WWE SmackDown Live – February 5, 2019 (Review)

What was the worst part of last night’s episode?

Kyle Payne

The SmackDown Women’s Champion was not on the show at all and there are no hints of any credible challengers. Asuka deserves to be showcased because of how talented she is and because she is the champion of the brand. It’s a disservice for her to be in the shadows of Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch (regardless of how much I love Becky Lynch).

AJ Styles is slowly falling into that Dean Ambrose category, where I’m losing sight of who his character is or who he’s supposed to be.

.@BillieKayWWE & @PeytonRoyceWWE worked 14 years to get here, and they plan on becoming the first-ever #IIconic Women's #TagTeamChampions at #WWEChamber! #SDLive pic.twitter.com/PxFRbKcaqy

— WWE (@WWE) February 6, 2019

Nate Craver

I don’t know that anything on the show was particularly awful. If I’m picking a worst, I’m going to go with the women’s tag team match. I’m picking this basically because SmackDown doesn’t really have a team that seems like a serious contender for the tag team titles.  

The IIconics shouldn’t have been wasted like they have been and they could have been. Throw in the fact that Naomi seems destined to just get randomly thrown into tag teams with bffs that have glow in the name, and the SmackDown women’s tag division is pretty crap. I would much rather see the Sky Pirates or Shafir and Duke in this match.

Steven Lugo

The unfathomable partnership of Rusev and Nakamura. Okay, it’s not as ‘unfathomable’ as, say, Steve Austin joining forces with Vince McMahon. But it doesn’t make much sense either. Throwing these two together, seemingly at random after a weak program as opponents, makes me care less about them. It’s because you can tell zero thought went into it, and neither Rusev nor Shinsuke have good reasons for wanting to partner in the first place.

Maybe because this is all based on the idea that R-Truth could beat them both in the same night. Facepalm. Remember when Rusev and Nakamura were two of the hottest wrestlers in WWE? It’s tough, isn’t it?

Louis Dangoor

R-Truth not being on the show. At least they acknowledged it and said he was at home resting. But I didn’t like Nakamura not being on the show for weeks on end as he was champion and Truth being champ is bad enough, but at least have him on TV. I can say the same for Asuka and, with Charlotte occupied with Lynch and Rousey, I worry that Asuka will be left without a WrestleMania match-up.

Although the segment was fun, I really hope WWE steer clear of having Charlotte added to the ‘Mania match. I hope that Charlotte is only involved now for Lynch to beat her at FastLane and solidify herself as the true main event. I might be giving WWE too much credit here, but Lynch and Rousey really don’t need Charlotte in the match. In spite of that, at least they are booking it well.

The women’s tag match was sloppy. Naomi and Carmella actually seem promising as former women’s champions tagging together but they could have done with picking up the win here in their debut match as a team. Instead their win was sacrificed for the continuation of the Mandy Rose / Noami storyline. At least Rose and Deville (I refuse to refer to them as ‘Fire and Desire’) now feel like somewhat of a threat come Elimination Chamber.

It would have been nice to see Almas and Mysterio in the flesh rather than in a backstage segment, but the show was busy as it is, so I understand.

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