"WWE SmackDown" was held in Bologna, Italy on Friday, as WWE continues its tour of Europe. The show saw many confrontations as the company nears WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, with Tiffany Stratton getting into a war of words with Charlotte Flair, and Drew McIntyre coming to blows with Damian Priest. For more on what happened on this week's show, there's a fastidious results page to guide you.
Now it's time to break down the pretty and the ugly of the night, the good and the bad, what we loved, and what we hated. With "SmackDown" at a laborious three hours, there was plenty to love, like the opening promo, and plenty to hate, such as the mess between Jacob Fatu and Braun Strowman. Without further ado, here's what we loved and hated this week.
Kevin Owens versus Randy Orton wasn't the match I expected to be made official tonight on "SmackDown," but I'm certainly not mad about it. The crowd tonight in Italy was absolutely fantastic and added so much to this segment, from singing along to "Voices" to chanting at Owens. I also really liked how Owens immediately interrupted Orton before he could even get a word out to get this segment rolling even quicker.
Owens' delusional tendencies when it comes to his friends and his own actions are one of the best things consistently going on "SmackDown." Him coming out tonight and acting like he could just apologize about hitting Orton, of all people, with a package piledriver and then assuming he'd just be forgiven to team up with him to go after the tag team championships at WrestleMania was just funny. While I figured this match was going to happen at WrestleMania, I'm glad Orton issued the challenge tonight, and I also even liked how there was no physicality between the two to end the segment.
There are so many matches on the WrestleMania card right now that have resorted to endless brawls week after week, and I think Owens and Orton can do a lot more than just that in the four weeks we have left before 'Mania weekend. Owens is known for cutting his car promos that WWE will then air on TV, and they're always emotional and excellent. Or, WWE can go back to what they've done before, and Owens and Orton brawl just once, and Owens gets sent away by management from the backstage area for weeks to cut those car promos and it's Orton who cuts the promos in the ring in front of the fans.
No matter what WWE does with these two leading up to WrestleMania, I have no doubt in my mind that it will be excellent. While I loved these guys as goofy friends chasing Logan Paul around on a golf cart last year before that triple threat match, I'll love them just as much as enemies across the ring from one another. It's going to be a good match, and I think there's just enough time to continue to build to keep fans interested.
Written by Daisy Ruth
"SmackDown" is so long now. It's a real issue.
What used to be a two-hour program, done in two hours, is now a two-hour program that has been stretched over three hours. The segments are longer. The matches are longer. The show feels so much slower.
Nowhere was this more apparent than the bloated match between Zelina Vega and Piper Niven. What should by every metric have been a squash match win for Niven was dragged out over two agonizing segments until it became an embarrassing slog for all involved, one which Niven wasn't even able to win cleanly, thus hollowing her stature as Chelsea Green's feared muscle.
Every promo seemed to lay out its point almost a dozen times to fill airspace. There were endless recaps. It is just a painful show every Friday. Where "Raw's" unpredictable runtime has enlivened what used to be a similar slog, "SmackDown" has died a death at three hours, a course that I cannot wait for them to correct.
Written by Ross Berman
I'm not the biggest fan of interference in matches as it's a trope that's become too overdone in the modern era of professional wrestling. That being said, even I will admit that there's a time and a place for it to be used as an effective tool to build up storylines, with Naomi costing Jade Cargill her match against Liv Morgan tonight being one such occasion.
It seems pretty clear that WWE are gearing up for a match between Cargill and Naomi at WrestleMania 41, and while Cargill has been established as a threat to pretty much everyone in the women's locker room, that also means that having someone be a viable threat to her will require a little bit of building up for that to become the case. Having Naomi get the better of Cargill by hitting her with her shoe to give Morgan the opportunity to deliver Oblivion and continue beating her down after the match not only shows her anger and is the first step in doing so after the revelation that she was Cargill's attacker, but also worked to continue the trend of Morgan getting assistance from outside parties to keep racking up wins as a main event talent. The interference achieved everything that it needed to, and felt warranted in a landscape full of so many unwarranted interference endings to matches.
Written by Olivia Quinlan.
Jacob Fatu's feud with Braun Strowman in its beginnings appeared to be a potential launching pad for the "Samoan Werewolf" heading into WrestleMania season, but thus far it has failed to make the impression it first promised. This week's "WWE SmackDown" was supposed to see them blow off their animosity with a United States title shot up for grabs, a rematch four months on from their non-finish at Saturday Night's Main Event in December. Instead, yet again Strowman walked out with the technical victory, this time also securing the title shot, when Tama Tonga and Solo Sikoa rushed the ring which they would later explain as because they thought Fatu was going to lose anyway.
The question I'm left asking after all of that is who is really getting over from this. Strowman now has a pending shot at LA Knight's title, which itself is likely to end with some form of interference again. Sikoa and Tonga might have come off as stupid for getting involved anyway, since obviously that was going to cost their stablemate unless, of course, that was the plan. But more than anything it showed that Fatu couldn't beat Strowman and while WWE may want us to believe in Strowman as a threat, he has yet to record a singles victory via pinfall or submission since December, and has spent almost the entirety of this second run floating between the upper midcard. Fatu is someone touted for a match with Roman Reigns down the line, much like Sikoa was, and already the booking pattern is failing to put him in the right position for that match.
There would have been very little harm in having Fatu actually go over on Strowman and get the title shot, especially four weeks away from WrestleMania where it could work well for him to challenge for the title there. I'll concede that there is something going on between him and Sikoa, and the interference marring the finish did add something in that vein, and it could very well be the plan for them to collide at the "Show of Shows," but even then the idea that Fatu even looked like he was going to lose before the DQ leaves questions. To cut a longer story short, something needs to be done about the sheer volume of distraction finishes and the failure on weekly TV to deliver a match with a clean finish. They harm all involved, sell the crowd short on a bout they paid to see, and leaves gaping plot holes for the sake of a cheap swerve.
Written by Max Everett
One week ago, the Street Profits finally won the "SmackDown" tag titles for the first time in four years. In front of the Italian fans they talked about how it was long overdue. The fans broke out in "You Deserve It!" chants before Dawkins led them in "Hey!" chants. I said in this column last week that the Street Profits have long been one of WWE's best tag teams and it's about time they were champions again.
They're fighting champions too. Two weeks ago, Pretty Deadly beat Los Garza and Motor City Machine Guns to become the Number One contenders. Legado Del Fantasma got to the ring first with Los Garza in ring gear. Pretty Deadly finally arrived, also in their gear. Being the kind gentlemen they are, they decided to let Los Garza have the first shot at the new champions. Pretty Deadly will face them next week in London. Luckily for the fans, the Profits and Los Garza delivered in their impromptu match.
The division only has four teams, but they're all very good. So while the storylines may spread a little thin (or get convoluted, as Nick Aldis needed a white board to explain the last four months), the matches will deliver. Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins as champions will force the division to up their game. They are laser focused and look the best they have in a while (and they've always been great). After chasing the titles for four years, they aren't going to want to lose those titles anytime soon. Hopefully, we'll have a good 'Mania season for the blue brand's tag division.
Written by Samantha Schipman
While I can understand the storyline want/need to keep Charlotte Flair and Women's Champion Tiffany Stratton apart after their major pull-apart brawl last week on "SmackDown" where Stratton finally stood tall over "The Queen," this interview segment did the champion absolutely no favors tonight. Maybe it's just the nerd in me, but to start off with, I noticed their microphones didn't seem to be quite balanced correctly and Stratton already seemed quieter, which I thought immediately was bad news because I knew Flair would be interrupting her.
Which is what she did right off the top, saying that "the Queen speaks first." The first portion of this was okay, with Flair having more good heel heat than anything else. She then went on to say that she picked Stratton because she felt bad for her, which is where it started to feel like she was undermining Stratton as a champion a bit too much. We already know Flair is winning at WrestleMania (at least, that's my prediction) and she doesn't need to bury Stratton that hard on her way there. That only continued when she reminded Stratton that she was only champion because she had the Money in the Bank contract that she cashed in successfully. Which I suppose is true, but seemed like a big "yikes" to bring up right before Stratton has such a huge match against an opponent like Flair on "The Grandest Stage of Them All."
The promo battle segment then fell off and got seriously awkward when Stratton stumbled over a line and then repeated herself, and Flair, who I'm sure was just trying to make things go smoothly on the production end, just wrecked her. Flair had a super quick comeback to another line, telling Stratton that fans were either "wooing or booing" her, that just made Stratton's small mistake look even larger and the champion look a little silly.
Stratton thankfully got the last word in during their promo battle and reminded Flair that the WWE fans were "running on Tiffy Time." It was overall a pretty weak, if not straight up bad, segment on "SmackDown" tonight. After WWE had Stratton looking so strong last week with two big moonsaults, including one off the top of the tron, they just did Tiffy dirty tonight and I'm worried about what's next for her after WrestleMania.
Written by Daisy Ruth
