WWE SmackDown 01/05/2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show where Roman Reigns still occasionally shows up to get an obscenely massive pop no matter where he goes or how long he's on screen! This was a newsworthy episode for the blue brand to kick off 2024, as the special "New Years Revolution" episode saw Kevin Owens win the tournament to crown a contender for Logan Paul's US title, the return of former "NXT" and "Raw" Team Champions the Authors of Pain, the apparent main roster call-up of Tyler Bate, and not one but three wrestlers announced as Reigns' championship opponents for the Royal Rumble. That's a lot of stuff going on, and the WINC writing and editorial staff has opinions on a lot of it!

Of course, even on a show like this one, we can't cover everything. For one thing, that's what our live coverage/results page is for, and for another thing, not everything is going to elicit a big enough reaction from us, positive or negative. IYO SKY and Mia Yim had an awesome wrestling match, and that's really all there is to say about it, you know? But for a lot of other parts of the show, we had much stronger feelings. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 1/5/24 episode of "WWE SmackDown."

Tournament arcs tend to be hit-or-miss. While they are an effective and relatively unbiased way to build a No.1 contender, they are susceptible to a sort of soullessness. Tournaments, by their nature, are quite clinical in their steps — Wrestler A wins against Wrestler B and progresses in the tournament, end of story. Unless there's some sort of controversy or feud that comes out of a tournament match (and these moments are exceptions, rather than the rule) tournaments can feel meaningless, especially to the losing party.

Unfortunately, the United States Championship tournament felt meaningless. It brought underrated and new talent like Dragon Lee and Carmelo Hayes to a main roster ring, but by the time Santos Escobar and Kevin Owens were locking up in the finals, any intrigue the tournament had fizzled out. It's disappointing; both Owens and Escobar are established talent with the capacity to deliver great matches. However, whatever energy both talented men could have brought to the match was snuffed out by the context in which they performed in (or lack thereof). Tournaments are, inherently, there to establish a No.1  contender, not to tell any particularly compelling story.

One of the few things that could have saved this tournament from being, regrettably, a bathroom break, was an active champion — one who invested himself into the tournament that would decide his own opponent. In his defense, Logan Paul is a businessman, a content creator, and many other things, and his chronic absence is understandable. It does not, however, excuse his poor title reign. Paul has held the United States Championship for 62 days and he has not defended it once. As of right now, his Guinness World Record for most expensive "Pokemon" card is more impressive than his US title reign. Moreover, Paul's inactivity has been a detriment to anything related to the United States Championship.

Hopefully Owens and Paul have a great match at Royal Rumble and the United States Championship can go back to being presented as a full-time fighter's championship. Friday night, though, the tournament finals were just a match I had to sit through to get to the rest of the show.

Written by Angeline Phu

Kevin Owens punched his ticket to the Royal Rumble by winning the No. 1 Contenders Tournament, Friday night, and as it turned out, he wasn't done punching.

After the match, Logan Paul naturally wanted to talk smack (RIP "Talkin' Smack") to the new No. 1 contender. He went for some low hanging fruit, trashing KO's physical appearance before claiming to be the best US Champion ever and that Owens would never defeat him –- in part because a Canadian can't be a US Champion (Bret Hart, Lance Storm, and Owens' three previous US title reigns would like a word). Owens allowed the champion to continue until he said that the Canucks would never win the Stanley Cup, after which Owens responded in the most effective way: knocking Paul out with his cast. His fellow Canadian fans loved this moment; here's hoping Owens can do the same at the Royal Rumble on his way to becoming the new US Champion.

Written by Samantha Schipman

Though his second WWE run has fallen short in terms of overall impact (and please do not look at the win-loss record), former "NXT" Champion Karrion Kross has been given chance after chance to resonate with the main roster crowd, even without a silly gladiator hat, thanks to Vince McMahon's exit. Here, paired with a returning Authors of Pain (AOP) as a pair of behemoths at his side, Paul Ellering as a guiding light, and a newly-brunette Scarlett looking like a million bucks and ready to smack a few faces on his behalf, Kross, fittingly donning a "Final Prayer" shirt, is suddenly set up as strongly as he possibly can be, and for that, I'm excited. Interrupting a less-than Street Profits/Bobby Lashley promo segment was also welcome; if this means their supposed heel run has come to an abrupt end, good. That wasn't working.

Kross has it all in front of him right now, including picking off no less than three opponents right off the bat: Angelo Dawkins, Montez Ford, and Lashley. Yes, in that order. And yes, he should beat them all. And with that in the back pocket, he should have all the equity he needs to then smash both members of AOP, throw Ellering into a river, turn on his own wife, and pursue both the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship in short order.

Fine, maybe not that exactly. But the runway is there, and if Kross ever has a chance at taking off, he better see it now and take full advantage.

Written by Jon Jordan

I want to start off by saying that I largely agree with my colleague about what the Authors of Pain return could mean for the career of Karrion Kross, though hopefully it doesn't really involve throwing a 70-year-old man into a river. But personally, I'm a little worried that Kross and AOP have already been set down a road that only leads to failure.

First of all, it kind of sucks that they're debuting against another trios group that's relatively unestablished, despite having been around in some form for nearly six months. Lashley and the Profits didn't exactly start strong and could really benefit from winning a feud right now, but you'd expect Kross and AOP to win their first feud as a unit, and it would be kind of disastrous if they didn't. But I really like the pairing of Lashley and the Profits, and I wouldn't be entirely thrilled with them serving as cannon fodder for the tarot card guy. WWE is drowning in trios groups at the moment, you couldn't pick any of the older ones?

That having been said, I actually think it's entirely possible that Kross and AOP get defeated and effectively neutered right out of the gate. Is WWE really going to push Karrion Kross at the expense of former WWE Champion Bobby Lashley? The Street Profits have been a mainstay of WWE programming for years now; AOP have been gone for almost four years, and even then, their main roster run was plagued by bad creative and untimely injuries. Just look at the audience reaction to their return Friday night — bless the few souls who tried to start an "AOP" chant, but the Vancouver crowd mostly didn't react at all. These guys are going to win a feud against a team that seemingly was forced to turn babyface because the audience won't stop cheering for them?

Don't get me wrong, I hope this thing works out. I'm a big AOP fan going back to their "NXT" days, I love that Paul Ellering is back with them, and I think Kross and Scarlett still have untapped potential as an act. But I also know that we just saw Lashley beat Kross like a month ago, and I know that Kross has only won two televised singles matches in the past calendar year, and I worry that he and AOP have already entered a no-win scenario.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

In December 1773, American colonists threw England's tea into Boston Harbor. 250 years later, former British Strong Style member Tyler Bate made his debut on "WWE SmackDown," an American wrestling show. These two things are connected somehow, I know it.

Bate being Butch's surprise tag team partner against Pretty Deadly was a pleasant surprise, and a nice throwback to their British Strong Style days. Friday night was a full-circle moment for all parties involved; the ring was full of British imports and "NXT UK" veterans. The chemistry between all four competitors could be felt in the way they competed against each other — their fight was seamless, energetic, and entertaining to watch; nothing felt awkward or slow. Bate must have felt a sense of confidence from being in the ring with his former colleagues, because his performance — particularly his courage in bringing something new to a "SmackDown" ring — was exceptionally exciting to watch. From a flying uppercut to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it standing shooting star press, it was clear that Bate pulled out all the stops to give the Vancouver crowd a show they”ll remember. When was the last time a helicopter spin has received as much hype as it did tonight?

Bate's presence on "SmackDown" could very well be a temporary situation, similar to Carmelo Hayes' short main roster stint during the United States Championship tournament. If it isn't, however, and Bate is expected to appear regularly on "SmackDown" in 2024, then his arrival would be a breath of fresh air. In a time where WWE is laser-focused on bringing back veterans like The Rock and CM Punk, it's nice to know that they haven't forgotten to build up new talent. "The Big Strong Boi" absolutely has the potential to be a main roster mainstay, and I certainly hope we'll get the chance to see him every week on Friday nights.

Written by Angeline Phu

Does Friday night's finish to the No.1 contender's match between LA Knight, Randy Orton, and AJ Styles make perfect sense? Yes. Do I understand it? Absolutely. Do I like it? I'm fine with it. But am I also hating it here? 100 percent — and here's why:

Now, we're all going to have to endure more than three full weeks of everybody and their mother talking about how Roman Reigns doesn't even have to take the pin in his upcoming title defense to lose the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship, how that "obviously" further cements the setup for Reigns vs. The Rock at WrestleMania, and how that clears a path for Cody Rhodes to still finish his story at WrestleMania (where said story should be finished), only now against someone other than Reigns. And since we're prognosticating what the masses will think, we'll go with Orton in this hypothetical, since it makes the most sense given his equity, the heat behind him for his return, and of course, his history with Rhodes.

See? The gen pop already has it all figured out. You know you can hear it. You're going to read it. And I'm here to tell you, it all makes a lot of sense.

But I don't have to like it and I'm not ready for the I-told-you-sos. We have far too much of that in the wrestling community these days already despite the fact that we've been proven wrong time and again in the Paul Levesque era. Three weeks isn't a long time but three months, by comparison, is. How we get to WrestleMania and what we encounter there isn't a foregone conclusion. Not for you, me, or anyone. But at this point, we've had to have built up enough faith to just let it happen and not assume what we saw Friday night is as much of a tell as it might look to be at first glance.

Written by Jon Jordan