This week’s SmackDown started as multiple wrestlers were seen standing inside the ring. They were all lining of for the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. A promo on Andre the Giant was shown four specially those who were not familiar with who he was.
Match 1 – Madcap Moss won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal
WWE SmackDown 01.04.2022 Results & Ratings
Battle Royals are always fun to watch no matter what. At a point it looks like WWE would not be organizing the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal anymore. But thankfully they did. It was the fun to watch match. It was mostly filled with jobbers. Moss winning the match was a bit surprising. He won the match by last eliminating Finn Balor. Below is the order of the eliminations and the eliminators.
Order of Eliminations –
Akira Tozawa by Damian Priest
Reggie by Damian Priest
R Truth by Damian Priest
Jinder Mahal by The Viking Raiders
T Bar by Shelton Benjamin
Drew Gullak by Madcap Moss
Cedric Alexander by Apollo Crews
Shelton Benjamin by Commander Azeez
Mansoor by Tommaso Ciampa
Apollo Crews by The Viking Raiders
Ivar by Commander Azeez
Erik by Azeez and Shanky
Commander Azeez by Everyone
Shanky by Everyone
Damian Priest by Finn Balor
Tommaso Ciampa by Dolph Ziggler
Robert Roode by Madcap Moss
Dolph Ziggler by Madcap Moss
Finn Balor by Madcap Moss
Match 2 – WWE Intercontinental Championship – Ricochet defeated Humberto & Angel to retain
This match was booked for around 8 minutes and it was a really cool match. Angel and Humberto mostly teamed up on Ricochet making it more like a 2 on 1 handicap match. But at the end, Ricochet fought back and nailed both wrestlers. He pinned Humberto with a Knee to the Face.
Match 3 -Sasha Banks and Naomi defeated Queen Zelina and Carmella in a non title match
Here is something terribly wrong with WWE. Throughout this year they have kept on burying their own champions. Zelina and Carmella are entering WrestleMania this weekend as champions and they lost clean on the go home show. This is really a terrible piece of booking. Naomi pinned Zelina for the win.
WWE SmackDown Women’s champion Charlotte Flair came out to the arena. She cut a short promo on her match against Ronda Rousey tomorrow for the Championship at WrestleMania 38. It was a short promo but fun. A backstage footage of Ronda Rousey training was the also shown.
Match 4 – Rick Boogs vs. Jimmy Uso went to Double DQ
The match was getting dominated by Rick Boogs. But Austin Theory kept on interfering and attacking Pat McAfee. At the end, Finn Balor got involved as well to stop Theory leading this match to go to double disqualification.
Match 5 – The Usos and Austin Theory defeated Finn Balor, Shinsuke Nakamura and Rick Boogs
Meanwhile Adam Pearce booked a match involving all six men. It was a nine minutes long match and it was quite fun. Austin Theory pinned Finn Balor with the ATL to pick up the victory for his side. Since Finn was the only wrestler who is not going to WrestleMania, so he was the most obvious and safest choice to take the pin.
Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss came out to the arena for the main event segment of the night which was Happy Talk. Corbin talked about and promoted his match against Drew McIntyre at WrestleMania 38. At the end, Drew McIntyre interfered and tried to attack Corbin but Corbin escaped. McIntyre stood tall inside the ring as this week’s Smackdown went off air.
Overall, it was not bad as a go home show. There were pre recorded hype packages but since it was the go home show before WrestleMania 38, you cannot expect anything else. The Battle Royal was really fun. Again, burying their own champion before WrestleMania was a terrible decision. And we should hear something from other Roman Reigns or Brock Lesnar, or Paul Heyman atleast. We give it 2 stars out of 5.
Sportzwiki Ratings – 2/5