The SmarK Rant for WWE Friday Night Smackdown – 03.13.20

The SmarK Rant for WWE Friday Night Smackdown – 03.13.20

Live from THE PERFORMANCE CENTER!

Your host is Michael Cole, with HHH dropping in here and there.

HHH introduces us to the Center to start and lets us know that they’re all just here to put smiles on faces tonight. So of course it’s an empty arena tonight (and Monday) and it’s pretty trippy to see everyone doing their entrances without people watching. Kind of like TNA.

Bayley & Sasha join us to start and they want to know where Paige is. This brings out Alexa and Nikki, who are still complaining about the lack of tag team champions on this show, and yes, it’s an impromptu tag team match.

Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross v. Bayley & Sasha Banks

Bliss-Cross double-team Bayley to start and Alexa goes up, but Sasha pulls Bayley to safety and they brawl outside as SMACKDOWN ROLLS ON. Back with HHH on color commentary, doing his Vince impression as Bliss rolls up Sasha for two and takes her down with a headscissors. Sasha comes back with double knees in the corner for two and the heels work Alexa over and choke her out on the ropes for two. Bliss gets a rollup for two while Nikki tries to get the crowd going. Well, good luck there. Sasha with a surfboard and Bayley comes in with a chinlock, but Sasha misses the double knees and it’s hot tag Cross. She tries a tornado DDT and gets countered, but comes back with a rollup for two. Small package gets two. Backslide gets two. Cross goes up with a crossbody for two, but Bayley saves and everyone is out. Bayley claims an eye injury to distract the ref, and this allows Asuka to run Alexa into the stairs while Sasha finishes Cross with the Bank Statement at 10:44. Boy this had a weird energy. What do you even do with it? It was a fine basic match with a normal WWE interference finish. **1/2

Roman Reigns joins Michael Cole to talk about Wrestlemania, which is totally a thing that’s still happening, guys! My wife notes that it’s hardly going to be a fair fight because “the other guy is so old”. So Michael asks the tough questions, like the critics who think that Roman doesn’t deserve the main event of Wrestlemania. Roman says that he deserves it because he’s a full time performer and Goldberg is a PART-TIMER. Sick burn.

Meanwhile, Sami Zayn and his crew stop by for a backstage interview, but the interviewing robot informs them they’ve been bumped for Jeff Hardy. So King Corbin interrupts and makes DUI jokes, but then they’re gonna have a match later tonight and Corbin is unhappy about that for some reason. And then Elias wants to sing a song for him but gets blown off.

Meanwhile, Daniel Bryan bumps into Drew Gulak backstage, and admits that yeah, Drew found some holes in his game. And his neck still hurts! But before they can bond any further, Sami Zayn interrupts to laugh at Bryan for asking for wrestling tips from a nobody. Cesaro is like “Let’s fight!” and Bryan is like “Them’s fighting words!” and they will sports entertain later.

And then they show the entire tag team title Elimination Chamber match from Sunday to fill 40 minutes. Sure, why not. Honestly they might as well have just shown a couple of the undercard matches from that show and called it a day.

Miz & Morrison are back at the Performance Center, riffing on the lack of the crowd and how happy they are because there’s no one to boo them tonight.

Daniel Bryan v. Cesaro

Well, Daniel’s entrance is certainly lacking a certain energy without a crowd. At least he’s got Drew Gulak with him to cheerlead. Cesaro grabs a headlock to start, but Bryan throws the kicks in the corner and we take a break as SMACKDOWN ROLLS ON. Back with Cesaro hitting the deadlift superplex for two, but Bryan comes back with the Yes Kicks for two. More kicks in the corner, but Cesaro hits the Swiss uppercut for two and goes to a crossface. Bryan escapes with a small package for the pin at 6:00. Most of the match took place during the break and there wasn’t much to this. ** Zayn’s crew goes for the beatdown, but Gulak makes the save and he too gets beat down before Bryan makes his own comeback and dives onto the heels to get them off. “Well that escalated quickly” notes HHH.

King Corbin v. Jeff Hardy

Corbin runs him into the railing right away and back in for some abuse in the corner, but Jeff slugs back and splits the legs for two. Corbin escapes the Twist of Fate, but walks into the Deep Six for two. Corbin stops to yell at Elias on commentary, so we get a brief song to distract Corbin and Jeff finishes with the swanton at 2:30. Real bad, as Hardy looked hella rusty. ½*

John Cena is here to talk about all the people “on the internet” who have blamed him for their failures, with the latest being Bray Wyatt. Big Match John talks about his own series of crushing defeats in his career, but he doesn’t blame anyone but himself when he loses. Unlike all the other whiners in the company. So John wants to invest in newcomers that earn it, like Velveteen Dream, and not the guys who get “fifth and sixth chances” like Bray. So this brings out Fun House Bray, who accuses John of burying everyone along the way so he can get his own spotlight. So apparently Cena created the Fiend by beating him at Wrestlemania years ago. And we get the spooky cut to black to end this bizarre shitshow.

Well, that was certainly something different. Get ready for another three hours of it on Monday, too. There was nothing really here that advanced much for Wrestlemania, and I’d rather they would have just shown the Royal Rumble match or something. It felt like we were supposed to be inspired by their dedication to making sure the show goes on, but it was just weird watching them play-acting for no one and kind of off-putting, to be honest.

Whatever, it is what it is.