WWE Week in Review: AJ goes off, Rollins looks ready, NXT title match

WWE SmackDown Live

Just a note here. Was it just me or was some of this hard to watch without Mauro there? Otunga was out as well so we got JBL and Tom Phillips as the announce crew. Wow.

Daniel Bryan is in the back to start the show and AJ Styles bursts in and says that he’s looking for Shane McMahon. He’s heading to the ring to get a few things off his chest, which leads us right into the opening promo and it was … dare I say it … phenomenal. Styles’ mic work has improved so much since he’s gotten to WWE and it was on full display here. He ran down the list of everything that’s happened to him since he lost the title to John Cena, bringing up the triple threat, the Elimination Chamber, the battle royal and his match with Randy Orton, whom he also discussed in a really funny part of this whole thing. He mentions that after The Viper burned down Bray Wyatt’s house, he wasn’t arrested or anything like that but instead gets the main event at WrestleMania (or at least the SmackDown Live main event because you know that Lesnar vs. Goldberg is going on last), an event in which Styles actually has no match. This was excellent work and he legitimately looked angry here. One of his best since coming in.

Following the events of last week’s tag match, Becky Lynch vs. Natalya is up next and these two, as usual, put on a good match. Natalya controlled things early on and Becky made a nice comeback to get the submission win. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of different wins and losses coming over the next few weeks in this division with the title match going down the way it is. Both looked strong here but following the match, Carmella inserted herself into the conversation after being left out last week and made her case by beating down both women. Good to see a little fight left in her after all this nonsense with Ellsworth. We’ll see if it goes anywhere.

Miz TV was up next with no guest except Miz and Maryse themselves. Well, at least that’s how it was for a little bit anyway. We got some clips of the two beating down John Cena and Nikki Bella last week and Miz running down Cena on Talking Smack before Maryse nearly killed the whole segment with some Total Divas nonsense. It wasn’t crazy terrible but it wasn’t good either. Naturally, Cena and Nikki hit the ring and Miz and Maryse scattered. Nikki tried to get Maryse in the ring, prompting a “who do you think you are, John Cena?” line from Miz about making matches which was the highlight of the whole segment. Daniel Bryan came out and made the match that we’ve all known was coming official for WrestleMania. Not bad, but not good either. Miz was the highlight here.

The other half of the women’s tag match from last week are out to settle their beef as Mickie James took on Alexa Bliss in a non-title affair and this match wasn’t quite as good as the first of the night but it was still solid enough. Mickie has always been a top-notch performer and she’s going to help so many women in this division, including Bliss. Not surprisingly, Mickie got the win here and Bliss’ reaction should be fantastic next week. She’s got a little work to do in the ring but Alexa has got this character down and she’s only going to get better.

AJ Styles had been waiting in the parking lot for Shane McMahon to arrive for quite some time and he made the most of his time outside. Shane pulled up just as Renee was going to interview Styles and AJ made sure to remind us that we’re not supposed to be cheering him as much as we do as he put a vicious attack on Shane, throwing him into walls, doors and ice machines before finally through a window that bloodied up the commish. I haven’t been much on the side of this being a thing at ‘Mania but this certainly helped.

Back from the commercial break, the doctors are helping Shane while AJ is in the locker room talking to a few of the boys and walks right out into Daniel Bryan and security. Styles gives the GM the “what are you gonna do, fire me?” thing and Bryan just says “YES!!!” Okay, he didn’t do it that way but he did “fire” him.

Mojo Rawley and Dolph Ziggler are out next to continue whatever this is and it goes about three minutes. Dolph gets counted out after being thrown over the top rope (obviously getting Mojo some practice for WrestleMania) and just not wanting to get back in the ring. Okay.

Randy Orton came out next and ran down once again why he did what he did to Bray Wyatt. It was a little repetitive but it still worked. Bray appeared on the jumbotron and gave a nice rebuttal, explaining that what Orton did left him helpless and alone but that Sister Abigail now lives inside him and that he baptized himself. He then poured a bunch of dirt on himself to prove it, presumably Abigail’s ashes to close it up. This was a decent segment and again, while it was some of what we’ve seen already, this program continues to be strong. I also like the idea of keeping Orton and Wyatt away from one another leading into WrestleMania but with a few weeks left before Orlando, it’s going to be hard to keep that up.

Baron Corbin was backstage standing next to a forklift and challenged Dean Ambrose to an Intercontinental Championship match at WrestleMania in a nice little segment. I’ve really enjoyed the slow build with this and Corbin has come off great.

American Alpha vs. The Usos in a non-title match was the final bout of the night and while I think this could be a great feud, it played second fiddle to the Shane McMahon story, once again showing the lack of interest in the tag team division. Overall, this wasn’t a bad match but it was hard to focus on with the split-screen thing going. And just a note on that, the screen with Shane was bigger than the screen with the match. Just saying. Much like what happened with Alexa Bliss, the champs took a clean loss here so it’s likely that The Usos are now in line for an actual title match.

The show came to a close with Shane making his way back into the arena and telling AJ Styles that he now has an opponent for WrestleMania. So I guess he’s not fired then. Daniel Bryan followed up on Talking Smack by saying Shane wasn’t in his right mind when he made the decision but we all know this match is happening. Unless, of course, we get a surprise AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan match instead. We can all dream.

Much like Monday Night RAW, this was a pretty average episode overall but they continued some things and I always seem to forget how much of a beating Shane can take so I have to give him some credit. Styles was fantastic on Tuesday night and continues to be the best on the WWE roster, which is why although I’m confident that he and Shane can put on a decent match, I still think there was something better out there for him at WrestleMania.