WWE SMACKDOWN HITS & MISSES 3/18: Lesnar attacks Bloodline with Forklift, Sasha & Naomi & Ripley & Morgan, Charlotte-Rousey angle, McAfee-Theory angle, Sami and Knoxville promos

HITS

Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns: Part of this felt a bit silly and “too cinematic” because there’s no chance that The Bloodline were in that SUV that got destroyed by Lesnar with the forklift. Having said that, Paul Heyman was good in his role to kick off the show and it led into some good character work from Roman. The rest of it was mostly fine but there was a bit of a disconnect on how The Bloodline got out of the damaged SUV and into the other truck that they got away in considering that it seemed like they would’ve had to cross Lesnar’s vision to get to said truck. Maybe I’m just thinking about it too hard. Lesnar’s short promo was good for what it was even if I’m not buying that he ripped the door off that truck considering how easily it just popped off.

Shinsuke Nakamura & Rick Boogs vs. Los Letharios: A short match but the action was pretty solid. Part of me was thinking that maybe Los Letharios would win this match thus forcing them to be added to the Smackdown Tag Titles match at WrestleMania but it looks like they’re keeping this feud simple and it’ll be a straight tag match. That’s probably the wiser move considering this is basically what keeps happening with the WWE Women’s Tag Titles.

Sami Zayn and Johnny Knoxville promos: Like I said last month, I’m not into the whole “Jackass” stuff. Having said that, I don’t entirely dislike Knoxville when I’ve seen him do other projects. Combine that with working with a character like Sami Zayn and this just seems to click. Making this an “anything goes” match will work to Knoxville’s strengths I’m sure since he’s not trained. I’m not expecting a Tokyo Dome five-star classic, but something tells me this’ll still entertain the masses in Dallas in a few weeks.

Sasha Banks & Naomi vs. Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan: This match was actually very good until the lame finish. I guess the fact that the match was good and the finish was lame should come as no surprise. All four of these women are good workers and it showed here. As for the finish, it helps get Nattie Neidhart and Shayna Baszler on the card at Mania. I’m definitely for that because I think they also deserve better. The tough part of of this is that there’s a lot of talent challenging for the tag titles in this match that largely goes unitized. Hopefully post-Mania the women’s division in WWE can get a reboot as a whole because there’s still enough depth there to get some quality feuds on both shows. Sadly, I don’t know if the depth is there to have a quality tag division though since WWE has let so many talented women go in the past 18 months.

Ridge Holland vs. Kofi Kingston: This match was just kinda there but there was nothing wrong with it. I’m glad they addressed the Big E broken neck since we’ve seen WWE in the past just kind of ignore these things and move on. As for the post-match, is Butch now WWE’s new version of Spike Dudley? He just seems like the runt now that’s gonna have to be held back…or as I stated last week, like the little brother that wants to impress his older brothers. I’m still in “wait and see” mode with the Butch character but I’m not optimistic with the start.

Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey: This was a solid main event segment. I love that the intensity of this feud has picked up the past few shows. It’s also getting Charlotte over in a way that will be helpful once this feud culminates at Mania. Everyone knows Rousey’s legit background so having Charlotte showing this side of her going into their match is a great idea. I might keep this heat on Charlotte going all the way through Mania since I’m assuming Rousey will be leaving with the title. It should make that moment a lot more exciting.

Overall Show: This was mostly a strong show from start to finish. There wasn’t a lot of fluff or wasted segments when you’re talking about the build to Mania… as it should be this time of the year. At this point it should mostly be about continuing momentum on the stories that are working and tying up any loose ends that remain. I imagine that’s what we’ll see the next few shows.

MISSES

Drew McIntyre & The Viking Raiders vs. Happy Corbin & Jinder Mahal & Shanky: I know I said this last week, but I’ll say it again – when are they gonna get some proper heat on Corbin? There’s nothing in me right now that thinks he will be winning at Mania considering how this feud has been booked with McIntyre standing tall each week. I suppose that’s the idea and Corbin could actually be the one going over at Mania (which I think would be an awful idea considering Roman will need a strong babyface to work with post-Mania and Drew fits that bill). We’ll see how this plays out but I just want it to end at this point. Worth noting though, was Corbin finally didn’t laugh at one of Madcap Moss’s jokes pre-match. Perhaps a seed has been planted to split these guys up? I’m not for putting guys together only to split them up so quickly (it’s been less than a year) but the “Happy” and “Madcap” gimmicks are not doing either of these guys any favors and whatever shakes those two up I’m all for.

Pat McAfee and Austin Theory: I have a tough time giving this a miss but it’s more about its placement on the show and how it was treated that puts it in this spot. First of all, it took them 80 minutes to address this? I know you have to kick off the show with a a main event storyline. But, after that, this should’ve been addressed fairly quickly. If you look at last week, Michael Cole made it seem like McAfee could be fined and suspended. That wasn’t brought up at all for the first 80 minutes. Then, after McAfee leaves Vince McMahon’s office, Cole has the temerity to speculate that McAfee might’ve been fired. Really?! He just was on the show for the first 80 minutes! If this was going to be the route you wanted to go then the show should’ve kicked off without McAfee on commentary. As for McAfee’s promo, I have zero complaints when it came to his delivery and passion. McAfee is a great talker and we’ve seen that in NXT. But, speaking of NXT, I suppose we all had a fever dream where he worked a series of matches there because that wasn’t brought up at all in McAfee’s promo and he just left that all out. He also crapped on WWE’s other broadcast partner, USA Network. Was part of this promo written by someone employed by Fox? I still don’t agree with the idea that McAfee can’t get physically involved with Theory because we’ve seen broadcasters get involved in feuds before. The apology itself was fine but also a bit silly and if you didn’t see that type of apology coming then you haven’t watched pro wrestling before. Theory comes off as a bit flat also. I’d still love a deeper explanation as to why Theory was chosen as McAfee’s opponent for the biggest show of the year. We still have a few shows left so maybe we’ll still get there. I’m still optimistic that the match at Mania will be fine but I hate how we’re getting there at this point.