Friday Night time SmackDown aired this week from contained in the FedEx Discussion board in Memphis, Tennessee. The Royal Rumble has come and gone, with Charlotte Aptitude profitable the match a second time. Did we get any nearer to discovering her opponent selection for WrestleMania 41? The ladies of Staff Blue additionally needed to deal with the forthcoming Elimination Chamber match. Two matches occurred tonight to find out two out of the six ladies to enter the damaging construction, one among them that includes Alexa Bliss. Shockingly returning to energetic competitors after a hiatus of two years, did the previous “Goddess” come again a winner? Let’s get began and discover out!
Bianca Belair and Piper Niven went toe-to-toe within the first of two Elimination Chamber qualifying matches tonight. Each went backwards and forwards early on, though Niven would get the higher hand earlier than the business break after a operating senton on the ground. As soon as the present returned, Belair tried to hit a KOD, which was reversed right into a forceful spinning Bossman slam that didn’t put Belair away. Niven continued to make use of her highly effective offense, however finally fell sufferer to what was Belair’s third try at a KOD that led to the EST claiming a victory.
Kayden Carter and Katana Likelihood spoke briefly with Nick Aldis, implying that they’re now members of the SmackDown roster because of the switch window that’s introduced different Uncooked stars like Damian Priest, The Miz, and Drew McIntyre to the blue model. Sadly, not a lot could possibly be made out of their dialog earlier than Carmelo Hayes walked into Aldis’s workplace.
Charlotte Aptitude made her approach out to the ring to handle the Memphis crowd after her Royal Rumble victory. She began off by asking the followers in the event that they beloved her or hated her, with the viewers cheering and booing in response to each, however for Aptitude, once they boo, she hears cash. The followers can by no means make up their minds, and that’s good as a result of she lives rent-free in everybody’s heads. She is wrestling’s obsession: the followers are obsessed along with her seems, obsessed along with her championships, obsessed along with her final title, obsessive about all the pieces Charlotte Aptitude. She is aware of that followers that assume that she thinks she’s higher than everybody on the idea of her final title, however that’s not the one purpose that she thinks she’s higher than everybody. Did folks actually assume she was going to be out of motion for 14 months and never come again, win the Royal Rumble, and make historical past? She entered the Royal Rumble on February 1st, 2025 with 29 unserious ladies and there was no approach that she was going excessive rope. By profitable the match, she turned the primary ever two-time ladies’s Royal Rumble winner and punched her ticket to WrestleMania 41. Aptitude needs to really feel impressed now that she’s again, so she went to Uncooked and noticed Rhea Ripley. She went to NXT and needed to see if Giulia might encourage her. Right here she is now on SmackDown, and she or he needs to see if Tiffany Stratton can encourage her.
Tiffany’s music instantly interrupted The Queen’s spiel, with the Girls’s Champion stating that she needed to congratulate Charlotte and welcome her again to WWE. No one and she or he means no person is a much bigger Charlotte Aptitude fan than Stratton. The Middle of the Universe felt that WWE couldn’t survive with out Aptitude, after which she acquired injured which made everyone care… for a day. When the Buff Barbie got here alongside to the primary roster, ticket gross sales went up, buildings have been promoting out, and WWE turned hotter than it had ever been with Stratton on the high.
Aptitude would retort, telling the champ that she must get in line since there are different ladies claiming to be on high. Stratton says that she has been in line; from the second she debuted on TV, she has been in comparison with her each positively and negatively, encouraging Aptitude to choose her, as a result of at her first WrestleMania, she’s going to beat her and now not will she be the subsequent Charlotte Aptitude, she would be the one and the one Tiffany Stratton.
Aptitude speaks once more and saying that when she was within the ring with Rhea, she noticed a child. When she’s standing within the ring with Tiffany, she sees a baby begging her to make her a star at WrestleMania. If Stratton needs Charlotte to choose her as her WrestleMania opponent, she’ll must get her fingers and knees and beg her to decide on her.
Nia Jax then got here out with Candice LeRae and says that the “blondie back-and-forth” is cute and all, nevertheless it’s a bit of untimely as a result of she goes to be Girls’s Champion once more. After talking to Nick Aldis earlier, the 2 agreed on having Stratton defend her title towards The Irresistible Drive subsequent week. If Charlotte needs to change into Girls’s Champion on the Grandest Stage of Them All, she’s going to must undergo her first. The Queen decides that she’ll stick round and watch subsequent week to see what occurs.
The second ladies’s Elimination Chamber qualifying match then occurred with Candice LeRae taking over the returning Alexa Bliss. The 2 locked as much as begin and issues went sluggish for a minute because it appeared the 2 have been attempting to get comfy with one another’s arsenal. LeRae ultimately took management, with Bliss taking a lot injury from the Poison Pixie, who taunted her about how she ought to have stayed house and the way she wasn’t needed again. The taunts triggered Bliss’s signature fury, clotheslining LeRae and throwing a number of punches her approach. Notably, as Candice nearly acquired a near-fall on Bliss, glitching results briefly appeared on the display with out affecting the in-ring motion. The near-fall led to a backwards and forwards try at a Schoolgirl pin from each opponents, flustering LeRae who was hit by a Sister Abigail for the victory.
Bliss now joins Bianca Belair in representing SmackDown for the ladies’s Elimination Chamber match, which can happen at this yr’s Elimination Chamber occasion on Saturday, March 1st, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The match will even function Uncooked famous person Liv Morgan, who certified by defeating IYO SKY earlier this week on Monday Night time Uncooked.
Byron Saxton interviewed the Girls’s United States Chelsea Inexperienced, who was comforting Piper Niven after shedding to Belair earlier within the evening. Saxton revealed that Inexperienced could be taking over Naomi subsequent week within the third ladies’s Elimination Chamber qualifying match for Staff Blue. Inexperienced tells him that after she beats Naomi, she’s going to move to Elimination Chamber, beat all the opposite “nasty women”, after which herself, her “Secret Hervice”, and her “motorcade” are going to sail off into the sundown that’s WrestleMania, the place she plans on changing into a double champion. B-Fab and Michin interrupt her, with The Fab Feminine saying that Inexperienced eliminating her from the Royal Rumble (making her the primary elimination) was not in the back of her thoughts, moderately it’s on the entrance of her thoughts. Michin provides that Inexperienced won’t make it to the Elimination Chamber however she may additionally not be champion, lastly reminding her to cease stalling as all of them know what’s inevitable. The 2 stroll off as Inexperienced and Niven are then confronted by Zelina Vega, who feels that perhaps it’s time she will get an opportunity on the Girls’s United States Championship too, now that she’s on SmackDown.
Friday Night time SmackDown airs subsequent week from the Capitol One Enviornment in Washington, D.C. with the next matches set to happen:
Girls’s Championship: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Nia Jax
Girls’s Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match: Chelsea Inexperienced vs. Naomi
Be certain that to share your ideas on this week’s episode of SmackDown within the feedback beneath!
