Just hours before an explosive Elimination Chamber premium live event from Perth, Australia, WWE SmackDown hit the Fox airwaves to set the stage for the extravaganza.
LA Knight and Drew McIntyre, two Superstars aiming to win the Elimination Chamber and punch their ticket to WrestleMania 40 and a date with Seth “Freakin” Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship, met in a star-studded main event each other.
Elsewhere on the card, The Final Testament wrote the latest chapter in its rivalry with Bobby Lashley, B-Fab and The Street Profits, NXT Tag Team Champion Bron Breakker made his main roster debut and the team of Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate looked to advance Gaining momentum in their championship chances on Saturday when they battled JD McDonagh and Dominik Mysterio of The Judgment Day.
What happened, who emerged victorious and what did it mean for Saturday morning's blockbuster spectacle?
Find out with this recap of the February 23 broadcast.
Announced in advance for Friday's show:
- LA Knight vs. Drew McIntyre
- New Catch Republic (Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne) vs. JD McDonagh and Dominik Mysterio
- The profits of the street versus the authors of pain
- Liv Morgan vs. Tiffany Stratton
- Bron Breakker's in-ring debut
Photo credit: WWE.com
Tiffany Stratton secured the momentum she needed for a shot at the Women's World Championship ahead of Saturday morning's Elimination Chamber match with a hard-fought, albeit weak, victory over Liv Morgan to kick off SmackDown.
Stratton defeated an aggressive, intense and determined Morgan, taking advantage of an unfortunate distraction from Bianca Belair, who had been sitting at ringside. The spoiled daddy's girl sent Morgan into the EST and then scored the pinfall from a rollup.
The match featured plenty of action, with Stratton continuing to stand out as the star of WWE's future. Morgan has done a good job of adding new touches to her character and it wouldn't be out of the question for her to turn him into a heel in the near future.
Possibly in a feud with Belair, which would easily precipitate the outcome here.
Backstage, Bobby Lashley interrupted a Drew McIntyre promo and reminded him of their match at WrestleMania 37, when The All-Mighty defeated The Scottish Warrior to retain the WWE Championship, ending his dream of a defining moment on the big stage made.
McIntyre set the bar for his WrestleMania season: win the World Heavyweight Championship or his career will be useless. A promo, higher stakes. More great stuff from the hottest heel in the business.
Result
Stratton defeated Morgan
Degree
B-
Top moments and takeaways
- For better or worse, the show has the look and feel of a pre-recorded broadcast.
- Morgan continued to show her renewed aggressiveness early in the match, staying true to her “revenge tour” persona.
- For better or worse, the show has the look and feel of a pre-recorded broadcast.
- Stratton still doesn't seem nearly as inexperienced as her relative youth in this industry would suggest. A natural one.
Photo credit: WWE.com
Bron Breakker's meteoric rise to WWE stardom began with a one-sided dismantling of fellow NXT superstar Dante Chen on Friday night.
Breakker decimated the defeated competitor and finally drove the air out of him with the spear.
This was exactly the kind of competitive squash match it needed to be. Breakker looked like a champ, the crowd responded positively and one of the most anticipated additions to the main roster ended up standing center stage amidst an impressed crowd.
As he should.
Result
Breakker defeated Chen
Degree
A
Top moments and takeaways
- A vignette aired showing Cedric Alexander and Ashante Thee Adonis establishing a look for their new tag team.
- Backstage, Roman Reigns criticized Jimmy Uso for ratting out Paul Heyman before revealing that he was the one who “set the tone” and sent his cousin to Raw to attack Jey Uso. From there, he told Heyman to bring him Grayson Waller.
- Breakker is such an explosive artist. His speed and intensity will take him far on the main roster, where he should be a relatively big star in a short period of time.
Photo credit: WWE.com
Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne will challenge The Judgment Day's Finn Balor and Damian Priest for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship on Saturday, but on Friday night they sent a message to the reigning champions with a victory over teammates JD McDonagh and Dominik Mysterio.
In a very good, high-energy tag match, the No. 1 contenders came up late thanks to an explosive hot tag from Bate on Dunne and the opponent's defeat at the hands of The Bruiserweight.
The boys from British Strong Style delivered a double pumphandle powerbomb to McDonagh to secure the win, then held off the champions to come out on top in their highest-profile match.
The best match of the show so far.
Result
Dunne and Bate defeated McDonagh and Mysterio
Degree
B+
Top moments and takeaways
- It was clear that Bate, Dunne and McDonagh had already made waves on the British indie scene. The chemistry here wasn't right.
- It never ceases to amaze this author how over Dunne he is and how long the butch character has been saddled with him. His run may end up being a question of “what ifs” when it comes to how much he could have accomplished if he had been a bruiserweight to begin with.
Photo credit: WWE.com
The Final Testament gained another upper hand in their rivalry with Bobby Lashley, B-Fab and The Street Profits on Friday with the Authors of Pain's victory over Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins in tag team action.
The match started slowly but picked up momentum late as the action broke down, leading to ringside brawls between B-Fab and Scarlett and Lashley and Karrion Kross. Akam and Rezar took advantage of the utter chaos and earned the pinfall victory
The right team got here, and The Final Testament continued to build credibility and legitimacy through the win. Ultimately, Lashley and Co. will need a win, almost as much as the faction needs a name, but for now the heels are building much-needed parity with the audience while the creative team rehabilitates Kross in particular.
Result
AOP defeated The Street Profits
Degree
b
Top moments and takeaways
- Backstage, SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis was helping a limping Dakota Kai when she was the victim of an attack.
- Kross shot Lashley's right elbow with a steel chair, causing Corey Graves and Wade Barrett to immediately question the implications at Elimination Chamber, where The All-Mighty was scheduled to compete for a shot at the World Title. Could he be eliminated from the game, setting up a surprise entrant?
- Backstage, Bayley checked on Kai, who admitted she wasn't sure who attacked her.
Photo credit: WWE.com
The hard-fought duel between LA Knight and Drew McIntyre ended in chaos Friday night as the six men involved in Saturday's men's elimination chamber duked it out to close the show.
The match itself continued until McIntyre threw Knight against Kevin Owens at the commentary position. KO laid hands on The Scottish Warrior and resulted in the disqualification.
Cue the brawl, an exchange of finishers between the contestants, an appearance from Lashley (who clearly wasn't injured enough to miss the Chamber match), and an out-of-nowhere RKO from Randy Orton to close the show.
The Knight-McIntyre match was pretty good and it's a shame we won't see a definitive ending, but it did exactly what it was intended to do in adding hype to the men's Elimination Chamber match on Saturday morning .
Last but not least, an emphatic exclamation point for the show.
Result
McIntyre defeated Knight by disqualification
Degree
b
Top moments and takeaways
- McIntyre wasted no time early on getting Knight rocking with a Glasgow Kiss.
- Paul joined Barrett and Graves at the commentary table and Owens made his presence felt at the table a moment later.
- “I don’t really like anyone but Randy Orton in this match, but if I have to, I’ll stun Randy Orton,” Owens said on commentary.
- “Remember when you were lying on that table and it was destroyed,” Owens asked Paul.
The February 23 show had one goal: to quell the hype surrounding the Elimination Chamber Premium live event one last time, and it accomplished exactly that.
Each segment had some impact on Saturday's event, with feuds intensifying, major superstars highlighted, and the show's final segment featuring the obligatory brawl between six guys vying for a shot at the world title.
There was a focus, a purpose and most importantly, apart from the opening moments, it never felt like a pre-recorded show. Almost everything made sense, the crowd was hot and the troupe didn't manage to land on the runway.
A first class go-home show.
Overall grade: B