Winners, News And Notes As Goldberg And Ronda Rousey Return

Goldberg returned on SmackDown as the WWE Hall of Famer emerged as Roman Reigns’ next challenger for the WWE Universal Championship. Goldberg will face Roman Reigns at Elimination Chamber in Saudi Arabia.

WWE SmackDown advertised Ronda Rousey selecting her WrestleMania opponent, Drew McIntyre’s return and a reunion between WWE Universal champion Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman.

Last week’s broadcast of Friday Night SmackDown garnered 2.217 million viewers.

• January 28, 2022—2.217 million
• January 21, 2022—2.255 million
• January 14, 2022—2.174 million
• January 7, 2022—2.271 million
• December 31, 2021—378,000 (“Best of” show on FS1)

• WWE Raw Venue: Paycom Center (Oklahoma City, Ok.)
• Tickets Distributed: 4,424
• Available Tickets: 352

Black AEW Wrestlers Won Seven TV Matches in January (Pro Wrestling Bits)

WWE SmackDown Total YouTube Viewership Last Friday: 5,718,347

• Most-Viewed: Seth Rollins gets in Roman Reigns’ head (2,739,081 views) 
• Least-Viewed: Sheamus vs. Ricochet (187,999 views)
• Median Viewership: 263,327 views

WWE SmackDown Results | Friday, February 4, 2022

Goldberg Returns to Confront Roman Reigns

Paul Heyman said he was protecting Brock Lesnar from Roman Reigns, but he had a helluva way of showing it by handing the WWE Championship to Reigns so that Reigns could bash Lesnar’s head with it.

Paul Heyman unequivocally pledged his allegiance to Roman Reigns, so it appears as if the “who’s side is he on” drama is behind us. Now, WrestleMania’s money moment will be Paul Heyman taking an F-5.

Say what you will about Goldberg, but WWE hasn’t bothered to get anybody of its full-time babyfaces over and this crowd was going crazy for him. Outside of Brock Lesnar, and maybe Drew McIntyre, there’s nobody on SmackDown who’s remotely believable as an opponent to Reigns.

Ricochet def. Ridge Holland

WWE is getting all the mileage out of Ricochet breaking Ridge Holland’s nose and then some.

Ridge Holland is everything WWE should want in a potential top star, yet he’s not good enough to beat Ricochet?

Sheamus and Ridge Holland def. Ricochet and Cesaro

Pat McAfee was tasked with wearing Sheamus’ gear throughout this match.

Sheamus and Ridge Holland picked up the win after Holland lost, so as is usually the case in WWE, nobody got over.

Jimmy Uso def. Erik

WWE is really playing up the Uso’s record-setting run as SmackDown Tag Team champions. They have an outside shot at breaking The New Day’s record for longest tag team champions in WWE history.

Any semblance of momentum that The Viking Raiders have was eviscerated with this relatively easy win by Jimmy Uso.

Aliyah def. Natalya

Aliyah is undefeated in WWE, which essentially means a string of cheap wins over Natalya. This time around, Aliyah just barely snuck by with a countout win. Natalya challenged her to a “pinfall or submissions only” match, and I expect that match to either end in another fluke or a clean win for Natalya.

Drew McIntyre Appears Live

Madcap Moss’ joke was terrible as always, but if it’s any consolation, he’s really improving on delivering his bad jokes.

Drew McIntyre vowed to make The Happy Folks’ lives a living hell, which is a tremendous step down from the feud with Brock Lesnar that WWE teased at the Royal Rumble and during McIntyre’s promo.

Shinsuke Nakamura def. Jinder Mahal

Poor Rick Boogs couldn’t get the guitar to work. After WWE made him cut his hair, his own instruments don’t even recognize him anymore.

This night was filled with a rare amount of champions prevailing in non-title matches.

The New Day vs. Los Lotharios

Big E and Kofi Kingston have essentially had the same trajectory after losing the WWE Championship to Brock Lesnar. Two former WWE champions should not be feuding with Los Lotharios.

I’m just glad WWE is not making a storyline over Kofi Kingston’s Royal Rumble elimination…yet.

This developed into a very good tag team match, because of the talent involved, but given WWE’s lack of depth with babyfaces, both Kingston and Big E need singles pushes.

Ronda Rousey Challenges Charlotte Flair for WrestleMania

Michael Cole said “we expect” Ronda Rousey to appear, and I immediately became suspicious that WWE was going to have her no-show just to get heat on her as a heel.

How can Naomi watch Charlotte and Sonya Deville standing in the ring together and not demand that Deville be banned from ringside in her match against Flair next week.

Charlotte Flair picked Sasha Banks as her WrestleMania opponent until Ronda Rousey walked out and challenged her.

This was an about-face from Ronda Rousey’s demeanor on Raw, where she was clearly a heel. This time around, Rousey was a smiling babyface who was all-too happy to pander to the crowd.