SmackDown In A Nutshell: Are We On The Road To KofiMania?

We are rapidly approaching WrestleMania, but there is a huge question to be answered: are we on the road to KofiMania? We hope to find out tonight, as Mr. McMahon is set to discuss Kofi and what, if any, WrestleMania plans there are. There’s that and a whole lot more, based on what’s been happening lately and in particular based on what went down in Cleveland. Let’s not delay any more…let’s crack open this Nutshell!

Best Match of the night:

So, the eight man match was probably the absolute best in terms of wrestling ..but to be honest, tonight this isn’t going to be about best match. Nope, it’s best segment. And honestly, we had a few good ones to consider.

First off was Shane explaining why he did what he did. It was a well laid out scenario. It made sense. I like the idea of a Miz babyface turn, I’ve wanted one for a while…though I do wonder how long it will last, for a few reasons. One, WWE is flip flopping turns all over the place, and two, as much as I want to see face Miz…he and Maryse have almost always been heels on tv (I honestly can’t remember either as a face as I type this).

Second was AJ Styles and Randy Orton. Great back and forth, both came off very strong here. I think Orton and Styles could be one of the top few matches on the entire WrestleMania card, if given the chance.

Even Vince on mic against New Day deserves a nod. It was very good, even if I think the gauntlet match next week is a bit obscene.

Worst match of the night:

Asuka deserves better. So do Mandy Rose and Sonya DeVille, I’d say.

Crowd Chants of the Night:

We want Kofi

Kofi

You suck

Star of the Night

Tonight had a few, so let’s do the list.

AJ Styles and Randy Orton were excellent in their segment.

Kofi and New Day were gold

Even Shane and Vince were good. Very good, really

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

I really cannot believe the gauntlet match Vince put Kofi in for next week.

McMahon said Kofi could get his WrestleMania shot, but he has to beat Orton, Joe, The Bar and Rowan to get it. I feel like I am missing people here, but it was a crazy list. Basically, Vince is going over the top to stack the deck against Kingston so he has to overcome some insane odds to get there.

I did like the mention of Daniel Bryan calling Kofi a “B+ player”, which is what was said of Bryan before he won gold.

As I’ve seen and heard from others, if WWE is really going down this road, there’s just no way they can’t put the belt on Kofi in New Jersey, right? They’d be foolish not to.

Botch of the night:

Nothing major, though there were a few instances where folks had to move to be in the right spot for a move.

Noteworthy Moment:

I can’t say that there was anything new here. We knew Shane would explain things. Orton and Styles were expected to talk, based on what happened at Fastlane. We’d been told Vince would address Kofi. All of that happened. No crazy surprises this time around, but it was a good show.

Overall lowlights:

If I had one complaint, it would be this: With all the hype for Becky and Charlotte and Ronda, Asuka has been marginalized. The SmackDown Women’s Championship has been neglected, no two ways about it. And, the post-‘Mania shuffling will need to get some depth, some quality depth, onto SmackDown. Not knocking Mandy, but Asuka needs a challenger. This is when we miss an injured Ember Moon, as she could have been a good choice there perhaps. That said, WWE should still have been able to have a really credible challenger in place for now. Honestly, if they want to bring some attention back to the blue belt, I’d vote for an open challenge-and let one of Kairi Sane or Shayna Baszler show up and win. It won’t be on the level of the RAW triple threat, but that would be a buzz-worthy move, which is what is needed.

Overall highlights:

Sometimes we can complain about talk-heavy shows. Tonight was one of them, but it wasn’t bad. It was all good, it all worked. We had some action mixed in too, and that was mostly good too. I think this show was about equal to RAW, maybe a notch or two down, but only because it runs an hour less in this case. Both shows were very good, gives WWE a point to build off of heading to ‘Mania.

After the final bell:

The big question now is, what happens next. The gauntlet next week will be interesting, and assuming they are booking Kofi to go over and into WrestleMania, then I figure that match will take up most of the last hour of the show. Should be an interesting show.