Hallelujah, Byron. The United States Championship is GLORIOUS! – Smackdown Live – January, 16, 2018 (205 Live and MMC happened, too)

Texas, Texas, Texas.  The WWE is still in Texas this week for Smackdown as the good people gear up to go to Church.  Not that church.  I mean the Glorious Church.

And The New United States Champion

This episode seemed to fly by, and for the most part, it was entirely about the United States Championship.  I’m not entirely sure why the decision was made to go ahead and run both the semi-finals and final match of the tournament, but now they’ve got a week to either set up a title defense for the Rumble for Bobby Roode, or let him catch his breath before the Glorious One enters the Royal Rumble fray.

First:  The show opened with The New Day, escorting Xavier Woods to the ring where the trio delivered a politically-inspired promo about being voted the new United States Champion.  I don’t know what that was all about, but Jinder Mahal made his way to the ring and handled business in a lengthy, hard fought battle against the “little brother” of the New Day.  Jinder Mahal moves on to the final.

Second:  Bobby Roode took on an incredibly vicious Mojo Rawley.  While he’s not as much fun as Mojo used to be, this level of intensity is great and he works it well.  Bobby would not get through this one unscathed either, but in the end he would land the Glorious DDT and pick up the pinfall.  Bobby Roode to challenge Jinder Mahal for the United States Championship.

Third:  Following his win over Mojo, Bobby Roode is jumped by the Singh Brothers.  They make their way back up the ramp where they are joined by Jinder Mahal who vows to win the belt next week.  Bobby demands a microphone, and then tell Jinder he doesn’t see the point in waiting until next week.  Jinder will have the match on his time, not Bobby’s……but that’s not true either, because he’ll have the match tonight on General Manager Daniel Bryan’s time.  It’s true, it’s dam…..wait, wrong show.

The Main Event:  The Singh Brothers were barred from ringside, but the commissioner and general manager were on hand for the United States Championship match.  It went back and forth, and I kept thinking they were going to put the strap on Jinder, but Bobby would hit the Glorious DDT Outta Nowhere to seal the victory, picking up the pinfall and his first main roster championship.  Congrats, Bobby.  I look forward to your Glorious reign.

Time is a Flat Circle

Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again….forever.

If it isn’t The Welcoming Committee (Tamina, Natalya, Carmella and Lana), it’s Team Tea Time (Becky, Charlotte and Naomi) taking on The Riott Squad in some multi-woman match variation each week.

This week is that latter of the two, as a six-woman tag match pits the champion and her two besties against Ruby and her squad.  Of the two scenarios by which these matches ever end (the heroes win triumphantly or the villains win via shenanigans), we get the shenanigans ending, and Naomi eats the pinfall for the Riott Squad to put another asterisk in the win column.

Other than that:

• The Usos (Jey must have made bail) were running a backstage promo when they were jumped by Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable.  Unfortunately, I think American Alpha 2.0 is going to end up with those tag belts.  That’s just sad, considering there are probably 6 more deserving teams on the roster who can’t seem to get half the push.  (Fashion Police, Rusev Day, The Ascension (you damn right), The Bludgeon Brothers, The Bollywood Boyz, Corey Graves and Tom Phillips).
• AJ Styles cut a backstage promo.  You know what it was about.  They also showed a good ten minute video package to further build his handicapped match.

That’s really all there was.  Those four matches, a couple of promos.  It’s actually not such a bad formula, as all four matches were given plenty of time to work.  Jinder-Woods was actually pretty damn good.  And while I know they were exhausted, Jinder-Roode worked really well together.

Overall Grade:  Aside from the lack of an AJ Styles match and no Owens or Zayn to speak of, it felt a little weird, but the matches here were pretty good, even if I hate that the women are treading water in this perpetual loop until we’ve gotten over the hump of the Women’s Royal Rumble match and we can finally start working storyline outside of it.  I can safely give this one a B though, since the United States Championship has been restored to it’s full…..Glory.

Mixed Match Challenge

The first of the mixed match challenge followed Smackdown immediately on Facebook Live.  Finn Balor and Sasha Banks defeated Shinsuke Nakamura and Natalya.

205 Live

The action on 205 was rather limited this evening.  I’m starting to wonder just how hurt all of the rosters are, as we are getting fewer and fewer competitors on each broadcast of late.

• The show kicks off with another TJP match against Gran Metalik.  Metalik def. Perkins via roll up.
• Jack Gallagher had a recorded promo about Itami.
• Golddust now has a talk show?  I think, I don’t know.  Cedric Alexander was his guest.  Enzo interrupted.  Golddust is then informed that he will have to face the entirety of the Train in handicapped action and he accepts, for seemingly no reason.
• Golddust def. Tony Nese, Drew Gulak and Ariya Daivari.  Yes, you read this correctly.  Tony Nese and Drew Gulak are now jobbing out to Golddust in 3-on-1 handicapped matches, because Golddust is making a title run?  (Please tell me I’m wrong).

I kept this one brief, as there wasn’t a whole lot of anything here to do a full write up for.  Anyway, hopefully NXT brings us something more exciting tomorrow night.