Friday Night SmackDown Review - March 15, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Rock Held a Rock Concert

First and foremost, the Hollywood Rock entrance theme back! I wasn't watching wrestling at that time, but that's pretty damn sweet he brought it back, along with the Rock Concert. Rock's really been embracing this heel turn and it's apparent he's having a blast with it. This was a strong segment between its entertainment value and the way he flipped the switch by getting serious toward the end. The only issue I've had with the Rock stuff is that it's been overshadowing the WrestleMania 40 Night 2 main event, but thankfully, the focus will be back on Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes next week when they face off.

Legado del Fantasma (Angel and Berto) def. The LWO (Cruz Del Toro and Joaquin Wilde) in a WrestleMania 40 Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship SmackDown Tournament Match

Man, what a mouthful. The concept of SmackDown having its own tournament is slightly confusing since Raw will have simple qualifying matches for the tag title match at 'Mania, but by virtue of their victory here, Legado will face New Catch Republic (who also won a little on) at a later date and the winning team will then qualify for the Ladder matchup. This was fun stuff between these tandems and it made sense because Legado and LWO have been feuding for months, anyway. On a side note, Humberto is back to being just Berto. The poor guy has gone through what feels like a thousand name changes.

AJ Styles Attacked LA Knight and Accepted His WrestleMania 40 Challenge

Despite losing some steam since last year booking-wise, Knight is still very much over with the audience and the reaction he received here is proof of that. He kept it short and sweet in addressing Styles and challenging Styles to a match at 'Mania, leading to Styles attacking him with a chair from behind and officially accepting. The angle was well done. It's not what I'd ideally do with Knight at the event, but I'm just happy he's on the card this year.

Randy Orton def. Grayson Waller

Waller and Austin Theory have been the fall guys for Orton for weeks and for Kevin Owens for many months, so the outcome was expected. Despite that, this was a well-wrestled match and I appreciated that he got to score some offense before eating defeat. Post-match, it was made official that Logan Paul will defend the United States Championship against Orton and Owens in a Triple Threat match at WrestleMania, which was the logical direction to go in.

Santos Escobar def. Dragon Lee

It's disappointing that these two were given almost no time. Their two matches last year were fairly short as well, but even those were more competitive than this was. It was basically a straight-up squash for Escobar ahead of his match with Rey Mysterio on next week's show. Yes, Mysterio came out afterward and challenged Escobar to a match next week instead of at WrestleMania. I guess that means we'll probably be getting LWO vs. Legado in a multi-match match at 'Mania and I can't say I'm a fan of that approach. A singles bout would be more appealing in my opinion and more beneficial for Escobar.

New Catch Republic def. Pretty Deadly in a WrestleMania 40 Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship SmackDown Tournament Match

​Pete Dunne/Butch has been feuding with Pretty Deadly since last spring, so fingers crossed this was the blow-off because both teams need fresh opponents. That said, their chemistry is top-notch and thus they delivered a very nice match. Between New Catch Republic and Legado, New Republic feels like a lock to advance to WrestleMania (even though they won't win the tag titles).

Bayley def. Dakota Kai by Disqualification

It was cool to see these two get the main event spot and their storyline take center stage this week. It was needed. This wasn't a hot development, but they had a very good, hard-hitting match in the time they were allotted. This marked Kai's first singles match in almost a year and she looked great. IYO SKY attacking Bayley and causing the contest to be thrown out was lame, but at least more heat was put on Damage CTRL with the post-match attack on Bayley and Naomi.

Overall Show

This edition of SmackDown was a definite improvement over last week's lackluster effort. Rock kicked off the night on a high note, the women got the main event spotlight, there were some quality matches throughout, and more matches were made official for WrestleMania (including Jey Uso vs. Jimmy Uso in a backstage segment). This is the most must-see Raw and SmackDown have felt during WrestleMania season in a long, long time, and I applaud WWE for taking full advantage of the buzz the product has at the moment.

SEE MORE: SmackDown Reviews