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Friday Night SmackDown aired tonight from inside the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the same city as tomorrow night’s Elimination Chamber event, with the women of Team Blue set to play a major role. Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton will join forces with a Hall of Famer, 7-time Women’s Champion, and hometown hero in the form of Trish Stratus against the team of Nia Jax and Candice LeRae. With the two having been on the receiving end of attacks from The Irresistible Force and her associate, how did they respond this week? Plus, with Chelsea Green set to be in action, who did the Canadian-born Women’s United States Champion have to battle? Lastly, Bianca Belair and Naomi lost their Women’s Tag Team Championships this past Monday on Raw to Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, and with the two participating in the Elimination Chamber match, did the loss of the title and uncertainty of Jade Cargill’s assailant cause friction? Let’s get started and find out.
The show began with Trish Stratus coming out to the ring to much fanfare from the hometown crowd. Wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, Stratus started by asking the fans what year it was, mentioning longtime friend and ring announcer Lilian Garcia, The Rock getting himself involved with Cody Rhodes, and herself wrestling tomorrow? Stratus could not think of a better place for it all to go down than in her hometown. She then states that what she loves most about wrestling is the generational impact that it has, pointing to a little girl in the crowd and telling her that when her father was her age, he probably had a poster of her in his room.
When she wrestles in the Rogers Centre tomorrow, it’ll be the very first time that her kids see her wrestle live. To be back here and celebrating her 25th anniversary in 2025 with the next generation of talent is incredible to her. She is excited to be teaming up with someone who is taking the women’s division by storm, and introduces her partner tomorrow night, Tiffany Stratton.
Stratton, also wearing a Maple Leafs jersey, enters the ring. Of course, Stratus asks what time it is, and it’s both Trishy Time and Tiffy Time. They then throw their jerseys out into the crowd before Stratton mentions that they are so in-sync and Stratus agrees, since they’ve been doing a lot of hanging out, training, and yoga together, which Stratton believes is the reason that they will beat Nia Jax and Candice LeRae.
Their promo gets interrupted by the familiar shhhhh of Women’s United States Chelsea Green, and with a microphone and “Secret Hervice” Piper Niven as always, Green calls the promo a snoozefest as nobody wants “Dumb and Dumber” hogging up airtime that she deserves. Her spiel becomes noticeably anti-Canadian as she says that the minute she left the “dump”, everything became better for her, mentioning her Women’s United States Championship victory and how she is honored to represent the people of America because the people are better there. Stratton interjects, mentioning how she is from America and that Green doesn’t represent her, but Green continues to snipe, saying that she didn’t mention representing losers. It’s not “Tacky Time”, it’s her time, and warns the Buff Barbie to leave it to the real champions who don’t need their mommy to dress them.
Stratton decides that since Green thinks she’s so special, then why doesn’t she show her who the real Center of the Universe is and have a match tonight! Green tries to get out of the predicament by saying that she can’t make it as she has plans, but Stratus and the audience think it’s a great idea. When Stratus also mentions that Nick Aldis should send out a referee if he agrees to the match, Green gets flustered and pleads from the ring to “Nicholas”, screaming as a referee runs down the ramp to get things underway.
The show returned from commercial with a funny shot of Green saluting while holding Stratton for what looks like a DDT, but Stratton reversed it for a near-fall. Green then hits a kip-up and slams Stratton’s face into the mat for another near-fall, maintaining a vicious edge over her opponent as she put Stratton in a chokehold and grabbed her by the hair as she tried to get up. Stratton soon started to gain momentum, hitting three clotheslines, a cartwheel, and a powerbomb on Green in rapid succession. The Women’s U.S. Champion tried setting up the Un-Pretty-Her but would get it reversed into an Attitude Adjustment that she was able to escape from before it could be executed. Green stayed down though, and as Stratton got up on the turnbuckles, Niven came to her friend’s rescue by pulling her out of the ring, but Trish wasn’t just going to watch that happen, attacking Niven and throwing the heel tandem off their game so that Stratton could perform the Prettiest Moonsault Ever onto both of them at ringside. Throwing Green back into the ring to perform another moonsault, the attempt was cut short as Nia and Candice emerged to attack Trish and Tiffany, causing a disqualification. Although it initially seemed as though the two would leave another trail of destruction, Stratus and Stratton fought back and Jax would pull LeRae out of the ring to retreat.
A six-woman tag team match was announced during the show pitting Women’s Tag Team Champions Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez alongside Roxanne Perez against former champions Bianca Belair and Naomi tagging with fellow Elimination Chamber participant Bayley. This happened due to Bianca and Naomi attacking Liv and Raquel and causing a brawl that also involved Bayley and Roxanne during the Elimination Chamber Kickoff earlier today.
Now backstage, Naomi and Bianca are in good spirits as Bayley thanks them for what they did on the Kickoff show because she didn’t have to wait for tomorrow to get her hands on Roxanne. Naomi hopes to get locked inside the chamber with Liv tomorrow night, while Bianca says she wants to win the match for herself. Bayley also wants to get her hands on Liv, as she knows it was her and Raquel that attacked Jade Cargill. Bianca says tonight, they will handle them, but if it comes down to the three of them tomorrow night, may the best woman win. Bayley and Naomi grab Bianca’s braid as they leave the locker room for their match.
The match was then underway and the action started with Naomi and Liv in the ring. Naomi immediately sprung to action, leading Morgan to retreat to ringside with Perez and Rodriguez entering the ring. Bayley and Belair would enter to level out the playing field with the six women fighting. Naomi would tag Bayley in, with The Role Model hitting three suicide dives on Morgan, Perez, and Rodriguez in that order before a commercial break.
The show returned with Rodriguez preventing the former SmackDown Women’s Champion from tagging in, but Belair would get tagged in and went flying on Rodriguez. Belair would continue to show off her athleticism, keeping Rodriguez in the corner and pulling several punches on her until Morgan tried to intervene, but she was taken out quickly by Belair who let Naomi take on the job of handling Rodriguez, wearing her out enough that Roxanne had to be tagged in. The Girl with the Glow left The Prodigy of NXT lying on the mat, giving Bayley a chance to perform a flying elbow into a near-fall that was broken up by Morgan. This led to the two tag teams battling out, leaving Bayley and Perez still in the ring as Bayley tried to execute a Bayley-to-Belly that Perez weaseled out of and reversed into hitting Pop Rox to get the victory for her team.
Perez stared at the WrestleMania sign but behind her was the one Elimination Chamber participant who had yet to appear tonight: Alexa Bliss. Bliss hit Perez with an Abigail DDT as a Wyatt Sicks graphic showed up on the screen and made the feed go to black.
Right after that, Byron Saxton interviewed Charlotte Flair, the Royal Rumble winner who will be challenging Tiffany Stratton for the Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 41 in seven weeks. Saxton asks The Queen for her thoughts on the team of Stratton and Trish Stratus and their match at Elimination Chamber tomorrow night. Flair thinks the team-up is cute, but says that once the smoke clears, Stratton will have a bigger problem to deal with, and that problem is The Queen, so she better get focused and be prepared because there’s going to be no help at the end of that rainbow, and everywhere she goes, she’s going to be right there reminding her that time is rapidly slipping away, and she’ll see her at WrestleMania. She caps off her answer with a “Wooo!” and an eye wink to the camera before walking away.
Elimination Chamber takes place tomorrow night on Saturday, March 1st from inside the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The pre-show will begin at 5 p.m. ET and the main card will begin at 7 p.m. ET on Peacock in the United States and on Netflix in the rest of the world. Here are the women’s matches that will be taking place:
Tiffany Stratton and Trish Stratus vs. Nia Jax and Candice LeRae Women’s Elimination Chamber Match: Naomi vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Liv Morgan vs. Bianca Belair vs. Bayley vs. Roxanne Perez – the winner will go on to face Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania 41 for the WWE Women’s World ChampionshipFriday Night SmackDown emanates next week from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the following set to take place:
Street Fight: Chelsea Green vs. MichinMake sure to share your thoughts on this week’s episode of SmackDown in the comments below!
