WWE: Smackdown
February 11, 2016
Portland, OR
Moda Center

The current WWE champions are as follows:
WWE World Heavyweight Champion: Triple H (1/24/2016)
WWE Intercontinental Champion: Dean Ambrose (12/13/2015)
WWE United States Champion: Kalisto (1/24/2016)
WWE Tag Team Champions: The New Day (8/23/2015)
WWE Divas Champion: Charlotte (9/20/2015)

Your hosts are Mauro Ranallo, Jerry Lawler, and Byron Saxton.

Chris Jericho starts off the program this week after showing us shades of his “I am the best in the world at what I do” persona this past Monday night on Raw. Tonight, he’ll get his hands on AJ Styles again. He now respects AJ. He even likes AJ. Is AJ great? We’ll see. Is he PHENOMENAL? Jericho finds it ridiculous someone coming into WWE and on their first night calling themselves “phenomenal”. Jericho earned the “phenomenal” title right here in Portland during one of the best matches of his career against Shawn Michaels in a ladder match back in 2008. He plans to show AJ Styles that “phenomenal” ain’t good enough for Y2J. Well, AJ Styles comes out and it looks like we’re going to have our first match when the Social Outcasts interrupt. Oh boy. It’s another Smackdown without Bo Dallas because he’s still in the studio cutting a rap album. They come out to do some more WWE COMEDY LOL SO RANDOM. Of course this forces AJ Styles to work together with Jericho and clean house on these three buffoons. Jericho says he and AJ will fight later tonight, but first they will take on the Social Outcasts.

• AJ Styles & Chris Jericho vs. Curtis Axel & Adam Rose (w/Heath Slater)
  

The match begins during the break. AJ and Jericho take turns trying to outdo the other by dishing out moves onto poor Curtis Axel. While Jericho and Styles are talking down to each other, Rose gets a tag and runs AJ down from behind with a knee. Styles is caught on the wrong side of town for a bit. Axel delivers the Perfect rolling neck snap for two. AJ escapes a chinlock and hits the Pele Kick, but Adam Rose runs Jericho off the apron to prevent the tag. Styles delivers his strike combo on Rose and reaches Jericho for the hot tag. Jericho drops a double sledge on Rose and the springboard dropkick takes Slater off the apron. Lionsault to Rose connects, but Jericho backs up into a blind tag from AJ. Whoops. While they exchange looks, Styles shoots over Jericho with a springboard and elbow smashes Rose for the win. (5:15 shown) Nice finish there. While it’s just Adam Rose, it does show AJ has other moves to finish off a guy as we have seen a different finish from him every week on Smackdown. After the ref raises their arms in victory, Jericho pushes the ref aside and surprises Styles with the CODEBREAKER leaving Styles lying in the ring. *½

They show a montage highlighting some of the Twitter love Daniel Bryan received on Monday Night Raw.

When we come back, our announcers set up the RAW REBOUND. For more information on what went down, there’s like a bazillion sites that you can check out.

Next week on Smackdown, Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman will be here!

The Dudley Boyz sent a statement to the Usos this past Monday on Raw letting them know they are still “the baddest tag team on the planet”. They come out to explain their actions, I assume. Tables are set up everywhere around ringside. There’s even one inside the ring. They are sick of hearing about Daniel Bryan and they’re sick of being considered a nostalgia act around WWE. They came back to WWE to add to their legacy. Bubba Ray tells the WWE crew to get rid of all the tables around ringside and that we will never see them with tables ever again. NEVER EVER. While he doesn’t say these words exactly, Bubba Ray thinks the tables they use are more over than they are. For the last time, Bubba Ray and D-Von remove the final table left inside the ring and carry it to the back. Drop the mic – and they are outta here.

• Sasha Banks vs. Naomi (w/Tamina)
  

Becky Lynch joins us at the commentary table. Back on Raw, Sasha Banks cost Becky Lynch a match against Tamina. Yes, TAMINA. I’d be mad, but Becky is actually taking responsibility for the loss. Sasha controls to start going from corner to corner with Naomi. She delivers a nice double knee drop on Naomi out of the corner. Crowd is solidly behind Banks as well. Tamina pulls Naomi to the floor to prevent the pinfall as we go to commercial. When we return, they trade a series of nearfalls on each other. Naomi gets dumped out, but yanks on Sasha landing her back hard on the edge of the apron there for a nice bump. Lawler is stirring the pot behind the tumultuous alliance between Sasha and Becky. Naomi takes Sasha back into the ring to work her over with a back suplex, but doesn’t really go any further. I would at least be breaking Sasha over my knee for sure. Instead, Naomi starts with a cavalcade of kicks, says Ranallo. She does return to the back though by pulling on a chinlock with her knee in Sasha’s back. Sasha hits a desperation tilt-a-whirl headscissors and fires back with a series of blows and clotheslines. Another tilt-a-whirl headscissors lands Naomi in the corner for some Cactus Jack knees. Tamina trips up Sasha, which brings Becky off the headset. Meanwhile, Naomi hits the HEADSCISSORS DRIVER to Sasha! Cover, 1-2-NO! Tamina goes over and slugs Becky. In the ring, Sasha rolls away from a split-legged moonsault and saves Becky from Tamina. She delivers a wild big boot to Tamina turning her over out of Becky’s chair. Awesome. Back inside, Sasha slips away from a rollup and applies the BANK STATEMENT for the tapout. (13:44) Becky applauds Sasha after the big win. That was actually a heck of an entertaining match. Good stuff, and builds nicely to the tag match at the PPV. ***¼

JoJo meets with AJ Styles backstage. She wants to know the message Chris Jericho was trying to send earlier in the show. AJ has been called a “redneck rookie”. Redneck? Sure, and proud of it. Rookie? No. Chris Jericho is one of the best in the world, but this isn’t his first rodeo. He won’t be shaken. Tonight, Jericho will find out why he is called the Phenomenal One.

When we return, the Wyatt family are in the ring. Bray Wyatt is here to preach a sermon. He lays down some Greek mythology on us and compares his situation to taking out the Big Show, Kane, and Ryback to Zeus defeating the titans to become the new “King of the Gods”. Now worship the new generation of gods! Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, and Braun Strowman drop some platitudes on us. Bray says this war against our gods has just begun. Follow the buzzards, ya’ll.

• The Ascension & Stardust vs. The Lucha Dragons & Neville
  

Ascension and Stardust BUM RUSH THE SHOW on our fan favorites. Ref Mike Chioda won’t call for the bell until Neville is up on his feet. Stardust field goal kicks the nads and hits a reverse DDT for two. These Ascension boys work over Neville to set up the hot tag to Kalisto. He delivers La Silla to Konnor and the springboard corkscrew bodyblock as well. The Lucha Dragons take out Viktor and Stardust as well for STEREO TOPE SUICIDAS. Back inside, Konnor receives all three finishers ending with RED ARROW by Neville for the win. (3:01) Just some filler action. *

They put together quite the epic video package highlighting the Daniel Bryan farewell from Monday Night Raw. Through all the wackiness and borderline insanity and double standards we see in wrestling over the years, that was a solid 30 minutes that we as fans can all be proud of IMO.

• AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho
  

Stiff collar and elbow tie-ups to start. Jericho grounds AJ with a headlock, but he comes back and lands the leapfrog to dropkick move Styles is known to do. Styles takes over and chops Jericho from corner to corner. Snap suplex connects on Jericho. Styles delivers the kip-up headscissors that’s still awesome after all these years. Jericho chops him back and catapults AJ’s throat into the bottom rope. Stalling suplex sets up some more abuse from Jericho. As Styles flips out to the apron, Jericho hits him with a springboard dropkick to take him to the floor and take us to a commercial break. NOW THAT’S A SEGUE. When we return, Styles fights out of a chinlock and avoids a running bulldog by sending Jericho off into the corner for the Bobby Eaton bump. Now AJ gets aggressive with some shots on Jericho. He misses a knee drop and eats a basement dropkick by Jericho for two. AJ sees Jericho up top and nails him a few times before bringing him to the mat with the Pele Kick. Cover, 1-2-NO! Jericho finds the Butterfly Backbreaker for two. Jericho can’t get the Walls of Jericho just yet and settles for the Enziguri Kick. He heads up top again, but flies down into a dropkick from AJ! Jericho holds onto the ropes to avoid a dropkick and connects with the Lionsault! Cover, 1-2-NO! He charges Styles and gets caught in one of Hirooki Goto’s signature moves, which Mauro Ranallo can’t help but call it that way. That gets two. Jericho slips out of the Styles Clash and finds the WALLS OF JERICHO. They build some drama with the hold, but Styles counters to the CALF CRUSHER. Jericho finds the ropes, but takes a baseball slide to the floor. Styles wipes him out further with a pescado. Back in, Jericho trips up Styles trying the Springboard Elbow Smash and covers him too close to the ropes, so the ref lets him know they need to move. Jericho then whips Styles in the corner and catches him with the CODEBREAKER for the three-count to even the score. (17:16) It looked like they had to go to plan B for the ending there and I don’t know how beating AJ clean like this will constitute a third match that I assume is the plan for Fastlane. Anyways, it was a good match. I’m still waiting for AJ to have a good opponent. Something about the AJ and Jericho matchup just seems off to me. I can’t quite put my finger on it though. ***

Really fun episode of Smackdown though. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the four-match format works best for everyone.