Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show that made it officially clear that the RoyalRumble is over, and it's Elimination Chamber season now! Yes, we had our first Elimination Chamber qualifiers on Friday night, and we're ... well, we're kind of going to talk about them in this column. We're going to talk adjacent to them, at least. You never know what the WINC staff will latch onto when it's time to pick segments to love and hate, and this week we have everything from Oba Femi's official in-ring main roster TV debut to Jordynne Grace teaming up with her rival Jade Cargill.As always, if you missed the show, feel free to check out our critically acclaimed and stunningly objective "SmackDown" results page. If you want to know what the WINC crew thought of tonight's installment from the blue brand, however, look no further! Here are three things we hated and three things we loved from the 2/6/26 episode of "WWE SmackDown!"
It's no secret that I haven't been a fan of the entire storyline between Carmelo Hayes and The Miz, but the backstage segment and the match between them on this edition of "SmackDown" may have been the most egregious part of things so far.The problem that I had with this entire thing doesn't necessarily lie with the match and the talent itself, but rather the booking of the match itself and the backstage segment that preceded it. For one, Hayes was specifically advertised to have another US Open Challenge on this show but for some reason was the one who refused to allow The Miz to answer the call and defend the title against him. Given that Hayes was the one who ultimately came out on top in the match, there was absolutely no reason at all not to just have The Miz answer the US Open Challenge regardless of if the backstage segment preceded the match. It just felt like such an illogical way of doing everything, not making any kind of sense to me and taking me out of the match itself as I kept wondering why the title wasn't being defended.My other gripe with this storyline and the match was the fact that the Miz kept being referred to as Hayes' mentor by Joe Tessitore and Wade Barrett during multiple points in this match. Hayes is a 12 year veteran in the business having debuted back in 2014, so he isn't really a mentee in my eyes having had that much experience in the professional wrestling business. It's the same thing as referring to someone like Alexa Bliss as Charlotte Flair's mentee just because they're tag team partners and she has a few years less than her.On an episode of "SmackDown" where there wasn't much in general that stood out to me, this felt like it was a very low point and something that was nothing more than filler for a three hour show that doesn't need to be three hours in the first place.Written by Olivia Quinlan
I certainly didn't have a match pitting Oba Femi against Kit Wilson on my 2026 bingo card, but I guess, here we are, and I hated everything about this for so many reasons. While I certainly disliked "The Ruler" showing up on "WWE Raw" and laying waste to the War Raiders, I really hated this tonight on the blue brand.We didn't see Wilson, who has gained a ton of steam over recent weeks due to his excellent new, catchy theme song, at the Royal Rumble, which I didn't really mind, and it made sense for him to go out there tonight and cut a promo about all the "toxic masculinity" in the ring at one time. However, instead of being confronted by Matt Cardona, who he's been feuding with over the last few weeks, it was Femi who strode down to the ring.It also made it ever-so-slightly worse that it turned out to be an actual match. No shade to Wilson whatsoever, but it seems odd that Femi's first official win on the main roster would be against Wilson and not someone a little higher up the card. I very highly doubt that Wilson and Femi are going to be locked into a feud, though that would absolutely be something WWE would do, but thankfully, Wilson and Cardona did have a backstage segment a bit later on, making me think Femi is safe from such a mid-card feud.While he may be safe from that, I really don't like the direction WWE is taking him in. This feels like we're going to get a few more weeks of extremely random squashes, ones that don't benefit Femi or the guy he's up against. And that may happen until Brock Lesnar decides to show up for work, but that also might never happen if recent reports about their WrestleMania match not being 100 percent set in stone are true.This also seems weird for Nick Aldis and Adam Pearce to decide where Femi officially lands on the main roster. I guess, technically, he's squashed one more guy on the red brand, since he took out both of the War Raiders, but, he's got an official victory on the blue brand. Neither of which are exactly impressive feats for the former NXT Champion, who was so dominant that he had to relinquish the title when the main roster came calling, rather than lose the gold. I didn't love this for Femi as much as I didn't love it for Wilson, and it really stinks, as both men should have been highlights on what turned out to be a pretty lackluster show.Written byDaisyRuth
This week's "WWE SmackDown" saw Jordynne Grace's pursuit of Jade Cargill and the Women's Championship take the only natural step that any title pursuit would take, them teaming together in a "Can they co-exist?" match-up with Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan.Morgan won the Women's Royal Rumble last weekend, and despite already wiping Stephanie Vaquer out and posing with her Women's World Championship on Monday, appeared on Friday's show to talk up the idea of facing either her or Cargill in between the usual "I'm the best, blah, blah, blah."That led to Cargill and Grace coming out and Nick Aldis booking a match between the two pairings, because every argument in the ring can be settled in the ring or whatever. The match itself was any TV tag match you have ever seen in your life, one that observed all the tenets of a "Can they co-exist?" team-up.The argument leading to a one-sided tag, the lack of real desire to help the partner win the match, and the eventual "Oops I didn't mean to hit you." Only this time the last factor was played out by both teams, Cargill kicking Grace in the face and then Rodriguez clocking Morgan, allowing Grace to get the pin on Rodriguez and walk off with very little accomplished.It's very clear that there is no weekly plan for either Cargill or Grace as her challenger, and one would guess that their title match is being saved for an event like Elimination Chamber. So it's just a case of waiting for the good bit to come, as is so often the way with WWE booking, and until then in the immortal words of John Cena: "It doesn't matter. None of it matters."Worse still is the fact that aside from Grace and Morgan, there is literally no one that has been framed as a would-be challenger to the Women's Championship.Tiffany Stratton won a qualifier for the Women's Elimination Chamber, which will see six compete for whichever title Morgan doesn't pursue. But she was the last one before Cargill to hold the title and dropped it to her in five minutes in November.There's such a vast disconnect between the Women's Championship and the rest of the division on "SmackDown," and there hasn't been much of an effort to remedy that. It's just the weekly rinse and repeat of all the things that have been done ad nauseam, no end goal or compelling arc. And that just really sucks with the level of talent available.Written by Max Everett
Fresh off the Royal Rumble, "SmackDown" featured 11 women across three matches. The show's first match of the night saw RHIYO putting their tag titles on the line against Giulia and Kiana James. The champions retained, although the U.S. Champion getting pinned is not great, but that's for another article.With the Elimination Chamber match/PLE just three weeks away, we have entered Qualifying Match Szn. Lash Legend, Tiffany Stratton, and Chelsea Green were the first match for the women. There are arguments for each woman to advance, but Stratton was the obvious choice to pick up the win since she just returned at Royal Rumble.On Monday, Liv Morgan attacked Stephanie Vaquer and seemingly picked her WrestleMania opponent. She still showed up on the Blue brand with Raquel Rodriguez in tow. Jade Cargill came out to tell Morgan she'd beat her at WrestleMania if Morgan picked her. Jordynne Grace joined the party and as all four women argue, Nick Aldis decided to make an impromptu match. Of course WWE had to do the "can they coexist?" trope with Grace and Cargill since Grace has been circling Cargill's title for several weeks. The answer to the question was "no," but hey, at least now we finally have a title match next week.Overall, three matches featuring much of the division instead of cramming them in one match is nice to see.Written by Samantha Schipman
I am absolutely loving Trick Williams on the main roster, and unlike his fellow NXT call-up in Femi, WWE is crushing it in terms of his booking. Even while he's taking losses, they're losses in huge match-ups. While I didn't expect Williams to win the four-way match at Saturday Night's Main Event or the Royal Rumble, WWE is still doing a great job of making him look and feel big and important.Tonight, Williams interrupted Undisputed WWE Champion Drew McIntyre for the first time, which felt big. The champion was interrupted, and beaten down, by Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu throughout the night, and in the end, it was Williams to face off with him on the microphone. He had a good line where he told McIntyre he shouldn't be worried about Roman Reigns, CM Punk, Rhodes, or even Fatu, rather, he needed to be worried about the future of the business: him. While it looks like we're headed toward a triple threat match for the title at WrestleMania, one that doesn't involve Williams, getting to see him hang on the microphone tonight with McIntyre for a short moment was pretty great.He also sat himself down at ringside for the Elimination Chamber qualifier match pitting Randy Orton against Aleister Black and Solo Sikoa. Other than scoping out possible competition for if and when he gets in the Chamber match, Williams didn't exactly have a purpose out there after getting in McIntyre's face. I did actually really love that, though, as he was really just making himself look important.I really hope to see Williams in the Elimination Chamber match, though I don't expect him to get the "W" there, either. I'm surprisingly fine with that, as he's really making his impact on the blue brand. If the major losses keep coming in through, say, SummerSlam, maybe I'll think differently, but for now, Williams looks like a million bucks and has really found his footing.Written by DaisyRuth
You'd be forgiven for thinking that Roman Reigns and CM Punk took out their shovels and buried Drew McIntyre and the entire "SmackDown" world title picture during their promo segment on "Raw" that saw Reigns choose Punk as his WrestleMania opponent. You certainly would not be the only one who thought that, nor would you be the only one who thought the "SmackDown" guys really needed to respond in some way. And I thought they did a pretty decent job of it Friday night, even if it took McIntyre three attempts to be able to actually speak.McIntyre's promo was the centerpiece of the blue brand's retort, though it would be remiss of me to not mention CodyRhodes and his "Raheem" reference. I actually really liked the fact that McIntyre tried to come out, was attacked by a fired up Rhodes screaming about his d*** size in the town where he was born, then tried to come out later only to be attacked again, this time by Jacob Fatu. Reigns can talk all he wants about hating Punk Rhodes and Fatureally hate McIntyre, and they didn't really have to say anything about it, they just came out and started throwing bombs about it. It was left to McIntyre to finally lay out the case for why he held the most prestigious title (taking care to mention that DustyRhodes had never won it, a hilarious choice), reminding everyone of what he'd gone through to win it, both this year and in years past, and challenging the entire "SmackDown" roster to step up in the context of a company that clearly views them as inferior. It didn't exactly have the electricity of the Reigns-Punk promo (that would be extremely difficult to match) but it was a solid rebuttal punctuated by McIntyre framing Reigns' choice as the easy way out after Punk tried to do the opposite on "Raw."WWE still clearly does value the show that airs onNetflix over the show that airs onUSA, but it's important to not forget which is the real world championship here, and which is the consolation prize WWE instituted because nobody could beat the Bloodline for 1316 days. McIntyre provided a nice reminder of that. And Cody called himself "Raheem" on live television. That cannot be overstated.Written byMiles Schneiderman
