Tuesday night hosted the final stop on the road to WrestleMania as Smackdown Live emanates from Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore.
Just five days away from the biggest show of the year , the final threads are set to be tied up as Kofi Kingston and Daniel Bryan sign the contract for their championship match and The Man Becky Lynch is free from jail to talk up Mania’s main event.
Mirror Sports' John Isherwood takes a look at the five things you need to know from Smackdown Live .
KofiMania is official
After weeks of attempted roadblocks, there was no more stopping this juggernaut. It was time to make one of Sunday’s biggest matches official.
Randomly Raw’s Michael Cole was on hand to handle proceedings as Kofi arrived to a humongous reaction from the Baltimore faithful.
It is a rare occasion that a contract signing goes smoothly in WWE and this happened to be that rare occasion. As the chants of KofiMania rained down from the crowd Bryan signed the contract without so much as a prompt.
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Attempting to rile Kingston, the Planet’s Champion said that he’s done nothing for 11 years and this was as good as it was going to get.
As Kingston sat stoic throughout Bryan’s rant, he waited for him to finish before telling him that he’s never had a one on one WWE Title match and now he has it, it’s going to count. The match is official and KofiMania is running wild.
Tag Team Turmoil
At the start of the show, Smackdown’s tag team championships were bot scheduled to be defended on the Grandest Stage of them All, but the champs would be in action on Tuesday night as The Uso’s teamed with Aleister Black and Ricochet to face The Bar and Rusev and Nakamura.
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The eight man tag match allowed all the stars to hit some of their big moves and also for Aleister Black and Ricochet to confirm that they are not fans of gravity.
The end of the match was interrupted though as the host of this year’s WrestleMania, Alexa Bliss appeared on the stage where she declared that the spirit of competition in Smackdown’s tag team division had vanished and that the Uso’s needed a real challenge, so at WrestleMania they would defend the titles against the other three teams in this match.
A huge announcement and one which potentially telegraphs a result from TakeOver as Black and Ricochet will be competing for the NXT Tag Team Titles on Friday night too. Surely they can’t leave New York as double champions?
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The Man is free
As announced on WWE’s website, Lynch, Flair and Rousey had all been released by the police after their arrest on Monday’s Raw, yet it seems as if only The Man had bothered to come over to Baltimore tonight as Lynch was the only one of the trio to arrive on Smackdown.
The Man was in rare form on the mic giving the last bit of hype ahead of Sunday’s historic winner takes all triple threat main event.
Backed by a vocal WWE Universe, The Man told everyone that she was going to make “one of those dopes tap and become the champion she always knew she was” on Sunday and finish the job she started at SummerSlam last year.
Lynch has truly been a phenomenon as of late. The Man’s popularity is all off her own back. Not bad for someone who was only on the pre-show at last year’s WrestleMania.
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KO Show
Kevin Owens is brilliant. There are no other words for the man. Even when not competing, he captures the crowd like no other.
The charismatic Canadian hosted another episode of the KO Show on Smackdown where he not only showed off his new merchandise, but also hosted AJ Styles and Randy Orton ahead of their grudge match on Sunday
Early WrestleMania events featured these good old fashioned grudge matches and these two could contest a real throwback style affair. With the Phenomenal One and the Legend Killer trading barbs across the table it was Styles who came out on top of the verbal exchange claiming that Orton just had “one move” – the RKO and it was that move that proved to be his undoing.
As things got heated, KO bailed and left the pair to brawl with Orton standing tall after hitting his one move – the RKO letting Styles know that if he hits that on Sunday, it’s over for AJ.
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The Miz shows his mean streak
Ahead of his Falls Count Anywhere match with Shane McMahon at MetLife Stadium, The Miz was in defiant mood and told Shane he was ready to beat him not just for himself, but also for his dad’s honour too,
Shane came out to goad the Miz and was in full smarmy heel McMahon mode as he forced the Miz to have a rather unorthodox warm up match ahead of Sunday.
Taking on all three members of the SAnitY faction, Miz was also going to have to prove he’s ready for Shane by contesting this match under falls count anywhere rules.
SAnitY did great things in NXT, they fought in War Games and won the NXT Tag Team Championship, yet since their main roster call up they’ve rarely been seen and now all three were squashed by The Miz.
The trio are unique, can work and would be an asset to the blue brand, yet they’re left to flounder. But The Miz looked strong, which was the plan as he aims for revenge in New York.
