WWE Royal Rumble 2018 review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

2-out-of-3 Falls Match for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship

The Usos (c) vs. Chad Gable & Shelton Benjamin

What we learned: We learned here that not every single 2-out-of-3 Falls Match actually gets to that third fall. It’s happened before but it certainly is a rarity and definitely not something that I was expecting in this one. Seriously, what was that ending?

Before we get to that, let’s get to the events leading to what happened as I did enjoy the majority of the content we saw in this match. When you’ve got athletes in the ring like The Usos, Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin, the likelihood of getting at least a decent match is pretty high, and all four did deliver on Sunday night.

Gable and Benjamin worked the classic tag strategy early on, isolating Jimmy Uso as they worked on the leg to limit his offense. They had quick tags and took turns working him over, but Jey would eventually get the tag from his brother and we were off and running from there with a whirlwind of offense from all four men, highlighted by the top-rope moonsault to the outside from Gable to both Usos. We saw one of these in the cruiserweight match which was just as good, but there were a lot more people in the stands for this one.

It looked as if they were going to go with the “wrong Uso” angle again but the ref put a stop to that. The Usos recovered and took control, hitting the double superkick followed by the big splash, but Gable kicked out in a great near fall. Remember, all of this was happening in the first fall, and it looked like we were maybe headed toward a 30-minute classic. However, Gable couldn’t overcome the next round of superkicks and the champs won the first fall after about 12 minutes. It was very good and I was expecting more, but two minutes later, Gable was rolled up and that was that. BOOOOOOOO!!! I suppose it’s interesting that the match didn’t go three falls as most people are always expecting that in these types of matches, but the finish fell short for me. If they’re going to go the route they did, just go with one fall and be done with it.

What’s next: With Gable and Benjamin seemingly blowing their chance and taking the clean loss, I don’t see them getting another big chance to win the titles. However, there is a long time between now and the next blue-brand pay-per-view (WWE Fastlane is set for March 11) so it’s possible that we could see a rematch at some point on SmackDown Live. By their logic, Gable and Benjamin have beaten The Usos twice, and now the champs have two wins. So I suppose another match isn’t completely out of the question. I still think we’ll get some sort of multi-team match at WrestleMania 34 but again, there’s a lot of time before then.