While the rest of the WWE Universe was focused on Los Angeles and Monday Night Raw, the Smackdown brand was 120 miles away in San Diego. Before the show got underway, one lucky fan was able to snag a picture with The Eater of Worlds. If normal pictures are worth 1,000 words, then this one is worth a whole flock of buzzards.
@WWEBrayWyatt @WWE Thank you so much for taking the time to take a picture with my son! #WWESanDiego pic.twitter.com/K1xeeAKZLo
— ChargersFan4Life (@DonleyG) February 21, 2017
The opening match of the night saw Heath Slater, Rhyno, and Mojo Rawley come out victorious over The Ascension and Aiden English. There is no word as to where Simon Gotch has been during this tour. As we previously reported, English was in singles action against Mojo at the recent show in Saskatoon.
Therefore, Still Real To Us is officially launching #GotchWatch2017.
Simon is still tweeting, and there hasn’t been any mention as to why he missed the most recent house show loop with the rest of his brand. But only time will tell if there’s any real reason he’s been absent.
https://twitter.com/koopa_kinte/status/833886057288474624
Kalisto went over Curt Hawkins in the second match of the night. There was a lot of hype on Hawkins when he first made his return to WWE, but all of that seems to have dwindled quickly thanks to so many losses. It’s possible that WWE just brought him in to be an enhancement talent, but it’s hard to argue that he’s capable of way more than that.
Thank you for your energy and support #WWESanDiego #SiSePuede #ImagineLuchaAchieve pic.twitter.com/S8f5LA6q9K
— Samuray Del Sol® “Manny $” (@gloat) February 21, 2017
American Alpha put their Smackdown Tag Team Titles on the line against the Usos and Breezango. Rikishi’s sons were way over during this match seeing that they are native California boys, but it didn’t help them win the match or the titles.
https://twitter.com/koopa_kinte/status/833893578942214144
Don’t you love it when one match just leads to another? Well, that happened in San Diego last night when Nikki Bella surprised fans by making an appearance to face Carmella.
https://twitter.com/omfgjazmine/status/833906841834762240
@CarmellaWWE out here looking fabulous as usual #WWESanDiego pic.twitter.com/6grZvSFokQ
— Brandon Stone (@BStoneKUSI) February 21, 2017
Nikki won via DQ after she was attacked by Natalya so Tamina Snuka made the save to set up a tag match. Nikki and Tamina went over Carmella and Nattie in just over five minutes after the follow-up match was set up.
Looks like Tamina is being booked as a face upon her return. Although she helped out Natalya the last couple of nights during the Canadian tour, Nattie was booked as a face in Canada. Now that she’s running in to help Nikki, there’s not much doubt which side of the roster she’s on at this point.
@ryansatin Tamina makes her return at the San Diego Smackdown house show. #WWESanDiego pic.twitter.com/RSxLxF7S18
— Jaime Bencia (@jaimebencia) February 21, 2017
The Intercontinental Title was on the line next in a fatal 4-way match between Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, Baron Corbin and The Miz. It makes sense that Dean won this encounter because it was a house show, but the crowd was very much behind AJ throughout this match.
Great match at #WWESanDiego. pic.twitter.com/2Ozbl77rQE
— Steve Lelenek (@SteveLelenek) February 21, 2017
The Lass Kicker took on Little Miss Bliss in an eight-minute match and won with the Dis-Arm-Her. Although Bliss lost this contest, she still had a fair share of her adoring public in attendance.
I was hoping to catch a smile from you @AlexaBliss_WWE but your presence is good enough for me! #LittleMissBliss #WWESanDiego pic.twitter.com/Sb2MJXsT4L
— AHAG81 (@AHAG81) February 21, 2017
A brief but intense match at #WWESanDiego between Becky and Alexa. pic.twitter.com/0ITE0AES9Y
— Steve Lelenek (@SteveLelenek) February 21, 2017
The main event of the evening saw Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton lose a tag match against Luke Harper and John Cena. Luke Harper is no longer that strange bearded guy who likes to remind us what day of the week it is on his Twitter (yeah, he’s still doing that); he is now a guy participating in main events and rumors are circulating that he might even slide into the Smackdown World Championship match at WrestleMania. We’ll just see if he’s able to pull off a win during that Battle Royal to determine the #1 contender on Smackdown Live.
https://twitter.com/theortongirl/status/833952147192557568
https://twitter.com/_ucejuice/status/833936525297528832
[…] Last week Alexa Bliss laid down a challenge to the new Smackdown Women’s Champion, Naomi for a match on this week’s episode of Smackdown. Unfortunately there might not be a match for Naomi anytime soon according to recent rumors. Trinity Fatu was suspiciously absent from from the recent Smackdown house show tour and you can find our coverage of those events here, here, and also here. […]