Wrestling fans tuning into Friday Night SmackDown got plenty of actual wrestling as WWE presented a total of six matches. Though after this week’s episode, a rebrand might be in order:
Friday Night Shenanigans.
Of those six matches, five — count ’em, FIVE — ended with interference.
What the hell was that?
If you DVR’d this episode, stop. I’ll save you the trouble and free up your schedule for more important things, like eating meat.
There was a match. Moves. Commercial break. More moves. Somebody hopped
on the apron, a wrestler got distracted, and boom, they lost.
That was SmackDown.
Pathetic.
Kudos to Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, and Fatal Influence’s Lainey Reid and Fallon Henley for giving us a mostly clean tag match. Yes, Jacy Jane interfered, but she wasn’t a factor in the actual finish.
Great. I’ll take it. But I shouldn’t have to settle. Neither should you. When over 80% of the matches on a show end with some variation of the same interference spot, the audience deserves better, even if WWE does advance stories, which, begrudgingly, I admit it did here.
The MFT look united and dangerous. Carmelo Hayes is seemingly out of the U.S. title picture after Ricky Saints cost him his match against Trick Williams, escalating the burgeoning Hayes-Saints feud.
Then came the main event.
Cody Rhodes beat Sami Zayn after Zayn blasted Gunther, who tried to attack Rhodes. Instead of hesitating like he had done in the past, leading to his defeat, Rhodes stayed focused and dropped Zayn with a Cross Rhodes.
Afterward, Gunther choked Rhodes out while Zayn just watched before walking off.
Talk about a 2-for-1 special. WWE furthered Zayn’s heel turn and a potential feud with Rhodes while continuing the build to Cody vs. Gunther at Clash In Italy.
Under different circumstances, I’d probably praise that finish more. But after seeing the same nonsense all night, all I could do was roll my eyes and sigh.
Two weeks before WrestleMania 42, I said I was excited for the April 3 SmackDown because there were no advertised matches. I wanted promos, backstage chaos, random carnage, and yeeting.
Why? Because WWE TV matches have become so painfully predictable that it feels like white noise until the finish. The bell rings, moves happen, and eventually somebody interferes to advance the storyline.
At least promos might give us some memorable banter before pandemonium breaks loose. I’ll take that (and yeeting) over 15 minutes of “action” that exists solely to kill time before the inevitable shenanigans.
