WWE Smackdown 1/24 Recap: Jacob Fatu Has Next & The Women’s Royal Rumble Set

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Photo Credit: WWE

The “Road to WrestleMania” continues its way through the Lone Star State as SmackDown airs live from the Moody Center in Austin. The venue plays host to PBR squad the Austin Gamblers—featured in their ringside seats as guests—and WWE continues to push the bullriding promotion since its parent company acquired it. Tonight’s show features a segment from Cody and Tama Tonga’s singles match with LA Knight—booked last week after consecutive run-ins with each other in the backstage area. However, the women’s Royal Rumble has been severely under-booked and would benefit from a major segment tonight.

Kevin Owens Is Not Alright… Alright Alright

Cody Rhodes was scheduled for a promo and delivered it to the city where his dad was born, Austin. We learned that Shawn Michaels would moderate the contract signing between Rhodes and Owens at tomorrow’s SNME. However, like in previous weeks, Owens would steal the show. Owens was not in the mood for another arena brawl, so he timed his outlaw promo so that they save any more violence for their ladder match scheduled for the Royal Rumble.

Instead, Owens berated Joe Tessitore before setting sights on hometown hero Matthew McConaughey seated behind commentary. He swore to the Hollywood A-lister that he would ‘beat Cody at the Rumble the way Ohio beat UT.’ McConaughey is a well-known Longhorn that supports Texas’ athletics. McConaughey didn’t need ‘10 days’ to figure out how to lose Owens because Jimmy Uso’s music hit and rescued WWE from a potential incident. The match between Owens and Jimmy was booked, but it had a difficult time getting started.

Jimmy has been beefing with Melo, and after he lost to Priest (See Below), he ran into Jimmy. Uce clowned Melo and said he’d beat him in 3 moves before “Yeeting” all over him. That pissed Melo off enough to attack Jimmy before the match as he made his way down the ramp. Oddly enough, Melo came out looking weaker as Jimmy managed to counter the attack and eventually continued to the ring laughing as WWE security dragged Melo to the backstage area.

Main Event: Kevin Owens vs. Jimmy Uso

K.O. trolled Jimmy by wearing a Naomi shirt to the ring. Jimmy and Naomi have been married for 11 years and were a featured couple on WWE’s hit show “Total Divas.” Owens is among the most underrated superstars working today, constantly delivering for fans regardless of where and when he’s booked on the card. The match continued after the break with Owens in control of a rest hold, but the mics could pick up his audio shouting, “Alright, alright, alright,” a troll of McConaughey’s famous line from “Dazed and Confused.” Owens was able to take the win over Jimmy and keep his momentum rolling into next week’s Rumble. After the match, K.O. attempted to drop a package piledriver on Jimmy before Cody Rhodes came to the rescue to send SD to end credits.

Monsters, Animals, And Jacob Fatu… Oh My!

Jacob Fatu is doing so much with so little airtime. He has proven he can cut a promo, and his brand of violence just hits DIFFERENT. Last week, Fatu cut his best promo yet in the absence of Solo’s silent walkout. Yet, Fatu was limited to a brief but impactful backstage promo during their walk to Gorilla before the break.

Tamed Tonga?

Tama Tonga and LA Knight battled it out in singles competition after returning from the break—a match that WWE considered big enough to book a week in advance. The match was well received by the live crowd, but it was a very even contest for the most part. Still, LA Knight was coming off too strong for Tonga to handle, and Knight would go on to pin the former Bullet Club leader.

Strowman Strongarms

The win was clean enough—you could argue Fatu’s presence certainly made Tonga the favorite, at least—despite Fatu inadvertently playing a role that worked against Tama Tonga. Fatu put a beat down on Knight immediately following the match, and the beatdown would have commenced had Braun Strowman’s music not hit.

The crowd popped at the faceoff, but Strowman would get the best of Fatu—knocking him over the ropes with a clothesline only to be held back by Tama. It was a brief encounter meant to tease tomorrow night’s showdown between Monster and Animal. It was interesting to see Tonga lose, especially after it appears that all Bloodline programs are concluded and on ice for the foreseeable future.

Belts And Bad B’s

The women’s Royal Rumble was finally given a significant program on WWE programming, but with only a week until Rumble and SNME scheduled for tomorrow, the segment was overbooked. The need to cram a bunch of superstars into this segment was the only card left to play, and it is hard to criticize WWE for being in this position. Creating paralleled stories that force fans to choose and invest their hearts into a narrative is difficult with a month of promotion, but last-minute programs often result in 6-woman tag matches like the one we got between Nia, Candice LeRae, and Liv Morgan facing (RAW) women’s world titlist Rhea Ripley with tag champs Naomi and Bianca Belair.

The match was thrown together by SD GM Aldis after each faction of women interrupted the last. It was not given as much thought as it should have received—otherwise, how do you navigate Nia Jax declaring for a contest where the winner receives a title shot when Nia already has one tomorrow night?

The motivations were vague and obvious, but it could be considered a good problem. After all, the Rumble only feels lacking because both of your world champs are over and remain the faces of the division. Simply said, the women we would want to win the Rumble and cheer on at Mania are already the champions. The heels took the victory, but they did little to raise the stakes of a match that already had all the stakes.

Other Tidbits/In-Ring Action

The “transfer portal” was working overtime tonight as Damian Priest and The Miz were both transitioned to SD, while A-Town Down Under will go to RAW as a pair.

Damien Priest vs. Carmelo Hayes

Carmello Hayes has had a different tone in his voice over the past several months, and his ego was used as a trap this week. GM Aldis was gassin’ up Hayes to accept a match with the new SD ‘transition’ before knowing it was former heavyweight champion Damian Priest. Priest was victorious in the match and was then seen backstage being congratulated by Cody. The current SD world champion welcomed Priest to the blue brand like the ambassador he for the locker room.

Co-SD tag champion Johnny Gargano suffered the (upset?) loss at the hands of Apollo Crews. Motor City Machine Guns came out ringside during the singles match, and the distraction was enough for Crews to get the roll-up victory.

Mario Mungia

Mario Mungia Jr. has a decade worth of experience as a combat sports journalist and correspondent which began with ThaBoxingVoice (TBV) as a podcast co-host, writer and editor-in-chief. Aside from his online resume, Mario spent a fair portion of his early career working for Spanish/English magazine Premier Round and the Mexican website Izquierdo. Mario has also contributed to NYFights while simultaneously working for MIC Sports Network as part of the broadcast crew covering local high school sports. Since then, he has launched his own podcast/live stream (Infighting/Work In Progress) and is covering pro wrestling for FightsATW.

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