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SmackDown In A Nutshell: Christmas Early For Honorary Uce?

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christmas early honorary uce
Credit: @wwe, twitter, screenshot

It’s a festive SmackDown In A Nutshell, and will Christmas come early for the Honorary Uce?

After all, last week he was told to clean up nice ahead of sitting down with Roman Reigns tonight.

Could Christmas come early for the Honorary Uce?

Or does Roman Reigns have something else in store…

If you aren’t into the Bloodline storyline (not sure how you couldn’t be), we also have GUNTHER and Ricochet vying for the Intercontinental Championship.

There’s going to be plenty of fun to go around as we are just over a week out from Christmas.

So, let’s see who is being naughty or nice on this week’s show.

It is time for us to get into…

SmackDown In A Nutshell: Christmas Early For Honorary Uce?

Let’s crack open this Nutshell and find out!

Best Match of the night:

You knew coming in that odds were heaving in favor of Ricochet and GUNTHER claiming this honor.

christmas early honorary uce

source: @wwe, twitter, screenshot

And, those odds would be right on.

Ricochet is good. GUNTHER is too.

Put them together and it was another really strong match.

Worst match of the night:

I was bummed that the women’s tag title match ended with the interference.

That said, curious if Xia has it out for Tegan, or if Damage Control is expanding.

Star of the Night

Could go GUNTHER.

Perhaps you’d rather Reigns, Zayn and The Bloodline?

source: @wwe, twitter, screenshot

I wouldn’t be upset either way.

Spot of the Night:

No spot, just…watch that IC title match.

Some seriously stiff shots.

Imagine GUNTHER and Nakamura? I mean…we saw what GUNTHER and Ilja Dragunov did, and that was “only” in NXT.

Maybe he never gets to main event a major show (I think he can), but GUNTHER will continue to steal shows either way.

Jobber of the Night:

I feel like Zelina, Valhalla and B-Fab were there to throw in some fun spots in the triple threat, and it worked.

Not my usual jobber, but it does make sense.

Upset of the Night:

Seeing Hit Row win the #1 contender match was, I think, a bit of an upset.

Considering that there had been rumors of some returns already being on the outs…and that they were one often suspected team?

Yes, mild surprise.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

The women’s tag title match ended with a tainted finish.

Tegan Nox was attacked by a mystery person, which helped Damage Control retain.

But get a load of who that mystery person was…

There is also this one…which was an impressive sequence.

Botch of the night:

Top Dolla and his royally botched leap over the top rope.

As Michael Cole said…there’s probably a reason he doesn’t do that often.

And if he’s going to do it like that again…he should not.

But…somehow…Hit Row won the triple threat and has themselves a tag title match.

There is a little postscript to this. According to AJ Francis, aka Top Dolla…there is a reason why it didn’t go as planned.

Commentary of the night:

LOL Moment of the night:

We’ve seen some botches, and most times, WWE announcers try to ignore or gloss over.

This time, when Top Dolla botched it, Cole embraced it and it was wonderful.

Noteworthy Moment:

So, on SmackDown in a couple weeks-December 30th, last one for 2022…how about this match.

Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn against Kevin Owens and a partner of his choice.

Also on that SmackDown? John Cena.

source: @wwe, twitter, screenshot

Could Cena be the mystery partner? I mean…it is natural to land there for some speculation, no?

And I had a whole bunch typed out, but that is the danger of writing this as the show happens.

Because sure enough…as we thought Reigns might “make” Sami…Cena showed up.

Also…for anyone who still thought Bray Wyatt was Uncle Howdy…this should remove all doubt.

source: @wwe, twitter, screenshot

Overall lowlights:

Honestly, my bummer was the finish for the women’s tag title match.

Minor one at that. Otherwise, I was pretty happy with the show.

OK, one other nit to pick.

We knew Cena was back on December 30th.

Speculation was high about him as the mystery man…but did we have to find out already? Like…damn.

Not even a little delay. An hour or so after that news, we knew.

Are ticket sales to that show in Tampa doing poorly? Not like we didn’t already know Cena would be there…

Honestly, WWE could have had some other faces there on the 30th, and could have kept us guessing.

Like, have Bron Breakker there randomly, with others like Cena, Elias, maybe a Sheamus or Drew sighting…so while Cena was the easy choice, we could have teased it out for a couple hours.

Plus, of those names, outside of Breakker…they all could make some degree of sense.

Overall highlights:

Sami cleans up nice.

christmas early honorary uce

source: @wwe, twitter, screenshot

The Intercontinental Championship match was better than I expected, and I had high hopes.

Tag team triple threat wasn’t bad, but I honestly was thinking Legado there. I guess they were the babyface choice though.

Strong ending segment, Cena delivered a strong promo, even if it was likely all pre-recorded and perhaps a little awkward watching the Bloodline in the ring.

After the final bell:

Well, WWE was certainly paying attention to John Cena’s streak.

Cena showed up right at the end, mentioned the streak of a match a year for 20 years, and confirmed he’d be Owens’ partner in two weeks.

As soon as they mentioned a mystery opponent, it was my first thought, and that is exactly what WWE did.

So, just like that, the last SmackDown of 2022 has one heck of a loaded main event.

Christmas did not come early for the Honorary Uce…but that whole thing did continue on the Sami-KO teasers.

By John Deegan

Introduced to professional wrestling in the 1980’s thanks to Superstars and Saturday Night’s Main Event, John’s passion for the... More about John Deegan

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