4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (24 Jan - Results & Review)
Ups...
4. LA Knight & Tama Tonga Mesh Well
Right, all that whinging and negativity means a serotonin-boosting slice of positivity is needed.
It was great to see Tama Tonga get a longer singles matches on this week's show, because that doesn't happen too often. The New Bloodline (whisper it!) member showed up well against LA Knight. OK, so it's true that Knight has stalled a wee bit since dropping the United States Title, but there are way worse ideas on the table than putting him out there for matches like this one.
SmackDown badly needed something rugged after a few duffers in the form of that six-woman tag and Apollo Crews vs. Johnny Gargano. In that respect, Knight vs. Tonga was the perfect tonic. They almost turned parts of this bout into a full-on brawl, and there was always the omnipresent menace of Jacob Fatu around ringside. On that, WWE found a way to add some last minute sizzle to Jacob's match with Braun Strowman at Saturday Night's Main Event too.
Fatu tried to interfere, got rebuffed by Knight, LA picked up the win, then Fatu came back for more. That brought Braun out, and the big man clotheslined Jacob over the top rope as the fans went wild. There's a lot to like about the visual of Braun vs. Fatu, so it was clever to tie that onto the end of a fine battle between Knight and Tama.
The energy levels were high throughout, Tonga surely turned a few heads behind the curtain with how snug his work as a singles was, and SNME's upcoming match felt important. Can't say fairer than that!