6 Ups & 2 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Jan 24)
Ups...
6. Opening With The Advertised Six-Man
A match many thought would main event ended up opening SmackDown.
Roman Reigns teamed with The Usos to take on 'King' Corbin, Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode, and the six-man tag was all-action, all-fun and did a nice job of continuing the story of domination over the 'Big Dog' Corbin and his cronies are trying. The whole situation jumpstarted the broadcast and made it interesting from the off.
That's all one can really ask for from a wrestling show. There was no lengthy back-and-forth promo'ing here – WWE leapt straight into the match and let all six men do their talking with fists, injuries, hot tags, three-on-one beatdowns and a satisfying, crowd-popping result.
SmackDown didn't even open with that "Are You Ready?" AD/DC intro or the usual pyrotechnics. Wrestling, furthering issues before Royal Rumble and giving the show a showpiece launch point was the order of the days, and things were better for it.