Evans argued over the former being happy about the situation because that’s one less competitor standing in his way.
WWE Champion Drew McIntyre came in fast refusing to take credit for anything but also complaining about the absolute state of his situation. Naturally, management tried to get him out of there while Cody Rhodes showed up trying to fight him.
It feels like we’ve seen all of this, right?
But then also, hey, here’s Randy Orton to get his two cents heard, mostly that he’s only really concerned with earning the title match and everything else — and he means everything — will be put aside for that.
Of course, this was ultimately just the segment to get everyone out in front of the crowd to state their case for winning the Chamber match. Trick Williams had more charisma than anyone in the building, Je’Von Evans looked as green as he still is, and LA Knight did what LA Knight does.
It led to Knight and Trick Willy fighting to the back, Evans eating a hilarious RKO OUTTA NOWHERE (that really shouldn’t have been), and Orton reminding Rhodes he’s still that guy by simply walking away from him.
I actually really liked this as a preview of the big match. It felt like they genuinely built toward it in a way they haven’t for major matches like this in the recent past.
Later on, The Vision showed up to pitch Aldis on Logan Paul joining the Chamber match in place of Jey. It was clear he wasn’t going to be in the match at this point, and Aldis at least at the sense to point out how convenient this all ended up being for Paul and the crew.
They just don’t look the same without any of the original three.
Aldis went off to figure things out, which turned out to simply be running into Fatu, who campaigned for the Chamber, and a match being made for the main event — Paul vs. Fatu, winner gets the spot Jey had.
Rhodes told Fatu he hopes he wins the spot, something Sami Zayn overheard before offering a weak handshake. Zayn then accused Fatu of being the guy to take Jey out, paving the way for him to get a Chamber match and get his hands on McIntyre. Fatu rightfully pointed out that the way the qualifier went down, it sure looked like McIntyre was trying to help him out, if anything. Zayn, who is just as sad as it gets these days, instantly apologized and went away.
None of this is doing any favors for Sami.
Finally, it was time for the actually match and you aren’t going to believe this but Fatu lost again. Guess how?!?
Of course you already know.
Drew McIntyre cost him, all off a distraction from a masked mystery man being unmasked to reveal — a nobody. Just some guy. Paul is in the Chamber match, Fatu is clearly headed for a title match no matter what happens, and all of this ends up feeling kind of pointless because of it.
I don’t have a single clue what to make of the fake masked mystery man either.
The way this has gone, I’m not sure they know either.
Just one night before an Elimination Chamber match, Rhea Ripley was pinned by Lash Legend to lose the tag team titles she held alongside Iyo Sky. It was a clean win too.
I think it’s absolutely the right call to get the belts on The Irresistible Forces, so I have no issues there. I don’t know if I love pinning Ripley in this way to do it. Especially if she’s winning the Chamber match, something I think most of us are expecting.
- They’ve spent all this time building up this program between the MFTs and The Wyatt Sicks, and then they just gave away Solo Sikoa vs. Uncle Howdy on a random episode of SmackDown early in the show. They tried to play up the lantern and how important it would be for Howdy to get it back, but it was made to feel silly just for being booked this way. The match was largely a bore, and Howdy went over. He crawled out to grab the lantern and got to keep it for a matter of seconds before the MFTs attacked from behind and stole it again. We’re all done with this, right?
- Tiffany Stratton vs. Kairi Sane was a legitimately fun match, and Chelsea Green being there to take a bump on the outside into her wheelchair made it that much more entertaining. They kept it simple, putting Stratton over en route to her big match in Chicago. Easy peasy.
- The Miz tried to talk himself out of getting beat up by Oba Femi by saying “let me be your Undertaker.” He’s a locker room leader now, you see, and he’s ready to mentor the next big man. Oba said he didn’t resemble him much but “you do look like a dead man.” This was fantastic, if only because The Miz is such a good cowardly heel in the face of a monster like Femi. They aren’t just letting him squash people, they’re showing he’s a genuinely charismatic guy in the process. I love the trajectory here.
- Matt Cardona was the latest to answer the United States title open challenge, and he was the latest to fall to Carmelo Hayes. It wasn’t one of ‘Melo’s better matches but it was a serviceable television match putting the champ over.
- Jordynne Grace went from challenging for the women’s championship to working a match against Candice LeRae where the focus was really on Johnny Gargano being sad on the outside. I’m not really sure how we should feel about that, or really any of this. At least she went over?