WWE SmackDown Grades: Daniel Bryan’s In-Ring Return Confirmed
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The March 27 edition of WWE SmackDown featured heavily on in-ring work as a whole with WrestleMania 34 less than two weeks away.
Last night’s WWE SmackDown wasn’t outstanding, but it did feature some impressive moments with several new matches made for WrestleMania 34 via the blue brand.
In-ring competition was focused on heavily last night and while some hit the mark, a couple others missed the mark. With that being said, let’s take a look at a few grades from the March 27 edition of WWE SmackDown.
5. Randy Orton And Bobby Roode vs. Jinder Mahal And Rusev
The United States Championship will be on the line at WrestleMania 34 with the champion Randy Orton getting multiple challengers. However, after last night, he received another new challenger that has shaken up the makeup of the match.
Orton was set to defend his title against Bobby Roode and Jinder Mahal in a Triple Threat Match at WrestleMania 34, but a third challenger joined the fold last night after a tag team match. It was supposed to be Orton and Roode vs. Mahal and Sunil Singh, but Mahal said that Singh wasn’t able to compete and he was then replaced with Rusev.
The match itself was pretty good with some solid storytelling thrown in. Orton and Roode tried to one-up each other at times and them not being on the same page ultimately cost them. After Roode inadvertently hit Orton, The Viper hit The Glorious One with an RKO. But when Orton turned around, he was hit with a huge kick by Rusev.
The kick would be enough to get Rusev the pin and win over the U.S. Champion for his team. And later in the night, the match at WrestleMania for the U.S. Championship was officially changed to a Fatal 4-Way featuring Orton defending his title against Roode, Mahal, and Rusev. As far as the tag team match last night, it was pretty good and served a good purpose.
It wasn’t necessarily a thing of beauty and did carry on a little long, but last night’s tag team match accomplished what it needed to accomplish and led to the inclusion of Rusev in the U.S. Championship match at WrestleMania 34.