It’s time for another SmackDown in a Nutshell…and it’s one week until Hollywood!
And, yes, this is not posted on Friday…but I have a good reason for that.
I had expected to be back in time to write the usual Nutshell in the usual spot, but my travel plans fell apart.
Due to those storms, I didn’t get home until the wee hours of Saturday, and well…this is the result.
So, as I mentioned, we have one week until Hollywood…one week until WrestleMania.
Night one of the biggest WWE event of the year happens next Saturday, though once we hit RAW on Monday, things will be even more electric.
With just one week until Hollywood, it’s all about any final arrangements. Which of those final matches get locked in?
And, there is always that last bit of hype. If we aren’t excited for specific matches by now, I don’t know what else can be done…but we will see it anyways.
So, with one week until Hollywood, it is time for us to get into this week’s delayed…
Let’s crack this one open and see how things go!
Right out of the gate, Cody Rhodes and Ludwig Kaiser.
Not a match you really expected to see, especially not one week away from the biggest weekend of Cody’s WWE career.
Yes, I said WWE there for a reason.
But these two Superstars worked for close to 20 minutes, and while you knew Cody was winning, Kaiser did not look bad in the loss.
Honorable mention to Butch and GUNTHER. Give them time, it would only get better.
The women’s tag match. Giving Natalya, Shotzi, Xia Li and Lacey Evans under 5 minutes is just not good.
Now, if you wish to argue that they aren’t worthy, that’s a different conversation (and you’d be wrong).
It’s frustrating to me as a fan because the company has depth on the women’s roster, but yet struggles to give the division consistent good television exposure.
Compounding that, we may have women’s tag titles, but it’s still purely random mash-ups outside of Damage Control. Would be nice if we got that fixed.
This is going to Cody Rhodes, The Bloodline and the entire Mysterio family-the good and the bad.
All parties mentioned did what they had to do and gave us some good performances.
Has to be this, right?
Evans and Li, right? Has to be.
Perhaps one (or both?) should head back down to NXT and revive things?
Dom didn’t look too happy with how things turned out.
It was clearly coming, but still, that pop the moment Rey finally went off on Dom and confirmed their WrestleMania match was huge.
Surely we could gripe that the most obvious match was not made official until we had a week to go, but why?
If you couldn’t see this was where things were going, that’s on you. Pretty sure most of us expected it.
If anything, I am happy this didn’t get dragged out until next week’s Hall of Fame ceremony.
Not a huge LOL, but I liked this.
And we had to know he’d get new merch…and I like it.
John Cena and Austin Theory kick off night one of WrestleMania next Saturday.
That, in my opinion, is a pretty big match to kick things off. However, I also have to remind myself that we’ve had world title matches kick off WrestleManias in recent years.
Granted, that was because someone wanted to catch an earlier flight out, but still.
I already hit on it, but the women’s match time.
Yes, the women’s division got time with Charlotte’s promo, but under 5 minutes for a tag match a week before WrestleMania just doesn’t feel good.
Also, while getting the Andre battle royal is cool, it’s on Friday instead of WrestleMania. Plus, this:
I am willing to guess that something in that match gives us a WrestleMania match for them, but they both deserved a better build.
The opening match. The Usos/KO-Zayn interaction.
Plus, the Rey/Dom payoff. This was not quite the pop we got from Sami and KO and that whole program over the last couple weeks, but it was still good.
I can’t help but wonder if we had two very emotional programs running in parallel, and maybe that impacted things a bit? Probably not…
There is but one SmackDown left until WrestleMania…and considering next week’s show will be IN Hollywood, it will kind of be the “already home show”.
Most of the final hype has been delivered. One more match got officially official.
There is not much left to be done outside of getting to Hollywood and delivering on the Grandest Stage of Them All.
Looking at the lineup, there are going to be quite a few really, really good matches.
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