5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Jan 1)

4. All Those Brodie Lee Tributes

Brodie Lee WWE SmackDown Tribute
WWE.com

WWE were never going to top the emotional tribute show AEW produced on Wednesday's Dynamite, but they didn't have to. Instead of dedicating the entire broadcast to Brodie Lee, the company showed his memorial graphic first and then let the roster express their love and respect to a fallen friend.

SmackDown was stacked with Brodie tributes.

Big E, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro and Sasha Banks all wore black armbands with his name splashed across them, and their matches had some sneaky homages too. E used Brodie's gator roll and shouted, "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!", Cesaro hit a sidewalk slam, Otis nailed a spinning lariat and more.

Backstage, Adam Pearce borrowed from Lee's Twitter handbook by saying, "You know what that means". E also topped things off by namedropping Brodie's wife Amanda and son Nolan. He even found time to drop in some love for Lee's beloved Toronto Maple Leafs.

Lovely.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.