6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (14 Mar - Results & Review)
Ups...
6. Jade Cargill Adds To The Emotion
Now this is how you set up a match.
Jade Cargill sat down with Cathy Kelly earlier in the day before fans filed in and explained why she knew it was Naomi who attacked her last year. Crucially, Jade also said that seeing Bianca Belair team up with Naomi after that made her sick to her stomach. Sure, she could’ve picked up her phone and called Bianca, but lets overlook that for now and let these ladies cook without nitpicking. They've earned that.
Last week’s face to face with Belair and Naomi was fire, and this was some more much-needed context from Jade's side. The story is hitting all the right marks, and seeing an angry Cargill go after Liv Morgan (who is rightly annoyed that she and Raquel Rodriguez were blamed for the attack) next week should be fun. On that, Liv and Raquel strolled past ringside in a believable random encounter moment, then hijacked the interview by jawing off with Jade.
Morgan is a leading light in the women's division, but she might need to play collateral for the betterment of Cargill. The amazon should be rightly squashing a few fools heading into WrestleMania whether they're stars or not. Don't worry, Liv will be fine. She's in the tag division with Rodriguez for a while anyway.
This couldn't hope to match the real emotion of Bianca and Naomi last week, but Jade did a solid job putting her side of the story across and adding to the idea that Naomi is a jealous dirtbag; Cargill's tears never came across as completely genuine compared to those shed by her peers, so that's also something WWE can use if they want.
5. Randy Orton Gives Barca What They Want
Moving on as fast as they did post-match was weird, but the actual work between Randy Orton and Carmelo Hayes was excellent bell to bell. Hayes showed blatant disregard for Randy's iconic status throughout the entire deal, and that always meant he was ripe for some RKO action. There was a clever tease for that early on, so people knew it was only a matter of minutes before Melo would be eating canvas.
Barca popped huge for all of this. They were real happy to see Orton, but this wasn't some blink-and-you'll-miss-it squash. Oh no, Randy did some selling for Hayes to put across the up-and-comer's talents. That's something worth saying about Randy - he rarely eats someone alive just for the sake of it, and he understands the value in letting heels get some heat first before he launches into a popular comeback.
That makes the babyface shine mean more and it gives the villain something to brag about later.
Everyone came for the RKO though, that's for certain. Spanish fans leapt out of their seats when Orton hit several for good measure on Melo. It's probably back to the tag division with The Miz for Hayes. Cool. Here's hoping WWE's writers haven't forgotten about all that "Melo Don't Miz" stuff they've been setting up over the past few weeks. It has potential.
If WWE had managed to make more of KO saving Melo from the punt, then this would've been a perfect match into angle scenario. Christ knows why they failed on that front, but they did. At least the match itself was worth watching.