WWE Friday Night SmackDown has one job tonight: make WWE Clash in Italy feel bigger by the time the final frame fades out. Tonight’s show comes from Barcelona, Spain, airs internationally at a special 2 p.m. EST start time on Netflix, and will air on tape delay in the United States at 8 p.m. EST … Read more
Last night’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown had enough story progression to matter, but it also exposed the exact problem fans have been pointing out with WWE’s current three-hour TV rhythm: too much time, too many recaps, too many talking segments, and not enough urgency to get talent in the ring. This was the go-home SmackDown … Read more
Last night’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown from Columbia, South Carolina felt different because I was not just watching it through a screen. I was inside Colonial Life Arena, surrounded by a loud crowd that stayed active for almost the entire three-hour experience, from the pre-show action to the Main Event taping to SmackDown itself. The … Read more
WWE Backlash came to Tampa as the first Premium Live Event after WrestleMania 42, and the show had a clear mission: keep the post-WrestleMania momentum alive while setting the table for the next stretch of WWE stories. On paper, this was not an overloaded card, but that actually helped the show breathe. Bron Breakker got … Read more
WWE Backlash arrives tonight from Tampa with a card that feels smaller on paper but heavier in consequence. This is not a bloated PLE built around throwing everybody onto the show just to say they made the lineup. It is a tighter five-match card with two championships on the line, a major John Cena announcement … Read more
Last night’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown was a busy, important and uneven stop on the road to Backlash — the kind of episode where WWE moved a lot of pieces forward, but also exposed some of the same creative habits that keep holding the product back. Cody Rhodes returned to the ring, Ricky Saints made … Read more
The SmackDown After Mania should have felt like a reset. Instead, it felt like a company trying to convince itself it had momentum while terrible WWE release news hung over the entire night. As mentioned in my LNC Wrestling article on the WWE releases, that news broke right before SmackDown went on the air last … Read more
SmackDown last night was supposed to feel like the blue brand’s hard final push before WrestleMania 42, the penultimate stop before next Saturday and Sunday in Las Vegas. Instead, it was a show that constantly felt like it was fighting its own momentum. There was good wrestling on the episode. Bayley and Alexa Bliss put … Read more
Two weeks before WrestleMania 42, last night’s SmackDown should have been about tightening the blue brand’s biggest stories, raising the stakes, and making the road to WrestleMania feel urgent. Instead, it often felt like a show working against itself. The headline angle gave Randy Orton’s mystery caller reveal to Pat McAfee, who low-blowed Cody Rhodes … Read more
Last night’s episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown was the kind of show that gave WWE plenty of headline moments while also leaving behind a lot of frustration once everything settled. On paper, the blue brand had a lot going for it. Sami Zayn won the United States Championship. Cody Rhodes returned. Jacob Fatu and … Read more
