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WWE SMACKDOWN PRIMER
FEBRUARY 7, 2020
SAN JOSE, CA. AT THE SAP CENTER
AIRS ON FOX NETWORK, 8:00 p.m. EST
BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH SPECIALIST
Announcers: Michael Cole, Corey Graves
Arena, Top 10 Moments of Last Week’s Show, and Items Advertised by WWE
WWE Smackdown returns to the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. The building opened in September of 1993 as the San Jose Arena and became home to the then-expansion team San Jose Sharks of the NHL. It has gone through several names including the Compaq Center (c’mon you know you had a Compaq computer at one time or another). WWE has been a frequent guest with Raw, Smackdown, and several PPVs including the 1998 Royal Rumble won by Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Here are the top 10 moments of last week’s show:
We have Super Showdown on February 27 emanating from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (you know, that place they won’t mention). Philadelphia, PA. gets ready to host Elimination Chamber on March 8. After a mildly newsworthy (annoying actually) Smackdown, we’ll start to head towards these shows as well as think about WrestleMania. Here’s what’s on the menu for tonight thus far, as it will be a night of returns:
- Who’s next for Goldberg?
- Firefly Funhouse return’s after Bray Wyatt’s Royal Rumble victory
- Daniel Bryan returns to Friday Night Smackdown
- Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Carmella and Dana Brooke meet in high-stakes Fatal Four-Way match
- John Morrison and the Miz to bring back the Dirt Sheet
Goldberg to Appear
As we head towards Super Showdown you start to think about legends and Hall of Famers returning. Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and others have all made their way back for the big pay day in Saudi Arabia. Let’s call it what it is. That said, the main event of Super Showdown last year was Undertaker vs. WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg. Undertaker won in a highly criticized poorly executed match.
We learned on Raw that Goldberg will check in on Smackdown to let us know “who’s next” as he typically does, using his long time catch phrase. I’m sure there’s speculation abound as to why he’s returning. I didn’t know this personally, but Roman Reigns responded to (I believe) a fan on Twitter in regard to a comment he made about Roman’s entrance when he puts his fist down. Anyway, here’s the tweet and you should be able to understand why it may have been a shot at Goldberg:
https://twitter.com/WWERomanReigns/status/1218591092356067328?s=20
Frank’s Analysis: It’s funny I was typing this and initially I was going to comment about Goldberg coming back because it was WrestleMania season. The Saudi Arabia shows have changed expectations on that, as a lot of the legends and Hall of Famers seem to be reserved for those shows rather than ‘Mania. At any rate, I suppose if Goldberg faces Roman Reigns at Super Showdown it’s fine. I want to not like it, and I probably shouldn’t, but it doesn’t bother me. As long as they don’t try to have a long match, it should be fine. Two guys that use the spear going at it is pretty cool. That said, we’ll see if that’s the direction. I can’t think of others on Smackdown that make any sense.
Returns for Firefly Funhouse and Daniel Bryan
We’ll talk about these items concurrently as they may or may not be likely connected. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt retained the WWE Universal Championship when he defeated Daniel Bryan at the Royal Rumble in a strap match. Neither wrestler was on last week’s show, but there was an exclusive video of Bryan contemplating his career. You can refer to last week’s Smackdown primer to see the exclusive. They also showed it on last week’s show.
Bray had this to say on Twitter:
Now that the dust has settled…
Let our scars remind us that WE…
Are stronger together than we are apart.
I forgive you Bryan.
We’ll always have Rumble.
— Bray Wyatt (@WWEBrayWyatt) February 1, 2020
As we move away from the Royal Rumble and head towards Super Showdown, we’ll see what the plans are for both the Universal Champ and his long-time rival Bryan. Remember, they feuded back in late 2013-’14 when Bryan briefly joined the Wyatt family but then left in time for them to have a match at that year’s Rumble.
Frank’s Analysis: Maybe Bryan shouldn’t wrestle Bray at Royal Rumble events. He doesn’t seem to have luck. Jokes aside, I don’t see them continuing this feud since it feels like it’s reached the end for now. Last week on the Wade Keller post-show I gave Bryan a very small chance to be facing Bray at WrestleMania. I see that more reserved for Roman Reigns. They could revisit the Bray-Bryan feud down the line if they want to finally get Bryan a win over him. To my knowledge Bryan hasn’t defeated him. I don’t know if that means anything to WWE, but if they want Bryan to revisit the championship picture later on, they could tell the story that Bray is an obstacle he must overcome.
John Morrison and the Miz to Bring Back the Dirt Sheet
As a result of winning a fatal four-way match last week, John Morrison and the Miz are set to challenge New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship at Super Showdown. If successful, it would be their third run as tag team champions after previously holding the WWE and World Tag Team Championships during their initial run as a team from 2007-’09. The WWE tag title was exclusive to Smackdown while the World title was exclusive to Raw. Ironically the WWE tag title is now the Raw tag title (my head hurts trying to keep up).
Before they do that, they will bring back their infamous show that ran on WWE.com known as the Dirt Sheet. They made fun of wrestlers and celebrities and often furthered feuds including with D-Generation X. Here’s a “best of” playlist WWE put out that runs about 20 minutes and also a WWE.com exclusive following their win last week:
With the reunion of Morrison and the Miz, we had to expect that the return of the Dirt Sheet was inevitable. That takes place tonight.
Frank’s Analysis: I’ll refrain from offering too much analysis on this, as this was a time frame in which I struggled to stay a WWE fan. From what I gathered watching, this seemed to be a show that worked for that time and got Miz and Morrison over. It’s good to bring this back for nostalgia, but I don’t see this lasting long term.
Other Match Results and Segments from Last Week
Bliss Cross Applesauce (isn’t that what they call Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross?) defeated Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville. After the match Otis of Heavy Machinery asked Mandy out on date for tonight. She said she had plans (doesn’t the whole Smackdown roster?), but she wasn’t busy next week (Valentine’s Day).
Braun Strowman defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to win his first Intercontinental Championship and first singles title in WWE. He previously challenged unsuccessfully for the Universal Championship having matches against Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, and a fatal four-way involving both plus Samoa Joe. Here’s a WWE.com exclusive with Braun:
As Sami Zayn was complaining about Braun’s win, Elias interrupted. After several minutes, Cesaro went to the ring and was met with a running high knee.
Sheamus defeated Shorty G.
Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley was cutting a promo and was interrupted by a returning Naomi.
Roman Reigns & the Usos (Jimmy & Jey) defeated King Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, and Robert Roode in a loser eats dog food. It was … oh who cares, enough with this dog food already.
Final Thoughts
Are you done Vince? Can we move on from dog food, silliness, and nonsense and build up matches for the next batch of shows? This is not the type of show I expected when Fox paid WWE a billion dollars for five years. Feeding (pouring) dog food on wrestlers and having the crack announce team talk about it six ways until Sunday is not what I had in mind when I got into wrestling nearly 35 years ago. What do you say boss, can we get back to business? That would be very nice, thank you very much.
Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Questions and discussion are welcome. Thank you for reading!
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