WWE SmackDown live results: WrestleMania 42 go-home show
The final WWE show before this weekend’s two-night WrestleMania 42 drops tonight as SmackDown takes over the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and it is set to be a stacked show.
Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes will have a “message” for his opponent Randy Orton on tonight’s show. Rhodes is set to defend his title against Orton in tomorrow night’s main event while also having to deal with the intrusion of one Pat McAfee in all of this.
The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal makes its return tonight, with various superstars set to stake their claim to win the prestigious battle royal.
It’ll be an eight-man street fight when the Wyatt Sicks and the M.F.T.s look to finallly settle their score once and for all. The growing tensions between M.F.T. leader Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga could make defeating the Wyatts a tall task for the group, however.
Our live coverage begins at 8 p.m. Eastern.
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– Our show opened with a flyover of downtown Las Vegas as Joe Tessitore set the stage for tonight’s show. We then went to a video highlighting the history of WrestleMania.
– Shots of the various superstars arriving to the arena greeted us, followed by Pat McAfee and Randy Orton arriving in their Ram. Nick Aldis approached them and handed McAfee a contract to sign as Orton made his way to the ring to kick things off.
Randy Orton kicks off SmackDown
Even with everything that’s gone down in recent weeks, Orton still got a huge ovation from the Las Vegas crowd, who sang his theme song loudly as he walked to the ring. Once Orton was in the ring, he took the mic and began to address the crowd.
Orton said that he’d be the first to admit that he didn’t need Pat McAfee. The truth was that he wanted him, because he viewed McAfee as the only straight shooter. Orton claimed that McAfee told him what he needed to hear, which was to let him be himself. Orton recounted how he won the Elimination Chamber and was all set to face Drew McIntyre, but Cody Rhodes defeating McIntyre threw everything in a mess. That’s when Orton got upset about Rhodes giving him “permission” to be himself. Orton talked about how he gave everything to Rhodes, but all Rhodes did was take, take, take.
Orton took offense to how two years ago, Rhodes didn’t call him to help with Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40. He pointed out he helped Rhodes out against Solo Sikoa and got put through a table for his troubles, as well as Kevin Owens hitting a Package Piledriver to him. Orton said that helping Rhodes these past few years have hurt his legacy. He was ready to fix it tomorrow night at WrestleMania, to right all those wrong. He was going to do it with the most dangerous letters in sports entertainment: R… K… O.
Bless Orton for trying to salvage what has been a ridiculous mess of a main event feud, because this was honestly a really good promo from him. His justifications for betraying Cody Rhodes actually made sense, even putting into account the ridiiculous antics of DIet Dan Lambert at his side.
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– Backstage, McAfee and Orton made their exit from the building in their Ram truck, promising that “life” would change for the better.
Eight-Man Street Fight: The M.F.T.s (Solo Sikoa, J.C. Mateo, Tama Tonga, and Talla Tonga) (w/ Tanga Loa)vs. The Wyatt Sicks (Uncle Howdy, Erick Rowan, and Joe Gacy) (w/ Nikki Cross)
As the Wyatts made their entrance, they didn’t waste time and ran into the ring to start this fight. In the ring, Talla Tonga was being shelled by Dexter Lumis, Erick Rowan, and Joe Gacy. A big boot by Rowan sent Talla out of the ring. Gacy and Lumis hit J.C. Mateo and Tama Tonga with stereo suicide dives to the outside. Talla recovered and held the steel steps in his massive hands as he took out Rowan, Gacy, and Lumis with it. This took us to the break.
Our match continued from commercial as the battle raged on in the ring. Gacy and Lumis cleaned house with double team moves on the M.F.T.s Lumis monkey flipped Tama into a powerbomb from Gacy for the pin, but Mateo broke it up. With a barrage of suplexes and throws from Mateo, the M.F.T.s suddenly had the advantage. Uncle Howdy attacked Mateo from behind, but Talla emerged and entered the ring to hit a large Samoan Drop on Howdy. Gacy and Lumis also fell victim to Talla’s Samoan Drop. Talla tried to hit one on Rowan, but got sent out with a big boot. A suicide dive by Rowan took out Talla at ringside. Rowan brought out the goodies from underneath the ring to take this match to the extreme.
Howdy and Rowan bashed Sikoa with trashcans, as the M.F.T. leader soon found himself crushed by a splash with the trashcan right on top of him. This took us to another commercial break.
WWE SmackDown recapper. Former NXT PLE/WWE Saturday Night's Main Event/fill-in recapper.