Review & Twitter Reactions From This Week’s Smackdown: January 1, 2019 1
courtesy WWE

Ringing in the New Year on Smackdown was a good idea with a segment of The New Day. There was not much of a surprise though as they just announced their entries at Royal Rumble 2019 match. The opening contest of the show featured a rematch from last week between Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy.

Full results from Smackdown

Hardy has been a jobber ever since coming back on Smackdown Live. The trend continues even for the ongoing feud against Samoa Joe. Last night, Hardy was the one to pull off all the offenses into the match including Twist of Fate and Swanton Bomb. But Joe still managed to lock in the Coquina Clutch to pick up a big win. It looks like that this momentum might lead him to big things in 2019.

John Cena returning on Smackdown was the biggest attraction on the show. But Becky Lynch took him back to school with that promo! Dropping the name of Nikki Bella just lit up the crowd for good. The mixed tag team match was also a good one since Becky and Lynch’s pairing was something fresh that we have never seen. Cena putting over Lynch during the end was somewhat expected from a veteran.

Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura’s rivalry is becoming better with every passing week. We have already received a new United States Champion. Nakamura still deserves a rematch for the title. McMahons are not willing to hand away any automatic title rematch to anybody. But these two continue to grow bad blood on each other hinting that a rematch is coming up. Most probably, we will get another good match from them in time for Royal Rumble.

The main event of Smackdown Live was also a fresh matchup. These kinds of 5-way contests automatically become must-see for the fans. In this case, prime names from the blue brand made it look even more attractive. Moves from Rey Mysterio were something to watch out for. On the end, AJ Styles picked up the win, however. He will continue the rivalry against Daniel Bryan until Royal Rumble, at least.

Overall, this was another good episode of Smackdown Live to kick off the New Year. Here are the Twitter reactions from the show,

Arindam Pal

A WWE writer passionate about the sports.