A Room with a Review: SmackDown 03/13/20
SmackDown joins NXT (and likely Raw) in being held at the Performance Center in Orlando. Filming every show in O-town worked for WCW and TNA, right? Right?!?
- Triple H talks directly to the camera and gives us some background on the Performance Center, which is the site of all WWE shows for the time being. There is no audience, which was a normal Friday back in my working days. The show starts with Sasha Banks and Bayley, cutting a promo addressed to nobody. Bayley is looking for Paige, who is supposed to be there but is having travel issues. Instead, they get Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross. During the match, Nikki tries to get a crowd chant going, even though there’s no crowd. Asuka shows up and takes out Bliss, leaving Cross by herself. Sasha hits the Backstabber and makes Nikki tap to the Bank Statement.
- After the commercial break, it’s a one on one interview between Michael Cole and Roman Reigns. They’re talking about the Spear vs Spear match, like WrestleMania is actually still going to happen.
- Kayla Braxton is backstage with Cesaro, Shinsuke Nakamura, and the new Intercontinental Champion, Sami Zayn. Even though there is no crowd, they are going to go celebrate. Jeff Hardy is also backstage, but he is quickly interrupted by King Corbin. The king makes lots of jokes about Hardy’s ongoing DUI issues. Elias is also there, for some reason.
- Daniel Bryan finds Drew Gulak backstage and says that he respects what Gulak did at Elimination Champion; he’s willing to listen to Drew’s advice now. Zayn and his crew show up and Sami laughs at both of them. Bryan wants to get at Zayn, but Cesaro steps in the way. Looks like we have a match tonight, folks.
- In an interesting ploy to kill time, they decide to show the tag team Elimination Chamber match from Sunday. Forty minutes later, the match ends. The winners, Miz and Morrison, are waiting in the ring to cut a promo on the entire tag division, as well as take a shot at the city of Orlando. There’s no need for that, Miz!
- Next up is Daniel Bryan w/ Drew Gulak against Cesaro w/ Shinsuke Nakamura. Sami Zayn is also there, but he’s joining Michael Cole on commentary. Why couldn’t this have been the whole two hours? Bryan wins with a small package and Shin and Sami start pounding on him. Gulak tries to help but he gets taken out by Cesaro. Daniel gets the upper hand back and Zayn decides that discretion is the better part of valor.
- After the commercial break, it’s King Corbin vs a returning Jeff Hardy. Elias is on commentary because Triple H is tired of carrying Cole on commentary. He distracts Corbin with some hot blues licks and Jeff Hardy wins the match after a Swanton Bomb.
- One more “Triple H addresses the home audience moment” and it’s time for the main event, which is *checks notes* an interview segment with John Cena. Big Match John is here to talk about how he’s going to take care of The Fiend at WrestleMania, jack! Firefly Fun House Bray Wyatt comes through the crowd and finally gives us some backstory for his new character. After trying to fight the voices in his head, he finally let them in and turned his whole life into a funhouse. The Fiend helped put him back together again. He tells Cena to let him in, video of The Fiend pops up on the screen, and the show ends.
WWE did what they could to give us an entertaining show. I don’t know if it succeeded, but that could just be because it’s SmackDown. What did you think of the crowd-less show? Let me know in the comment section below.
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