WWE Friday Night SmackDown Results: News, Notes After Coronavirus Moves Show To WWE PC

WWE Friday Night SmackDown aired an “empty-arena” broadcast from the Performance Center in Orlando, Fla. after the ongoing threat of the coronavirus forced a cancellation from the previously planned venue inside the Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit, Mich.

The show was an entertaining mix of empty-arena matches, interviews and even a replay from last week’s Elimination Chamber Match for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships.

Last week’s broadcast of Friday Night SmackDown garnered 2.456 million viewers, down from the previous week which featured appearances by John Cena and Goldberg.

WWE Friday Night SmackDown Viewership—Last Five Weeks:

• March 6, 2020—2.456 million viewers
• February 28, 2020—2.687 million viewers
• February 21, 2020—2.484 million viewers
• February 14, 2020—2.464 million viewers
• February 7, 2020—2.538 million viewers

WWE Friday Night SmackDown Key Competition: 

• Coronavirus live news coverage

From the Forbes WWE Vault:

WWE Total YouTube Viewership for WWE Friday Night SmackDown Last Friday: 3,376,269 (Down from 7,490,286 views)

• Most-Viewed: Braun Strowman and nWo Too Sweet on SmackDown (678,519 views) 
• Least-Viewed: Elias Plays over King Corbin’s Address (130,984 views)
• Median Viewership: 319,109

WWE Friday Night SmackDown Results: Friday, March 13, 2020

Opening Segment Featuring Triple H

Triple H joked around about his demotion before anybody could make a “Triple H demoted to color commentator” joke.

When Bayley asked Triple H where Paige was, I became very nervous at what his response might be.

Sasha Banks and Bayley def. Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss

It must be awkward to perform on a live television broadcast with your boss just a few feet away.

At what point does the team of Sasha Banks and Bayley just go ahead and name itself the Role Models?

After watching this match I’m even more convinced that Bayley has the wrong belt.

Roman Reigns Sits Down with Michael Cole

Roman Reigns is no stranger to having to do a sit-down interview as the result of a last-minute cancellation of an arena show. Except, last time around, dummies thought he was being fed lines.

Roman Reigns is defaulting to the anti-part-timer mindset from 2018, which ended in disaster.

Jeff Hardy Returns, Confronts Baron Corbin

Jeff Hardy vs. Baron Corbin sounds like the WrestleMania program Baron Corbin should have had last year as opposed to retiring Kurt Angle.

Elias said Baron Corbin “has no idea what’s coming,” but given the crappy payoff that was Erick Rowan’s fake tarantula, I couldn’t care less what he means by that.

Tag Team Elimination Chamber Replay

After Otis ran through the pods, WWE made sure to edit out the “holy [expletive]” chants with “this is awesome” chants, which don’t make since because Otis was a [kayfabe] seriously injured babyface.

The Miz and John Morrison Speak

The Miz and Morrison said they don’t need a catchy catchphrase, which is painfully obvious because they’re tag team champions despite struggling to get their “Miz and Morrison” chant over. Give it time.

Triple H on Miz and Morrison: “It’s amazing how good they are without crowd noise. It’s like it happens to them all the time.”

Mojo Rawley Confirms Rob Gronkowski is Coming to WWE

The hopeful scenario of of Mojo Rawley getting the rub from Rob Gronkowski coming to WWE appear to be going just as planned.

Triple H held the video camera for parts of this segment. If he goes anywhere near a ring bell, I’ll be convinced he’s doing a demotion gimmick.

Daniel Bryan def. Cesaro

From a comedic and in-ring standpoint, Daniel Bryan and Drew Gulak have a chance to outdo Team Hell No. You heard it here first.

This match began at around 6:30. If Daniel Bryan and Cesaro would have gotten 30 minutes to do a match in an empty arena on WWE television, a wrestling purist will get his wings.

Jeff Hardy def. Baron Corbin

When Triple H discussed Sami Zayn’s run in NXT, he sounded like he was talking about his favorite dog that died.

With no people in the building and no crowd noise, you really notice how little control the referee has over anything that happens after the bell.

…now Triple H is doing makeup. The demotion gimmick is real. It’s only a matter of time before he replaces his sledgehammer with a mop.

Jeff Hardy said he was going to be different upon returning. Upon returning, he was the exact same Jeff Hardy, but with a Twist of Fury finish where Corbin landed on his back instead of his front. That was the change. Literally nothing else.

John Cena Faces off with Bray Wyatt

John Cena still got a bigger pop than most of the main roster gets in a full arena. 

John Cena name-checked several WWE NXT stars including Velveteen Dream and Matt Riddle, just to remind people he’s the babyface in this feud. Also, John Cena is a repackaging denier.

I’m so glad this segment happened in an empty arena so there was no chance of some idiot(s) yelling out “What?!” This was a great performance by Bray Wyatt.