It’s the holiday season, and that means WWE giving time off to its talent in the name of actually trying to give them something like a normal life. Hey, it’s a good thing! We should be encouraging this, even if it means getting taped episodes of television.

We got a taped episode of Friday Night SmackDown this week and those always feel like filler, even when they advance some storylines. This one was no different.

They started with Solo Sikoa and his crew, microphone in hand with the Ula Fala around his neck. There wasn’t much to the ensuing promo — the usual demand for acknowledgement from the live audience followed by accepting Roman Reigns’ challenge for a match at the Raw debut on Netflix on Jan. 6.

They’ll do it one-on-one, no Bloodline involvement. The winner will be the one true Tribal Chief.

Eventually, Drew McIntyre made his entrance to interrupt all this. He wondered if Solo lies in bed in fear at when McIntyre might come for him. After all, he’s the one who cost him the title at Clash at the Castle, and caused a lot of his pain and suffering.

Then again, he’s also the only one in his family who had the balls to stand up to Reigns. The rest said they would but then came running just as soon as Reigns called for them, despite the fact that he never changed. McIntyre, then, is torn. He wants to work his way through his own personal hit list and while doing so, Sikoa can take down Reigns. When they’re all done, they can finish their business with each other.

That’s when Jimmy Uso showed up, crutches and all, to launch a sneak attack on Drew Mac, chasing him off through the crowd. LA Knight, Andrade, and Apollo Crews ran in to attack the new Bloodline and that led us right into a six-man tag team match.

Said six-man got multiple commercial breaks just to get to Shinsuke Nakamura interfering to take out Knight, Andrade get thrown to the outside like he was nothing, and Crews left to take the pinfall from Sikoa. They tried to make like Solo was as ferocious as he’s ever been here but it didn’t really come across.

This was just sort of there. Still, the idea was clear and momentum was given.

All the rest

• They replayed a video from Saturday after Chelsea Green became the first ever United States champion and it was a great showcase for exactly why she won that title. She said she worked 20 years to become an overnight success, which is a great line, and now they’re working a “red, white, and Green” catchphrase in. I’m good with it. She’s fantastic.
• They also gave us a detailed video looking back at Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens, where the latter put the former down with the Package Piledriver. He’s now threatening to snap, which he actually hasn’t done yet, and what happens next is on the authority figures who allowed this situation to get to this point.
• Remember how we used to always get some Christmas gimmickry in the form of a Miracle on 34th Street Fight type of match? Here, we got Braun Strowman dressed as Santa throwing out gifts to the crowd before appearing on The Grayson Waller Effect. His appearance on said show was fairly tame, with Grayson trying to recruit him to join up with A-Town Down Under and Strowman resisting. Carmelo Hayes showed up to call him names and get a rematch from last week put together. Said match ended via countout, when Hayes kept Braun on the outside and got himself thrown back in just in time to get Strowman counted out. The slowest post-match chase of all time ensued. I don’t really know what to say about any of this, to be honest.
• I, for one, appreciate how much Corey Graves hates Johnny Gargano and all the mean, vile things he says about him on commentary. I don’t know if Jesse Ventura inspired this man but I would love more WWE commentary that feels like it’s just a guy talking about how he feels about whoever is in the ring in a real way. Meanwhile, Alex Shelley wanted to have a straight singles match with Gargano, telling Chris Sabin to stay in the back and Johnny Wrestling making like he was going to do the same. Instead, Tommaso Ciampa came out and got involved, leading to Sabin to come out and Gargano to score a win via rollup. The match was fine, but this was standard fare.
• The main event of this show was Bianca Belair and Naomi linking up to defend the women’s tag team titles against Women’s Champion Nia Jax & Candice LeRae. They made like they didn’t want Tiffany Stratton out there for the match, but she made her presence felt anyway. The fans chanted for her to “cash it in” but instead, she gave it to Jax, who got caught with it, knocked off the apron, and left LeRae in the ring to take the fall to Naomi. This meant Naomi “earned” the distinction of now being champion, something she said she wanted to do before carrying the title formerly held by the injured Jade Cargill. They weren’t given much time for any of this and, like everything else on this show, it was just sort of there.

This was probably the first episode of SmackDown all year that I felt downright apathetic about. The blue brand usually brings the goods but this was very clearly a phoned in show.

But, hey, it’s the holidays. It makes sense.

Grade: D+

Your turn.