WWE SmackDown: The ‘smacks’ and ‘downs’ of Feb. 21, 2020

Down: more like “symphony of the illogical”

It seems like this was booked backwardd with someone (not naming anyone) wanting a No Disqualification Match involving musical instruments. Otherwise, it really didn’t make sense for Zayn and Cesaro to hold a “protest concert” other than the fact Elias still strums a guitar he doesn’t play necessarily well to lyrics only preteens find amusing.

While this had more to do with extending to story between Intercontinental Champion Braun Strowman and Shinsuke Nakamura, it was a silly match (and not in the good The New Day way).

Unlike the Cody-Wardlow match I praised for the cage simply being there and not being the focal point of the action, this match made sure to get in all the musical instrument spots one could imagine, like this:

and this:

Worse, if it was No DQ, why did they start the match with each partner standing on the apron for a tag? This is just some of the shoddiness on details that is so agitating because the fixes are so simple. For this one, have your rules make sense, even in kayfabe!

Luckily, when we returned from commercial, we were in tornado tag mode.

Still, this was a match simply to have Strowman powerslam someone through a piano, or at least that’s what they hoped. It made little sense in story, and should have been left to a live event or scrapped altogether.