Winners, News And Notes On February 25, 2022

SmackDown advertised a contract signing between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, Drew McIntyre vs. Happy Corbin and Sami Zayn’s Intercontinental Championship celebration. WWE.com advertised the upcoming WrestleMania main event between Lesnar and Reigns as a “unification” match.

Last week’s broadcast of Friday Night SmackDown garnered 2.173 million viewers.

• February 18, 2022—2.173 million
• February 11, 2022—2.231 million
• February 4, 2022—2.151 million
• January 28, 2022—2.217 million
• January 21, 2022—2.255 million

• WWE SmackDown Venue: GIANT Center (Hershey, Penn.)
• Tickets Distributed: 8,484
• Available Tickets: 2

Brock Lesnar Has Dethroned All Four Black WWE Champions (Pro Wrestling Bits)

WWE SmackDown Total YouTube Viewership Last Friday: 3,501,956 (Down from 7,153,966)

• Most-Viewed: Rousey-Naomi vs. Charlotte-Deville Contract Signing (1,321,521 views) 
• Least-Viewed: The New Day vs. Los Lotharios (123,477 views)
• Median Viewership: 279,236 views

WWE SmackDown Results | Friday, February 25, 2022

Ronda Rousey Kicks off SmackDown

I assumed Sonya Deville would be involved in a feud with Naomi, which could be one of the bigger WrestleMania matches considering how long the build has been. Instead, it seems like Sonya Deville will be Ronda Rousey’s beat-up doll on the road to WrestleMania.

WWE has been very strategic keeping Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair apart, and it’ll only help the mystique of their WrestleMania match. Problem is, I don’t think anybody expects Flair to win.

Ronda Rousey will go one-on-one with Sonya Deville next week. WWE continues to load up Fox’s SmackDown, this time with Rousey’s first singles match in three years.

The New Day def. Los Lotharios

The New Day is back to being referred as “The New Day.” Also new, their ATV.

As expected, The New Day prevailed in the rubber match against Los Lotharios, rendering their baffling loss to the upstart tag team even more baffling.

Xia Li def. Natalya

Fans were chanting “Hershey’s Chocolate” during this match, and Pat McAfee tried to cover by saying they were chanting “Xia Li’s got it.”

Xia Li’s debut is some of the best work WWE has done with a new star in a while. Unlike Aliyah, she was actually allowed to beat Natalya clean. Michael Cole even referenced Beth Phoenix putting her over as one of the best striker she’s ever seen.

Johnny Knoxville Crashes Sami Zayn’s Celebration

Johnny Knoxville’s reaction was louder than just about anybody in WWE. It even rivaled Ronda’s.

Knoxville inspired a “no balls” chant after calling out Sami Zayn on his manhood. The guy can do no wrong in WWE.

Johnny Knoxville is going to challenge for the Intercontinental Championship, and honestly, it’s the most exciting thing to happen to that title since Cody Rhodes brought back the throwback belt.

Sasha Banks def. Shotzi

This match was straight out of the “where have they been” category.

Naomi appeared on commentary for the duration of this brief match, indicating that her feud with Sonya Deville is all but over and she could be starting a new feud with Sasha Banks. I’m here for it.

Turns out Naomi and Sasha Banks are not going to be opponents (yet), they’re going to be challenging for the Women’s Tag Team Championships.

Following this segment, the backstage reporter said “I’m not sure what Naomi meant by Next Women’s Tag Team Champions…”

What’s there to not understand? “Next,” “Women’s” or “Tag Team Champions?”

Drew McIntyre def. Madcap Moss

This was originally supposed to be an Elimination Chamber rematch between Drew McIntyre and Madcap Moss, but instead WWE is threatening to give away McIntyre’s potential WrestleMania match over a month early. Then, WWE swerved again and made this a bait-and-switch pitting Moss against McIntyre.

Madcap Moss was selling his neck throughout this match in reference to “the incident” in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, McIntyre teased using an inverted Alabama Slam, though Moss was able to weasel out of it.

I was rooting for Madcap Moss, he deserved the biggest win of his career after that injury scare.

Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar Contract Signing

WWE is promoting the Lesnar vs. Reigns title unification match as the biggest match in WrestleMania history. The Rock and John Cena have to be feeling some type of way about that.

Paul Heyman threw to commercial better and cooler than any broadcaster in wrestling.

Based on his promo, Brock Lesnar plans on kicking a lot of ass at WrestleMania, most notably Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman’s asses.