I, for one, am glad WWE decided to keep Wade Barrett on Friday Night SmackDown and rewarded Joe Tessitore’s great work with a gig here. I just wanted to start this recap by saying as much.

Meanwhile, Paul Heyman opened the show proper to gleefully bask in the glow that his one true Tribal Chief is once again Roman Reigns. And now that his issue with Solo Sikoa is in the rearview, it’s time to look ahead to the future and the business he has left to take care of there.

So would WWE Champion Cody Rhodes please make his way out to the ring.

Oh boy.

Now that Reigns has the Ula Fala back, he also wants the title back. And he’s confident enough that Heyman was there to deliver a spoiler — he’s going to get it back by entering the Royal Rumble, of which he was officially declaring for it here, and go on to challenge Rhodes for the title at WrestleMania 41.

Before Rhodes could speak, Kevin Owens’ voice was heard on a microphone up in the stands. He was pissed about everything, of course, and is now claiming Cody is hurting the company by not getting out of the way so The Bloodline could tear itself apart from the inside. Rhodes responded by just rushing him.

That left Heyman alone in the ring, where Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu showed up to intimidate him. He begged off just long enough for Jimmy Uso to show up to make the save. He was overwhelmed but Cody made his return in time to keep him from getting taken out with a chair around his neck.

They showed Fatu threatening security who were throwing him out of the building and none other than LA Knight showed up to be the one to push him out for good, saying “I got a title to win tonight.”

That was slick, and perhaps a sign of things to come in the future.

It was noteworthy that Tonga and Fatu were still running together but Sikoa was nowhere to be seen.

Later in the evening, Fatu and Tonga interrupted LA Knight’s title match to force a disqualification. They were about to put him on the shelf when Rhodes and Jimmy Uso hit the scene to run them off. Instead of allowing Aldis to throw them out again, the WWE champion asked for a tag team match.

Because why not?

Hey, it’s an easy main event set up, right?

When it came time for said main event, Fatu cut a promo on the way to the ring and I think that’s something they should be letting him do every week. He’s just way too damn good at this. They announced Sikoa will make his return next week but the reality is Fatu has already surpassed him and they need to get on board with that.

Seemingly confirming they know as much as well, they had Fatu pin Jimmy in the ensuing match. I was surprised by how much of a showcase this felt like for these two, even with Owens showing up to fight off Rhodes and make it a 2-v-1 to end it.

The show ended with those two sending each other through a table while fighting through the crowd. They’ve got a ladder match to build to that is still nearly a month away, and they’re doing a fine job of keeping the passion in this one.

The rumors said Tiffany Stratton is still listed internally as a heel and her cashing in the Money in the Bank contract on Nia Jax didn’t qualify as a babyface turn. Well, we got the first glimpse of that on this week’s show.

Stratton was all smiles at first, seemingly eating up the response she was getting. But she kept that familiar smirk, and it wasn’t long into her interview with Byron Saxton that she showed that attitude and demanded everyone acknowledge what time it is.

Tiffy Time.

And then it was Jax’s time to come out and respond and she didn’t hold back from the jump.

“You ungrateful little shit,” she started.

She threatened to kill her, told Tiffany she would be nowhere without her, and then demanded Stratton give her title back or have it taken away.

But wait! Bayley didn’t want to let anyone jump in front of her, so she showed up to make her case.

But wait again! Naomi also didn’t want to let anyone jump in front of her, which also meant Bianca Belair was in the ring and the target of Jax’s ire. The entirety of the group couldn’t help but end up in a brawl and Stratton hit the Prettiest Moonsault Ever onto the lot of them.

Instead of that being that, Aldis showed up to book a Fatal 4-Way match to find the next number one contender right there and then.

This was a bit strange to me, at least as far as Bayley is concerned. She’s been heavily featured in the “transfer portal” stuff and despite that is getting put into a top contender match on a whim?

To make it even more interesting, she’s the one who won the match!

She did so thanks to an inadvertent hair whip from Belair to Naomi and Candice LeRae interfering on behalf of Jax. They didn’t tease all that much in regards to it just yet but it’s there if they want to.

As for Bayley, her only words on her title match, which will take place next week, was that Stratton has never beaten her. That doesn’t make that much all that intriguing to me but alright.

All the rest

• Chelsea Green’s first United States championship defense against Michin was a successful one in what wasn’t necessarily a great match but set the tone for what we can expect from this reign. Piper Niven is the X factor who is always going to be there, and any challengers are going to have to find a way to deal with her. That’s just fine with me, considering Green has so much to offer she hasn’t gotten the chance to show just yet.
• They showed nearly the entirety of the men’s tag team division arguing with General Manager Nick Aldis about who should be next in line for a title match. The end result: Pretty Deadly vs. Legado del Fantasma and Motor City Machine Guns vs. A Town Down Under. The first match happens immediately, with Los Garza winning thanks to an Elektra Lopez distraction. Later still, the Machine Guns took down A Town Down Under by simply being a better tag team. Everything they do is so smooth, and they do a great job bringing across that they’re better than most because of that. Pretty Deadly, by the way, were shown backstage getting played by DIY over the tag team title match they were promised.
• By the way, they have Apollo Crews playing a guy who just shows up backstage and exposes obvious lies and it’s infinitely more interesting than throwing him out in random tag teams or having him take losses to put others over. I hope they lean into this and find a way to get him more TV time with it.
• Remember when I said Knight tossing Fatu to of the arena was possibly a sign of things to come? We didn’t have to wait long for that, as Fatu and Tama Tonga interrupted Knight’s United States championship match against Shinsuke Nakamura, launching a sneak attack that would force a disqualification and keep the title with Nakamura. The match was actually pretty damn good before it got interrupted. It’s hard to imagine them going back to it again after how this played out but I wouldn’t be upset if they did so.

This was a decent enough show but after how big the Netflix debut was, they were always going to struggle to follow it. That said, they hit multiple story beats and progressed quite a few stories here with some solid wrestling thrown in.

Your turn.