WWE Tribute To The Troops Review - December 17, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Braun Strowman def. LA Knight

I feel like we've barely seen Knight in action since he went from being Max Dupri to LA Knight, so I was looking forward to seeing him back in the ring for this match. Unfortunately, it ended up being a glorified squash for Strowman, who won in what felt like two minutes. I know this show doesn't matter in the long run, but I would've liked to see a more competitive contest from these two, especially since viewers are supposed to take Knight seriously in his current rivalry with Bray Wyatt.

SmackDown Women's Champion Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler def. Tamina and Emma

Not only is Tamina a Raw Superstar, she was also the only Raw Superstar to appear on this program. I know the rules of the Brand Split barely apply anymore, but they couldn't have used anyone else from the SmackDown women's division to team with Emma? At least Tamina was there to take the loss. As a match, this was  whatever. They were given several minutes, but none of the action was interesting. It seemed to solely exist to give Rousey and Baszler another win as a team and establish their dominance.

Ricochet, Drew McIntyre and Sheamus def. Imperium (Intercontinental Champion Gunther, Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci)

Ricochet and Sheamus have been Gunther's best opponents in recent months, and we also got a taste of Gunther against McIntyre for the small time they shared the ring together for. Imperium have been killing it on the main roster and all of their matches have been top-notch with this being no exception. Everyone had a chance to shine and Ricochet picking up the win for his team was a pleasant surprise. The timing was perfect with him losing to Gunther on Friday's SmackDown (even though this was taped weeks ago). All in all, this was an entertaining main event.

Overall Show

As always, these events are for the troops (as the title suggests) and the matches are just extra. I miss when the shows were filmed overseas or at least in different venues (i.e. not after a random SmackDown taping), but I assume there's a reason they haven't done that lately. Either way, the video packages and the tributes themselves are well done and the matches were perfectly passable this year. The first two were throwaway, but that six-man tag team main event was a treat.

SEE MORE: Tribute To The Troops Reviews