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On Sunday night, the Smackdown brand held their final live show of 2018 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
Here are the results from the show:
Your host and ring announcer for the evening was Byron Saxton.
Match Number One: WWE Smackdown Tag Team Champions The Bar defeated The Usos and The New Day (Big E and Xavier Woods) to retain the Smackdown Tag Team Championships when Cesaro won with a rollup.
Killian Dain came out and insulted the City of Tampa by calling it a town full of cowards and losers. He said that he did not want to talk about the Buccaneers. He made an open challenge for anyone to challenge him.
Match Number Two: Titus O’Neil defeated Killian Dain with Clash of the Titus.
Match Number Three: Mustafa Ali defeated Andrade Almas (with Zelina Vega) with a 450 Splash.
After the match, Almas and Vega complained about the result of the match. R Truth and Carmella came to the ring to try to calm Almas and Vega down. They suggested a DANCE BREAK because the crowd was asking for one. Almas and Vega joined in but it was a trap to attack Truth and Carmella. Truth and Carmella fought back and forced Almas and Vega to leave the ring.
Carmella and Truth brought some children from the crowd into the ring for another DANCE BREAK.
Match Number Four: Jeff Hardy defeated Samoa Joe with a splash after a Twist of Fate.
Before the match, Joe cut a promo giving Jeff the chance to walk away so he would not disappoint his fans. Jeff told Joe that he refuses to do that.
Match Number Five: John Cena defeated Miz with The Lightning Fist.
They held a brief intermission.
Match Number Six: Naomi and Lana defeated Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose. Your guest ring announcers for the match were The Iiconics, who were dressed as Christmas Kangaroos. During the match, they tried to interfere and were sent to the back by the referee.
Match Number Seven: WWE United States Champion Rusev defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the United States Championship with a Machka Kick.
Match Number Eight: WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion Asuka defeated Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch to retain the Smackdown Women’s Championship by forcing Charlotte to tap to the Asuka Lock.
Match Number Nine: WWE Champion Daniel Bryan defeated AJ Styles in a Steel Cage Match to retain the WWE Championship when Daniel Bryan escaped the cage. Bryan countered a Styles Clash with a low blow.
After the match, Daniel Bryan cut a promo saying that we would not see AJ Styles at the Royal Rumble or at Smackdown because he is going to end AJ Styles. Bryan returned into the cage but Styles with a low kick and Styles Clash to Bryan.
Thoughts on Show:
Overall, I enjoyed the show. I have said to many people that I enjoy going to the house shows over the television tapings because the wrestlers are allowed to do more since they are not restrained by the TV show format.
With this being the holiday season, there were a lot of families and young children in the arena. WWE does a great job of catering to the children during the show with the wrestlers interacting with the fans on the aisle and front row. Additionally, the wrestlers do a good job to get the children to react to the things they do and chant along.
I think the crowd reaction was much better in the first half of the show and it was weird to watch a WWE show where there were not a lot of chants during the post intermission matches.
I was glad to see the reaction for Mustafa Ali when he came out and they were really into the match between Almas and Ali. I think some of the credit goes to the way that Almas and Vega were able to get to the crowd and make the crowd care more about Ali.
I think this was the third straight Smackdown house show that I have attended in Tampa that started with a multi team tag title match. Each time, the match was very good and you could see how well these teams work with each other. Speaking of the match, I thought they mixed enough comedy with the wrestling to get the crowd in a good place for the show.
The biggest surprise of the New Day appearance was that Big E did not do anything related to the Universtity of Iowa since that team is playing in the Outback Bowl in Tampa and he went to that university.
I was surprised that only Killian Dain came out without the other members of Sanity. I did like his promo and it was funny to hear him say that he didn’t want to hear people talk about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because I don’t know a lot of people who want to talk about the team here in Tampa (it helps when you have a hockey team that has the best record in the league to take away the talk about the Bucs or the drama with the Rays).
I liked the interaction between Almas, Vega, Truth, and Carmella. I was surprised that Almas and Vega were dancing, but it was to hide the attack on Truth and Carmella.
During the early part of the Miz/Cena match, Miz was on the turnbuckle telling the crowd to cheer for him and stop booing him. Of course the crowd booed Miz . . . until Cena got on the turnbuckles in the other corners to get the crowd to cheer for him.
It is a shame that they could not find anything more for Truth and Carmella than the brief confrontation with Almas and Vega or that they could only use the Iiconics to be guest ring announcers.
The crowd reaction for Becky Lynch was great and one of the best of the night (Cena probably got the biggest reaction when his music started to play).
Every time I see Daniel Bryan cut a promo since his heel turn, it makes me want to rewatch his run in FIP as a member of DP Associates because that is where the seeds of this character was cultivated.
I believe that this is the first time that I have seen Daniel Bryan wrestle live since the moment that I consider one of the greatest moments in Ring of Honor history (the in ring ‘original’ hug with El Generico at Proving Ground Night 2 in 2009).
While it was not a sell out, there was a good crowd for the show. The entire third level was curtained off, but that has been the case for any non television taping in Tampa.
I thought Byron Saxton did a good job as host and ring announcer for the night. I wonder if they would use Jeremy Borash for that role as well since he did it so often and so well in TNA (if that is something that they want Jeremy to do)
Before the show started, they did a contest to give someone a copy of the new book for the Rock. It was going to be given to the person who did the best Rock impression. The contestants were a man and a little girl. To borrow from Dave, if you don’t know who won this, you have never been to a WWE show.
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