The WWE Smackdown Reaction for 2/11/22

Welcome to the WWE Smackdown Reaction, where I offer my take on this week’s show live in New Orleans, LA.

As always, you can check out John’s full in-depth report here.

The show starts off with a video package from last week with Rhonda Rousey picking Charlotte Flair to be her WrestleMania opponent. We are then thrown to the arena and Michael Cole informs us that Pat McAfee is not here this week (or next) and we have Corey Graves sitting in. I feel like the show quality has already gone down.

We open up with Promo Time with Sonya Deville. Deville tries to pull an Adam Pearce and rehash the Brock Lesnar suspension angle from last year on Rhonda Rousey. Too soon and too pointless. Pearce comes out and announces that Mr. McMahon has denied the angle (thankfully) and orders her to keep her nose out of the Smackdown Women’s Championship match or she could be fired. Naomi came down to slap Deville for good measure. Hopefully, this is going to end this pointless feud.

Our opening bout is tag team action between The New Day and Los Lotharios. Los Lotharios brings back the Kiss Cam for their entrance, kissing a plant at ringside, who also promptly disappears. Cole claimed that Los Lotharios were “red hot” but I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time they actually won a match. The match was pretty good, like last week’s match. Los Lotharios could be serious tag title contenders once a face team wins the title. Our old friend, 50/50 Booking, returns so Los Lotharios picked up the shocking upset in relatively clean fashion.

Cole is backstage conducting a sit-down interview with Roman Reigns. It was definitely a different feel than what Reigns typically does. It is a match two years in the making (which they actually remembered) and Reigns did well in getting his point across.

Back in the ring, Aliyah takes on Natalya yet again. Natalya has lost by pinfall, DQ, and count out so far to Aliyah. The rules of this match are pinfall or submission only. The match doesn’t last long and Aliyah had to tap out to the Sharpshooter, since there were no rope breaks. After the match, Natalya beats up Aliyah some more so Xia Li can make the run-in face save and have the feud transition over to her now.

Up next is a Black History Month piece honoring Rocky Johnson, who was the father of The Rock. Rock also narrated the video. It was very well done as you would expect.

Sami Zayn is up next for his In-Zayn talk show segment. His guests were Rick Boogs and the Intercontinental Champion Shinsuke Nakamura, whom he faces next week for the title. Not much is accomplished here. Boogs grabs the microphone to speak and get “electrocuted” by it. Zayn drops Nakamura with a Helluva Kick and this might the smartest thing that Zayn has done in years. It feels like a title change is coming next week. WWE did post a spoiler on their website about it too, if you are interested.

Happy Corbin takes on Cesaro next. Cesaro deserved far better than this. Corbin won a relatively short match. #FreeCesaro

After the match, Madcap Moss and Drew McIntyre were shown backstage and their Elimination Chamber match is now Falls Count Anywhere for some reason.

Cole is backstage again doing a sit-down interview with Goldberg this time. This was one of Goldberg’s better promos. He was able to get where he was going without having to yell into a microphone. It was something different to sell the Universal Title match at Elimination Chamber and I think it worked out well.

It’s main event time with Charlotte Flair defending the Smackdown Women’s Championship against Naomi. The match was quite shocking and quite historical. Charlotte actually tried to put Naomi over and not bury her. The match was great and given sufficient time. There were so many believable nearfalls where Naomi could have won the title. It was also good to see Deville not interject herself into the match to alter the outcome. Charlotte retained the title in a hard fought effort though. After the match, Deville attacked Naomi with Charlotte, which brought Rhonda Rousey out to clear the ring and make us a future tag team match. The match was announced after the show as being held at Elimination Chamber.

Let’s take a look at tonight’s highs and lows.

The Highs

The Smackdown Women’s Championship match was the match of the night. It was surprising to see Charlotte put someone other than herself over in a match. It was a really competitive match that could have gone either way had it not been WrestleMania season.

While not mentioned in the column, it was really great to see the billboard in Saudi Arabia promoting the Becky Lynch/Lita Raw Women’s Championship match. It was a first-time thing featuring the women in the billboard advertising. That was really great to see and I can’t think of two other more deserving individuals.

The Lows

What did Cesaro do to deserve such terrible booking? It has been really inconsistent lately. Maybe they’ll give him something worthwhile to do for WrestleMania. We can only hope.

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That’s all I’ve got, until next time