Winners, News And Notes On March 19, 2021


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WWE Friday Night SmackDown advertised Edge’s first match on SmackDown in a decade as he took on Jey Uso to determine the enforcer for WWE Fastlane this weekend. SmackDown also advertised a sit-down interview between Big E and Apollo Crews and Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.

Last week’s broadcast of Friday Night SmackDown garnered 2.171 million viewers.

  • March 12, 2021—2.171 million
  • March 5, 2021—2.252 million
  • February 26, 2021—2.145 million
  • February 19, 2021—2.217 million
  • February 12, 2021—1.810 million

WWE Friday Night SmackDown—Key Competition

  • Shark Tank
  • NCAA March Madness 2021
  • Mainstream Cable News Coverage

Pro Wrestling Bits—Drew McIntyre Interview

WWE SmackDown Total YouTube Viewership this past Friday: 7,030,499 views (Down from 7,876,937)

  • Most-Viewed: Universal Championship Contract Signing (2,399,791 views) 
  • Least-Viewed: Relive Daniel Bryan vs. Jey Uso in a Steel Cage (190,334 views)
  • Median Viewership: 571,290

WWE SmackDown Results—Friday, March 12, 2021

Sasha Banks def. Nia Jax—SmackDown Women’s Championship

All this talk of diversity and women’s empowerment at WrestleMania, which is great, but let Nia Jax win this match and watch those tweets take a whole different, far more ugly, tone.

Conspicuous by his absence for the second straight show was Reginald, who may or may not have been affected by WWE’s recent COVID-19 outbreak.

Judging by this match, WWE might be building to Nia Jax vs. Shayna Baszler at WrestleMania.

Seth Rollins Faces off with Shinsuke Nakamura

Seth Rollins saying Cesaro swung him 22 times sounds like the beginning of a merchandising opportunity.

Saying Cesaro is the biggest waste of potential in history is actually giving him way more credit than he deserves.

I’d rather see Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura at WrestleMania than Seth Rollins vs. Cesaro.

Rey and Dominik Mysterio def. The Street Profits

Dolph Ziggler made sure that the world knew about Ohio State’s upset loss to Oral Roberts.

The heels (Ziggler, Roode and Graves) kicked Michael Cole’s ass logically throughout this entire segment, making one salient point after another.

Chad Gable leaned into the irony of calling Dominik Mysterio “shorty.”

Alpha Academy def. Rey and Dominik Mysterio

The fact that The Street Profits couldn’t get a word in edgewise tells you just how much Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode dominated the conversation on commentary.

The 50/50 booking throughout this segment suggests there will be a multi-team tag match at WrestleMania, just as I suspected.

Daniel Bryan Faces off with Roman Reigns

Tonight, Daniel Bryan gave birth to the term “untapoutable.”

This was as paint-by-the-numbers as a talking segment goes, but it served its purpose.

Baron Corbin vs. Sami Zayn

The video package for this Heel vs. Heel match was so disrespectful yet very funny.

Sami Zayn’s Helluva Kick really came by surprise as it caught Owens flush in the head while he was mid-sentence.

For those wondering, Sami Zayn stopped just short of slapping his leg on that Helluva Kick.

Nothing would heat up a Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens WrestleMania match like an appearance by Logan Paul.

Apollo Crews and Big E Interview

Hopefully WWE has some shenanigans planned for this match at Fastlane, because this should be saved for WrestleMania and this segment helped confirm that.

This was the serious side of Big E that some people have (erroneously) been clamoring for, but it came as a result of Crews (kayfabe) seriously injuring E. I expect the jubilant Big E to return once this feud concludes, which shouldn’t be anytime soon.

Shayna Baszler and Bianca Belair Battle to a No Contest

Sunday could see two women’s breakup storyilne play out at the same time.

I’m all for Natalya and Tamina getting a tag team title shot, but not at the expense of a world title program.

Edge def. Jey Uso—Winner Becomes Enforcer at WWE Fastlane

WWE literally rewrote its whole history by having Edge lie and say he relinquished his world title on SmackDown. Then, to be sure, they aired b-roll of Edge ceremoniously relinquishing his title on SmackDown while he was cutting that promo on WWE Raw.

Poor Jey Uso’s losing streak is all-but guaranteed to continue tonight.

Michael Cole very astutely asked why Edge would rather face Roman Reigns than Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania.

This was the rare match where the story saw the heel working over the babyfaces ribs.

I loved Daniel Bryan’s theory that Roman Reigns has never tapped out because he hasn’t spent enough time in the ring with elite grapplers.

The emphasis on Reigns tapping out tells me Reigns is definitely going to tap out this Sunday, except the referee (and/or the enforcer) will miss it.



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