WWE Smackdown Live results and observations (3/7/17): Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt is now official
Smackdown Live didn't have big names such as The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar or Goldberg, but still managed to produce another entertaining installment of television Tuesday.
What Smackdown Live lacked in big names it made up for with compelling stories that I am personally looking forward to see play out between now and WrestleMania.
With that said, here are the full match results from Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis:
- John Cena & Nikki Bella def. Carmella & James Ellsworth
- Alexa Bliss & Mickie James def. Becky Lynch & Natalya
- Randy Orton def. AJ Styles
Bray Wyatt's WrestleMania opponent finally determined
It may have taken a while, but Smackdown Live has finally determined its main event of WrestleMania after Orton defeated Styles in a match that featured a fantastic finish to become the undisputed No. 1 contender to Bray Wyatt's WWE championship.
When this story began last fall, I never envisioned it being one of the headline matches at WrestleMania, especially for the WWE championship.
Firstly, I never thought it would last this long, as WWE's recent history does not indicate that it was capable of telling a story over the course of six months.
But to the company's credit, it has and I have enjoyed the majority of the road getting to this point.
With that said, I cannot help but wonder where Luke Harper ends up in all of this. I'm usually more in favor of one-on-one matches in the featured spots at WrestleMania, but Harper was an integral part of this story from the very beginning.
It's not like Harper wouldn't be taken seriously in this particular spot. If Harper were to be added into this equation, WWE has plenty of time to do so, but after the way he was defeated by Styles last week and being completely left off the program this week, I'm not sure that it would make any sense at this point.
Styles vs. Shane McMahon is upon us
While Orton enjoyed the spoils of victory Tuesday night, Styles sulked in the agony of defeat, as his hopes of being in the main event of WrestleMania were dashed.
Styles did not take this lying down, however, as he angrily confronted Smackdown Live commissioner Shane McMahon in the "Gorilla position" after the show.
In an almost surreal scene, WWE had the cameras rolling as WWE producers "Road Dogg" Brian James and a horrible dressed Michael Hayes got in between Styles and McMahon before things could get too out of hand.
I know some people are against Styles going up against McMahon at WrestleMania. To be honest, I'm not too fond of it either, but since it looks like this is the direction WWE is going in, what it presented Tuesday night was pretty good.
WWE could have easily waited until next week for Styles to confront McMahon. Instead, he did so right after the match, which I preferred. It felt a lot more organic for Styles to vent his frustration as soon as he spotted McMahon.
It also made sense for the producers — not the wrestlers — to keep the two away from each other.
McMahon may not be everyone's ideal WrestleMania opponent for Styles, but in WWE's mind being in the ring with a McMahon is a big deal, which means whatever a member of that family is involved in will be treated with care and will be prominently featured.
In that sense, that is a positive for Styles.
The Miz lambasts Cena on Smackdown Live, Talking Smack
I said after Cena all but buried The Miz six feet under last week that I was looking forward to how The Miz would respond. Heck, he had to after what Cena did to him.
Thankfully, The Miz did respond and did so in a big way during Smackdown Live and Talking Smack.
On Smackdown Live, The Miz accused Cena's relationship with Bella of being fake, saying that it only exists to help Cena gain more popularity among the fans.
He pointed out that Cena and Bella have rarely interacted on television (although it has been mentioned on television on numerous occasions) until this month because it is Women's History Month and showcasing the relationship would help Cena in the female demographic.
On Talking Smack, The Miz cut even deeper by saying that Cena only makes decisions based on whether it would help his brand and that he makes sure that he sides with people that will help him gain popularity.
The Miz presented a counter argument to Cena's claim that he stole everything. The Miz asked what hasn't been stolen in professional wrestling at some point and Cena has done some stealing of his own.
The Miz said Cena stole Vanilla Ice's character when he first broke onto the scene, Tommy Dreamer's Death Valley driver for his finish, stole his last t-shirt design from Pabst Blue Ribbon and he even stole Dolph Ziggler's girlfriend.
Man, that last one was heavy.
Maryse even jumped in on the fun this week, as she said that when she was Divas champion back in 2010, Bella was merely someone that made sure WWE's celebrity guests were taken care of.
As soon as she began dating Cena, however, all of these opportunities began coming her way, including championships and reality television shows. Man, this is great stuff.
This may not be the best use of a star like Cena, but this feud has been thoroughly entertaining so far. All of the old rules of professional wrestling have been thrown out of the window for this one in favor of both sides flat-out burying each other at every turn.
This feels and sounds real, which is way more than I can say for a lot of WWE's other stories at the moment.
Daniel Bryan said something very interesting
In the midst of The Miz's tirade on Cena, he managed to get in a few digs on Bryan, who returned fire by saying that The Miz was nothing more than a WWE shill.
The Miz then mentioned the fact that Bryan was forced into retirement due to his concussion issues.
Bryan responded to that by saying, "We'll see about that in a year and a half."
What did that mean? Is Bryan planning on returning to the ring at some point? If so, could he possibly return to a WWE ring?
That seems unlikely given that WWE is a publicly traded company that would not receive favorable press for suddenly clearing Bryan to get back into the ring after determining that he needed to cut his career short a couple of years prior.
Is Bryan's contract with WWE up at that point? If it is, does that mean he would be open to leaving the company just so he could wrestle elsewhere?
Obviously, all of this is merely speculation. Bryan could have just thrown that line out there simply to fan the flames and he definitely succeeded in doing that.
But we'll all have to keep this mind when the middle of 2018 rolls around to see what exactly Bryan meant by that statement.
Bliss vs. all
Going against everyone alone is more like Roman Reigns' motto, but Bliss will have to adopt it when she defends her Smackdown Women's championship against not one, not two but every single member of the Smackdown Live women's division.
What type of match will this be? Will it be a battle royal? Will it be a gauntlet? Will it be that cluster of a match we saw the women in at WrestleMania 30?
As of right now, no one knows. We don't know even know all of the participants. We might get a return from La Luchadora out this for all I know.
What is known is that is that this is every woman for herself and that was proven Tuesday night when James kicked Bliss in the head after their tag team victory over Lynch and Natalya.
I understand that this is a way to get as many people on the show as possible, but this is a little disappointing given how good the creative has been for the Smackdown Live women's division since the brand extension.
Despite all of that good creativity, this match doesn't seem very creative at all — at least not at the moment.
Since everyone is involved, that hopefully means that we will see Naomi in action April 2. It would be a shame for her to miss WrestleMania in her hometown due to injury.
Baron Corbin knows how use forklifts
Corbin is a man of many talents. He is a former Golden Gloves boxer, he was a decorated college football player that had a short stint in the National Football League and he has a promising future as a professional wrestler in the top company in the world.
We found out one of his hidden talents this past Tuesday night and that was his ability to operate heavy machinery. In this specific case, it was a forklift.
In a scene reminiscent to Mankind versus The Rock during Halftime Heat, Corbin used a forklift to pin down and apparently severely injure Dean Ambrose backstage.
Ambrose went looking for Corbin after the latter refused to meet the Intercontinental champion in the ring.
Ambrose found his man, but not in the way that he necessarily wanted, as Corbin distracted him by launching a security guard at him.
Corbin then hit Ambrose across the chest with a lead pipe before dropping the forklift onto him, which apparently caused the cameraman to lose all control of his motor skills and shake the camera uncontrollably.
I guess if I saw someone being nearly crushed to death by a forklift I'd react the same way.
Regardless, this was another chapter in the story between Ambrose and Corbin that will hopefully lead to an Intercontinental title match at WrestleMania.
Mojo Rawley, Apollo Crews enter Andre the Giant Battle Royal
Speaking of WrestleMania, we had our first two entrants in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal become official Tuesday, as Rawley announced during Smackdown Live that he was entering the match.
On Talking Smack, Crews tossed his hat into the ring as well.
I cannot say that I am surprised to say the least. I could have told you from the moment these two debuted on the main roster last year that they were destined to be in this match.
Regardless of where they are on the card, I'm still happy for both of them that they will get to be a part of a WrestleMania. Being part of the show in any capacity is good, right?