It was a pretty loaded Smackdown, so we’ll take a look at Roman Reigns’ storyline,
Naomi’s storyline, and why Ronda Rousey versus Charlotte Flair had some fans enraged
Let’s start things off with that first segment of the show which was Paul Heyman’s explanation
for turning on Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble
Heyman explained that was no elaborate plot or scheme behind what happened at the Royal
Rumble
One of the fan theories going around was that “well, maybe this was part of their plan
all along and that Roman and Heyman’s split was staged to throw Brock off”
Heyman debunked that theory saying that, no, he was legitimately fired and attacked by
Roman during the night of his firing
He mentioned that the Royal Rumble is what changed his mind, when he saw Roman attack
Brock Lesnar during that match, he said that he had this realization that Roman doesn’t
need to be protected from Brock, that Brock has to be protected from Roman Reigns
And when Roman stuck his hand out to Paul Heyman for the title, Heyman said that he
saw that as Roman extending a hand of forgiveness and made a decision right on the spot to accept
it
So that clears up all the speculation there around Roman and Heyman reuniting
It wasn’t the entire plan all along and they didn’t work with each other to set
up the attack on Brock
The way Heyman described it, it was that moment of Roman hitting Brock with the spear and
asking for the title where Heyman made the decision on the spot to leave Brock Lesnar
And Heyman did call being with Brock Lesnar a mistake, he realized that Roman Reigns was
the more dangerous man and made a quick move to go back to his side
And some fans claim that Heyman turning like that came out of nowhere, but it actually
didn’t
There were a lot of hints of Heyman missing Roman Reigns and probably having second thoughts
of about going off with Brock
We saw that on the first Smackdown after Day 1, Heyman seemed to be legitimately heartbroken
over not being with Roman anymore and expressed how he felt
And then on WWE’s The Bump before Royal Rumble, Heyman flat out said that he “missed”
his tribal chief
So even though Heyman was sneaking around for months behind Roman’s back with Brock
Lesnar, Heyman came to the realization that he made the wrong move after being fully fired
from The Bloodline
So when Roman gave Heyman that second chance, that second opportunity, he jumped on it right
away
Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman are cut off by the returning Goldberg
Goldberg comes out, says that Roman is next, and then 15 seconds later we see a graphic
come up for their elimination chamber match
The only issue here with all that is once again the logic of how did Goldberg get that
match
Usually superstars have to beg Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville for an opportunity and they’re
the ones to set up the matches
But Goldberg just came out, said he’s facing Roman next and the graphic is thrown on the
screen.
It’s just a bit strange to leave out the WWE official characters from truly booking
a championship match like that
Something even as little as Sonya or Adam coming out during Roman and Goldberg’s confrontation
to make the match official would’ve been perfect because at least our WWE official
characters were still involved in the booking of the match somehow
But for Goldberg to come out there and book the match himself does come off as being a
bit off
That match will take place on February 19th, so only two Smackdown episodes left to build
that story
It’s gonna be a challenge to get everyone to fully care about this title match with
only two shows to build the story
So it doesn’t look like much story will be behind this match due to the lack of time,
but it’s just a match that WWE has seriously wanted to see for over two years, so they’ll
finally get their dream match
The other issue is that we already have the Wrestlemania main event of Roman Reigns versus
Brock Lesnar confirmed, so no one is really taking Goldberg serious here as a threat to
dethrone Roman Reigns
But we’ll see how that story continues to unfold for Roman Reigns
————-
Let’s dive back into Naomi’s storyline
Naomi is seen again in Adam and Sonya’s office
She’s there to confront Sonya about what she did at Royal Rumble and wants another
match with Sonya Deville
Sonya brushes it off, says she’s busy next week, but decides to give Naomi a Smackdown
women’s title match next week on Smackdown
Although it’s great to technically see Naomi back in the title picture after all these
years, there a few problems here with this scheduled title match
One problem being that it appears like we’ll see another repetitive moment of Sonya Deville
finding a way to cost Naomi the match
Hopefully that doesn’t happen because seeing another repeated segment in this story would
be a step back, but it just seemed very suspicious that Sonya would give a title match to Naomi,
so it just seems like Sonya will get involved once again
The other issue to this title match being that Naomi unfortunately has a complete zero
percent chance to realistically win the title here
WWE already has their dream match of Ronda Rousey versus Charlotte Flair booked for Wrestlemania
So similar to the Goldberg situation, the Wrestlemania match is already set, Charlotte
obviously isn’t dropping the title since she has that match with Ronda Rousey
That’s another negative of announcing the Wrestlemania main events so early on, we know
that those matches are locked in and taking place at Wrestlemania
so if those champions defend their titles a few times before Wrestlemania, it not that
interesting at all because we know that there’s no way they’re dropping their titles since
they’re already booked for Wrestlemania
So maybe it would’ve been a bit better to have to the Royal Rumble winners wait until
after the elimination chamber to announce their picks, at least that would’ve made
things like Naomi versus Charlotte and Roman Reigns versus Goldberg a bit more interesting
But since the rumble winners already made their picks, those titles matches with other
people are basically pointless, the title isn’t going anywhere so it’s hard to buy
into Naomi and Goldberg as threats to those titles
—————-
That brings us to Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair’s main event segment on Smackdown
With Ronda announcing that she would make her decision on Smackdown, fans started assuming
the she’ll select Charlotte Flair
But in attempt to still make Ronda’s announcement a surprise, they pulled this prank on the
fans
Sonya announced that Ronda will be facing Becky Lynch at Wrestlemania and that Charlotte
could now select her own Wrestlemania opponent
Which again, is another empty logic moment, when has a champion ever been able to just
handpick their Wrestlemania opponent?
Charlotte also said that she was entering the Royal Rumble as champion to earn the right
to select her opponent at Wrestlemania, so she loses the Royal Rumble, but still gets
the right to select her Wrestlemania opponent?
That was a real head scratching moment
But Charlotte Flair selects Sasha Banks and the crowd erupts
Fans speculated how Charlotte picking Sasha was likely a jab at Sasha because Sasha has
a record of 0 wins and 6 losses at Wrestlemania
So Charlotte was basically saying that Sasha was the ideal weak Wrestlemania opponent that
she was looking for
But then Ronda Rousey comes out and announces that she selects Charlotte for Wrestlemania
So it looks like confirming Charlotte versus Sasha Banks and Ronda versus Becky at Wrestlemania
was only a prank in order to get a shock value reaction when Ronda picked Charlotte
This moment here left Sasha Banks fans enraged the most
Sasha wasn’t on the show to begin with, then you tease the idea of her being in a
Wrestlemania title match with Charlotte, only to take the match away 25 seconds later
So her fans were understandably upset, asking what was even the point of mentioning Sasha
in that segment
And the answer to that question is exactly what we said, they mentioned Charlotte versus
Sasha as a way to throw fans off so that they’ll be surprised when Ronda picked Charlotte,
that seems to be why they did that
Fans are now hoping that Sasha will still have an important role for Wrestlemania 38
now that she’s not in the title picture
But what are your thoughts on today’s stories?
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