SmackDown Results and Recap: Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Kimberly Schueler
The Bar (source: WWE)

The January 22, 2019 episode of WWE SmackDown LIVE—the go-home show for the Royal Rumble—included the long-awaited in-ring showdown between Naomi and Mandy Rose, as well as an epic two-out-of-three falls match between Rey Mysterio and Andrade… with a surprise ending.


Becky Lynch enters the ring to start the show with a speech, vowing to main event WrestleMania this year after defeating Asuka for the SmackDown Women’s Championship at the Royal Rumble. Lynch says Asuka is one of the best in the world, but “The Man” is better.

A crack about how Asuka should be more upset about how she won her championship draws out “The Empress of Tomorrow.” Asuka enters the ring and holds her title high, yelling at Lynch in Japanese. As champion and challenger talk trash, Charlotte Flair enters the arena, claiming that she’ll win the women’s Royal Rumble match, reminding Asuka how she beat her at WrestleMania 34 and how she dominated the SmackDown women’s division in the recent past.

The focus soon turns back to Asuka and Lynch when they start brawling inside the ring and then on the outside. The WWE officials try to call them off, but they keep fighting. Lynch leaves Asuak lying behind the announce table as she finally allows herself to be escorted out of the arena by officials, but after a commercial break, we see that Asuka recovered and jumped Lynch backstage. Officials manage to pull the women apart this time, and it’s clear their championship match on Sunday is going to be heated.


The following match between Naomi and Mandy Rose is previewed by a video package of their story so far, narrated by a female voice we don’t normally hear in WWE hype videos. The video uses colorful phrases like “indecent proposal,” “the siren had set her trap,” and “the tables turned on the temptress,” making it stand out from the usual hype videos of today’s sports entertainment.

The actual match between Naomi and Rose ends up being surprisingly short. Naomi starts the bout aggressively, but after most of the fighting takes place during the commercial break, Sonya Deville grabs Naomi’s leg to stop her jumping over the ropes. Rose shoves Naomi into the ring post and pins her for the victory. Jimmy Uso comforts his wife in the ring after her loss, but Naomi doesn’t look like she’s given up on this feud. It won’t be surprising if these two end up facing off in the women’s Royal Rumble match.


In contrast, the match between The Miz (with Shane McMahon) and Cesaro (with Sheamus) includes a lot of interference. Sheamus distracts The Miz right before the bell rings, giving Cesaro an edge that allows him to start the match with a series of uppercuts. The Miz has to deal with Sheamus again when The Bar pull him out of the ring later in the match, but the frustrated Shane McMahon confronts them. After a commercial break, it looks like The Miz might defeat Cesaro, but Sheamus kicks “The A-Lister” from outside of the ring and Cesaro hits the Neutralizer soon after for the win.

Shane attacks Sheamus right after the match to get justice for his partner. Cesaro then attacks Shane, but he fights Cesaro off and sets him up on the announce table for an elbow drop from the turnbuckle. However, Sheamus derails the epic maneuver the audience was expecting by pushing Shane into the barricade. He and Cesaro get the better of the beatdown and look very dominant going into Sunday’s tag title match after sending both of their challengers through a table.

After a hype video for the upcoming Mustafa Ali vs. Samoa Joe match, we see Shane McMahon and The Miz still struggling to recover from The Bar’s attack, with Vince McMahon watching them on a monitor backstage. Mr. McMahon enters the arena and “reserves comment” on what happened between The Bar and “The Best in the World,” but he says it promises a good tag title match.


Mr. McMahon then welcomes AJ Styles to the ring for his face-to-face confrontation with WWE Champion Daniel Bryan. But Bryan refuses to step in the ring with Styles, who he calls a sociopath after his attack last week. He says a future with Styles as WWE Champion is “an ignorant future, an impotent future, an illiterate future,” and while “AJ Styles uses his power to get money, to get fame… I use my power for the greater good.”

Bryan calls himself “the planet’s champion,” which Styles counters by pointing out Bryan rides planes to make towns just like the rest of the WWE roster. He leads the audience to call Bryan “fickle” before calling the environmentalist that himself, which upsets Bryan.

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Mr. McMahon tells Bryan to just get in the ring, and Bryan responds with a scathing speech about the Baby Boomer generation, who he calls “the parasites of this world.” McMahon gets more and more frustrated as Bryan continues to speak. He interrupts the champion and tells him again to get in the ring, but Styles points out that the scheduled face-to-face confrontation really doesn’t have to happen in the ring. Styles chases Bryan down and starts to punch him, and the ensuing brawl—like the one between Sunday’s competitors for the SmackDown Women’s Championship—builds tension for their title match.


Backstage, a few different Royal Rumble match wrestlers talk about the upcoming battle royals. R-Truth—scheduled to enter at #30 in the men’s match—tells Carmell—scheduled to be #30 in the women’s match—that he’ll win and fight the WWE Champion, but definitely not Brock Lesnar. Carmella cuts her own promo on Charlotte Flair, hopefully promising a confrontation in the ring on Sunday.

The New Day are also asked backstage if they’re willing to eliminate each other in the Rumble. They reply that they realize that if one of them wins, they all win. Kofi Kingston, with encouragement from his friends, also gets inspiration for an inventive way to avoid elimination.


But the person who makes the most compelling statement about the Royal Rumble this week is Samoa Joe. His match against Ali isn’t as one-sided as the one they had last week, but Joe really brings it to the former 205 Live star from the beginning. When it looks like Ali might be able to hi the 054 for the win, Joe snatches him off the turnbuckle and locks him in the Coquina Clutch. Ali taps out, and Joe looks like a force to be reckoned with on Sunday.


To preview his two-out-of-three falls rematch against Andrade, Rey Mysterio cuts a pre-recorded promo. After he recalls winning the 2006 Royal Rumble match, he says this match with Andrade tonight is about respect. Andrade was gaining his until he got that cheap shot victory in their match the previous week, but this week, “Zelina Vega is banned from ringside, so the playing field is even.”

The night’s main event—a longer one than usual—sees Mysterio and Andrade start out looking evenly-matched. Mysterio has the first big offensive maneuver of the match with a hurricanrana that sends Andrade out of the ring, but Andrade gets the first nearfall after dropkicking Mysterio out of the air mid-crossbody. Mysterio gets several two-counts, including after a really cool Canadian Destroyer counter to the Hammerlock DDT, but Andrade scores the first fall of the match with an impressive super powerbomb.

The referee checks on Mysterio for a while before clearing him to continue for the next fall, which ends up coming a lot faster than the first. Andrade delivers another huge, modified powerbomb after bouncing Mysterio off the top rope. It gets him a nearfall and he tries for another powerbomb, continuing the strategy that got him the first point, but Mysterio is able to escape and pin “El Idolo” after a Canadian Destroyer.

After a commercial break, we see the tied wrestlers move outside the ring. Andrade suckers Mysterio out, but the veteran sends the former NXT Champion into the barricade with a sunset flip. A big “619” chant goes up from the audience after he gains another nearfall, but Andrade gains control of the match with a rope trap armbar. Mysterio sends Andrade outside the ring with a sunset flip, but the younger wrestler lands on his feet and slams Mysterio into the ringpost. The crowd freaks out when Mysterio thwarts what looks like a sure pinfall after the Hammerlock DDT by getting his foot to the bottom rope.

Andrade now changes his strategy and tries to submit Mysterio by locking on a Fujiwara armbar. Mysterio tries to counter when he can’t make it to the ropes. A springboard move by the lucha libre legend seems to go wrong, but he turns it into a rollup for a nearfall. Mysterio gets more of these after hurricanranas, but the exciting match is brought to a screeching halt when Samoa Joe shows up to powerbomb Mysterio on the apron.

The match is thrown out, but Joe’s attack continues. He slams Andrade into the ringpost and locks a Coquina Clutch on Mysterio but is taken out by Randy Orton with an RKO as he starts to cut a promo. Orton, a two-time Royal Rumble winner, poses in the corner, and Sunday can’t come soon enough.

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