I will never understand how SmackDown and Raw are produced by the same person.
So on Monday, Shane McMahon announced all contestants for the Raw Men’s Elimination Chamber contest with no fanfare, and most people didn’t deserve a spot. Jeff Hardy has suffered a lot of losses, as has Miz, as has Randy Orton lately. Aside from the fact that Kofi Kingston is on the same show, but they don’t care anymore that he’s a former champion.
A three hour show had zero qualifiers, while a two hour show was full of them. Explain to me how this makes sense.
SmackDown did well again. Not too shocking anymore. SmackDown has made multiple stars to play in their Elimination Chamber match. I want to see them in the game. With the exception of two of them, I would like the rest to win. One of them is very intriguing, and I’ll mention that in a moment.
Let’s get to the main hits and misses of this show. For a full overview of SmackDown, check out Rev. Claire Elizabeth’s live blog!
Draw stars
Roman Reigns started the show by telling Adam Pearce that he doesn’t control SmackDown because it’s all Reigns’ control.
He that Edge is afraid to face him, and he won’t drop the title until he’s ready. Pearce said Reigns would defend the universal title in the Elimination Chamber, but Heyman said it nowhere says Reigns should defend in the Chamber, only on the Chamber Show.
Instead, the winner of the Chamber match will be given a title match on the spot. Pearce put Kevin Owens and Jey Uso in the game and then announced qualifiers for the remainder of the evening. Reigns jumped out of the ring and came into Pearce’s face to intimidate him and withdrew at Heyman’s request.
Okay! I wanted SmackDown to get the Elimination Chamber match because there are more guys out there who deserve the main title. Now, Reigns faces them Turn right after that match? Obviously the easy W for Reigns, but we’ll see if they’re squashed, or the true ones come from behind the babyface treatment.
What a game we had for the main event.
Cesaro is suuuuch a great hot tag, he even takes care of some of the injuries we will deal with in a moment. The other winners of a qualifier came out (I’ll keep it spoiler free here) but didn’t intervene.
Cesaro did the swing on Ziggler and Bryan knocked out Roode and Ziggler tapped out. I was pleased to see some people making major victories tonight. This is how you make and keep stars at a high level. Profits matter!
Then Jey Uso showed up OUTSIDE HERE and everyone got involved, until Owens came out and cleared the house. A good old-fashioned blast party.
They showed Reigns in the back and looked irritated and shook his head that he might have to face him again.
I’m one of the few who gets along with a new rematch just because Owens hasn’t taken a clean loss yet. Technically, Elimination Chamber probably won’t be clean no matter who it is unless Jey Uso wins in the end. He is the most intriguing winner. I wondered when they would go back to the family rivalry, and when Jey would start breaking out of his trance. Maybe it will come soon?
Never stop
Man this was an incredible segment for the game.
Big E shared how he was ready to move on from Sami Zayn and Apollo Crews, but Crews decided to come out and answer the open challenge again. This time E said no and told Crews to go back to collect his paycheck.
Weft. Crews did not take that well. The best part about this was the off-mic argument both had before E’s opponent, Nakamura, came out. Crews said he will always be after E as long as he holds the Intercontinental title. What a great moment between both men.
So E and Nakamura started to wrestle, and Crews stayed ringside to cheer on Nakamura. Crews went to the platform and E chased him away. Nakamura hit E with his knees and went for the Kinshasa and E slapped him. E went for the Big Ending and Crews came in and intervened to cause a disqualification.
Crews said he won’t budge as long as Big E holds the title, and he backed up his words. I don’t normally go for the DQ, but it actually makes sense in this context. Apollo is going to do whatever it takes to get under E’s skin. Make things make sense, and suddenly annoying things are much less annoying.
Making fun of someone’s hole
Sasha Banks came out and said the EST has to choose ME, which prompted Belair to come out.
She knows about Sasha’s achievements, but told The Boss she’s not The Boss of Her. Suddenly, the women’s champions came out and Jax and Baszler complained that no one was talking about their win at the Royal Rumble. Belair and Banks both showed clips of Raw from the “my hole” incident and Baszler losing to Naomi, which led to a brawl with the baby faces upright.
Okay, so WWE decided to censor “my lair” (heh) and put it on the show. I think the right way to do it would be what they did here is to not have Nia say it every time. The words imply by her cringing in pain and grabbing her lower back works for me.
Bianca and Sasha looked great here, but I don’t think a tag title match should come out of this. The women’s tag titles don’t have to be involved in a main title championship feud every time. This was a great segment and if they did the tag title contest things could fail between the babyfaces leading to Bianca officially choosing Sasha.
That looks good on paper, but how would it end?
By the way, Bianca Belair’s husband was dancing with Sasha Banks when she entered? That was strange.
The rest
Seth Rollins burns it down again
Seth Rollins returned and so did “Burn it Down!” He said he became a father for the first time and his daughter changed his life and gave him a new vision. Where does he fit in a show with a lot of talent and potential? To be a leader for everyone! (So nothing actually changed.) He asked everyone to embrace the vision, and everyone left. Except Cesaro. Cesaro just shrugged and said he didn’t change a bit.
Enraged, Rollins attacked Cesaro and hit him on the slope. Bryan and umpires came to separate them and Rollins walked away. I was worried that this beatdown would make Cesaro the weak link and that he and Bryan would lose their qualifying match and I am extremely grateful that was not the case.
Sami Zayn and King Corbin defeated Rey and Dominik Mysterio
Early on, Dom dived out of the ring to Zayn and looked like he was hitting his head on the announcement table, but things seemed to be going well. That was scary and he sold it great. Almost to good. For the most part, Corbin and Zayn dominated until Dom had a sprint with Zayn. Dom had a great Tornado DDT. Graves kept pushing the disagreement between Dom and Rey for the weeks before. Honestly I thought they were going to win, but Zayn hit the suplex and Helluva Kick to win! It’s so nice to see Sami Zayn achieving victories.
Street Profits defeated Alpha Academy
Um okay so a competition I did not expect Angelo Dawkins vs. Chad Gable. A mat-based clinic between them every time they were in the ring together. Then Otis came in and did great things. Only now did I realize that Otis and Gable are a great combination. Tez splashed his frog from the sky to take the victory. That is incredible to see every time.
Bayley defeated Liv Morgan
It was clear we were going to get Liv and Bayley after Ruby and Bayley happened. Morgan started hot and dominated the first minute, chasing Bayley out of the ring so she could regroup. Morgan looked really cool … I think you could call it a springboard facebuster for a near-fall. She gave her left arm for that and Bayley took advantage of it. Then Billie Kay got her resumes in Ruby’s face and that led to Ruby throwing the resumes in the ring behind her. So the referee was tied with that and Bayley got Morgan in the eye and pressed her.
And it is at this point that I would have attacked Billie Kay or simply ignored her for getting too involved in this case after clearly being told multiple times to leave. I like Billie in this role, but constantly interrupting and causing losses for the Riott Squad is no good. But how can you really Blame Billie here? Ruby had to ignore all that, or agree to silence Billie.
Grade: B +
What were your thoughts, Cagesiders?