Welcome one and all to the penultimate episode of SmackDown Live ahead of WrestleMania!
On last week’s show, AJ Styles smashed Shane McMahon’s head through the car window, then got fired by Daniel Bryan. At the end of the show, Shane limped out to the stage and challenged AJ to a match at WrestleMania. So I guess this means that Shane vetoed Bryan’s dismissal of AJ but it’s unclear if Styles will appear on tonight’s broadcast, although Shane should be out for revenge.
Surprisingly, WWE haven’t really capitalised on the buzz surrounding Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton after Randy burned Bray’s shed. On last week’s show, Bray appeared via Facetime or something of the sort, and rubbed Sister Abigail’s ashes all over himself to become an even angrier deity. Sure that was cool but with only 2 shows left, I want to see Bray return as a crazy mofo and destroy Randy like never before. That needs to happen tonight.
American Alpha defend their Tag Team Championship’s against The Uso’s on tonight’s SD Live, which seems odd so close to WrestleMania. Why, rather than build this feud as much as possible for the next 2 weeks, have the supposed pay-off tonight? Unless of course these two teams won’t have a spot on the WrestleMania card, which is already more stuffed than off-brand Oreo’s. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a feud that simply won’t appear on ‘Mania, unless the 44-hour pre-show. For as much as SmackDown Live does right, it has really fumbled the tag division and women.
Speaking of which, the SD Live ladies are set to brawl in a match that pits everyone against Alexa Bliss. I honestly can’t remember if they said it would be a gauntlet match or if they even announced a match type, but it’s a shame that on both Raw and SmackDown, the women are all just being tossed into a ring together to get some air-time, when a well-built 1v1 match could steal the show.
Then we have the Total Bella’s drama between the Cena family and the Mizanin family. Like I’ve said before, this feud has been way more fun and interesting than it has any right to be, and that’s largely down to the scathing, “real” promo’s from The Miz and Maryse. It’s hard to root for John and Nikki when they’re being portrayed so negatively and not really refuting any of it. Regardless it makes for pretty great TV and I’m excited to see where it goes tonight!
All that and more to look forward to on tonight’s SmackDown Live! Are you excited for the show? Let us know your various thoughts and angers in the comments, download the Ringside News app, and enjoy the show!
