WWE Week in Review: Staredown City on RAW, Cena & Styles shine on SmackDown

WWE SmackDown Live

I know I said it earlier but SmackDown Live just continues to be stellar each and every week and I really enjoyed Tuesday night’s go-home episode.

We started the night backstage with Daniel Bryan trying to eat an apple. And is there something I missed with that whole thing? Because all I was hoping for was Carlito to return and take it from him. Anyway, he was interrupted by The Miz, who just continues to be fantastic, and a Lumberjack Match for the Intercontinental Championship was announced as the main event. And Bryan finally got to bite into his apple. Okay.

As far as the action is concerned, we got right into Randy Orton vs. Luke Harper, which I thought was a really fun little match that saw Orton pick up the win with an RKO. Orton was really over with the live crowd and was actually playing himself up like a babyface in this one but I think things are going to go the other way. Following the match, Bray Wyatt hit Harper with Sister Abigail and I’m wondering if a Harper face turn is on the way, which is something that could get even more interesting if Erick Rowan returns to help him out. And it would add another great tag team to the mix on Tuesday nights. I’m sure they’ll all run into each other again on Sunday at the Rumble. Great opening match.

I’ve seen a lot of negative comments on social media this week about the Mickie James promo but I was into it from the very beginning. And while it did get a little strange there for a minute, I dug it. Sure, Becky Lynch doesn’t really play up how she was a part of the women’s revolution as much as the ladies on RAW do, but this was a good way to get Mickie some more heat. As a veteran, she wants to be respected and running down her list of accomplishments and bringing up Trish Stratus was a solid talking point and worked very well in my opinion. Mickie has been one of the best in the business for a long time I’m really looking forward to what comes next.

James Ellsworth went shopping with Carmella. Awful. Just awful.

Mojo Rawley won himself a spot in the Royal Rumble in what might be the quickest battle royal in history. With Zack Ryder on the shelf for a while, they’ve got to find something for him to do so while the match wasn’t all that great, this was a nice momentum builder for him and maybe he’ll get a nice five-to-ten-minute showing on Sunday. And Rhyno trying to throw out Heath Slater right at the start was pretty funny.

Nikki Bella and Natalya continued their feud this week and I think this is really coming off well. Nikki is so much better than she used to be in her promos and Natalya’s mean streak is just perfect. I liked the segment outside by the trucks but loved how Nikki finally fought back and took out Nattie prior to her match with a returning Naomi, who looked to be in great shape after a few months away. She challenged anyone in the back to come out and fight and I was pretty shocked when Alexa Bliss came out. Perhaps this was just a way to set up the six-woman tag match for Sunday but a little feuds between these two could be decent. What I like as a whole is that there are three different programs happening in the women’s division on SmackDown Live and that’s nothing but a good thing.

I honestly don’t even know where to start when it comes to the segment with AJ Styles and John Cena. It was just so perfect, wasn’t it? AJ Styles’ work on the mic has grown so much in the past year. He’s always been great in the ring but he’s upped his promo game a ton since his debut last year and it was on full display on Tuesday night. He talked about not being respected and used the Royal Rumble poster and clips from The Today Show with Cena and the hosts calling him “a guy from Atlanta” to get his point across and did it very well. He made fun of Cena’s new T-shirt and things got a little real when he called the 15-time champion a “sorry excuse for a wrestler.” Now off and running. But while Styles was good, John Cena took it to another level.

Cena has delivered some great promos over the years but I don’t know if I’ve ever been as impressed as I was by the one he gave on Tuesday night. And that’s saying something. There was an edge to this one that almost made him look like a heel and I absolutely loved it. Him throwing out terms like “buried”, knocking Styles and the indie scene and playing up how he’s held WWE down for more than a decade was just amazing and he had the swagger from the “Doctor of Thuganomics” days to boot, which only made it better. He claimed that Styles simply wanted to be him and that Styles is only the WWE Champion because he’s letting him. Wow. This match on Sunday is going to be epic.

One last thing. Styles had a bit of a CM Punk thing going when bringing up the poster and I was really hoping that Cena would throw in a subtle comedy jab when he got going. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have loved him saying something along the lines of “next thing you’re going to tell me is that you want some ice cream bars with your face on them.” But maybe that’s just me.

Can we please get Kalisto to the cruiserweight division? He just has no place on SmackDown and is being wasted. He was squashed by Dolph Ziggler in under a minute this week and while I understand the point was to once again play up the seriousness that Ziggler now has, and I like how it’s going, it’s unfortunate that Kalisto has to be the pawn in this game. And where exactly are they going with this thing with JBL?

The main event for the Intercontinental Championship was pretty good. The Miz and Dean Ambrose have nice chemistry together and I thought the use of the lumberjacks went well. The brawl in the middle of the ring was obviously used to give us a little Royal Rumble preview, even if a lot of those guys won’t even be in it, but it didn’t take away from the match at all. Dean Ambrose picked up the victory after hitting Dirty Deeds and this will likely take The Miz out of the IC title picture and elevate him to the main event. He’s just been too good recently to not be included in the Elimination Chamber and while it may take a while, I really think he’ll get a title run at some point. He’s not likely to win the Rumble (although it would be a nice surprise) but I could see him picking up a Money in the Bank briefcase later this year. As for Ambrose, it looks like we’re headed towards a program between he and Baron Corbin and I’m down with that.

Very solid show this week and things are only going to get better on the road to WrestleMania.