Live Report- WWE Smackdown: 2.25.16
Indianapolis has always been a big market for wrestling and the house is always packed when WWE comes to town. Lately, Indy has been getting Raw twice a year but the tables have been turned a bit when we got Smackdown right before Thanksgiving and again this week.
The difference between last time and this time is two words- Wrestlemania Season. There’s something magical about Wrestlemania and the road to it that just makes things more fun and that’s exactly what this Smackdown and Main Event taping was- fun.
Matches for this week’s Main Event were:
Bo Dallas w/ The Social Outcasts vs. Darren Young
Naomi vs. Paige
Ryback vs. Tyler Breeze
Braun Strowman vs. Fandango
Matches for Smackdown were:
The League of Nations vs. Neville, Dolph Ziggler and The Lucha Dragons
D-Von Dudley w/ Bubba Ray Dudley vs. Jimmy Uso
Kevin Owens vs. Big Show
Natalya vs. Becky Lynch
R Truth vs. Heath Slater w/ The Social Outcasts
AJ Styles, Chris Jericho and a mystery partner vs. The New Day
As you can guess- as is the case most of the time- the Indianapolis crowd was completely electric. The Social Outcasts, Charlotte, Kevin Owens, The New Day, R-Truth and Goldust were extremely over with the crowd. The Dudley Boyz got a pretty solid reaction but one of the most over was AJ Styles and Chris Jericho, whose newly-formed tag team of “Y2AJ” has been getting a huge reaction and got an even bigger one in Indy.
From the onset of Triple H opening the show and cutting a scathing promo on Roman Reigns and reliving his epic beatdown of Reigns on Raw to the closing moments of the six-man tag team main event, Smackdown was booked very well and kept the Road to Wrestlemania as interesting as ever.
After the event it was announced WWE would be returning to Indianapolis on September 25 for the Night Of Champions PPV- the first PPV event in Indy since Survivor Series 2012.
-Reggie Edwards