For years, Monday Night Raw kept topping Friday Night SmackDown because of its top tier, A-list superstars and how those superstars deliver punchline performances. Well, that was until SmackDown’s Roman Reigns rebranded from “The Big Dog” to “The Tribal Chief” and tipped the scale so fast that WWE fans began to give SmackDown huge respect.
After Roman Reigns moved to Raw, Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre tried to keep the pace but fans could feel that something was missing. Just when it felt like SmackDown was gradually going back to square one, Randy Orton stepped up by tapping into his menace side to bring back the Apex Predator who listens to nobody but the voices in his head.
Following Randy’s heel turn, SmackDown ratings skyrocketed. Below are some of the fun moments from the March 27 episode of Friday Night SmackDown.
1. Matt Cardona’s Attack On Randy Orton With A Microphone.
The show opened in the most funny way, unimaginable. Before I go into details, here’s a quick recap of what happened previously.
A week before that —which was the March 20 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Randy Orton attacked Matt Cardona for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. It happened that Matt tried to school Randy about his previous attack on Cody Rhodes which happened on the March 12, 2026 episode. But Randy being Randy, took no lessons from anyone so he listened to the “voices in his head” and attacked Matt.
Later that night, Jelly Roll, a friend of both Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes also appointed himself a Reverend/Mediator by taking it upon himself to preach the gospel of good and evil to Randy. At the end of the boring speech, Jelly Roll managed to convince Randy to apologize to Matt.
That same night before the show came to an end, Randy came to the ring and pretended to feel remorse for what he did to Matt and invited Matt to the ring to apologize to him. Only to attack Matt once again. The show ended after Randy made sure he broke Matt’s arm.
Now, for the March 27 episode. The show opened with Randy telling the WWE Universe that he’s not sorry for his recent actions because he’s busy listening to the voices in his head. As he was still talking, he was interrupted by a very pissed Matt Cardona who rushed to the ring with a microphone in his hand. As Randy was busy threatening to break Matt’s other arm, Matt surprised everyone by hitting Randy hard on the head with the microphone he showed up with.
2. Nick Aldis Gave Trick Williams a WrestleMania Spot, And Denied Sami Zayn One.
Since losing the WWE Championship match against Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble, Sami Zayn had been trying to climb his way back up to no avail. To the extent that Trick Williams aka “Whoop That Trick,” or otherwise referred to by his fans as “Mr. Lemon Pepper Steppers,” nicknamed Sami “Mr can’t get the job done.”
The two kept confronting each other at any given chance, and because Sami has not been in a good place mentally since losing the triple threat qualifying match against Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu for the men’s Elimination Chamber, Sami allowed Trick to mess with his head so much that he lost his match against Aleister Black on the March 20 episode.
To crown it all, on the March 27 episode, General Manager Nick Aldis told Trick Williams who is obviously still a rookie on SmackDown that he’s giving him “the ultimate spot in this business.” Nick continued, “Trick, I’m giving you a match at WrestleMania.” While Trick was celebrating the good news, Sami walked in to speak to Nick. And an excited Trick went on to share his WrestleMania news to Sami who congratulated him but turned to Nick to ask about his own WrestleMania match.
Nick blatantly told Sami that due to his current losing streak, “unless something changes, I don’t have a spot for you right now. Sorry.” Trick, who was still present, began to rub salt on the wound of the already devastated Sami by throwing jabs like “Better luck next year,” etc. at Sami who began to slowly walk away. But then, Trick didn’t keep his trap shut as he kept making his WrestleMania plans loudly so that Sami could hear him.
Suddenly, Sami turned back and punched Trick full on the jaw before turning to Nick with a satisfied smile to say, “Hey, I’m gonna have a match at WrestleMania, just you watch.” Later that night, Sami answered the United States Championship open challenge where he defeated Carmelo Hayes. As Sami was walking backstage with his new title on his shoulder, Nick told him that he would be defending his United States title against Trick Williams at WrestleMania 42.
3. Randy Hitting Jelly Roll with the RKO
Due to Matt’s action at the beginning of the show, Randy went to General Manager Nick Aldis to demand a match with Matt. The match took place at the main event of the night but immediately the Referee raised Randy’s hand as the winner of the match, Cody Rhodes’ truck arrived at the arena.
Of course, it was obvious that Cody had vengeance on his mind as he was making his way to the ring but before he could get to the ring, Nick Aldis, accompanied by a team of security tried to prevent him from going further. Cody managed to convince Nick that he just wanted to talk to Randy so he was allowed to join Randy in the ring. However, the moment Cody locked eyes with The Viper, he threw the first punch and the rest was history.
The two kept coming at each other to throw hands despite several attempts by the security to separate them. And oh, the securities weren’t safe either because both Cody and Randy dealt with every security that stood in their way of beating each other up. It continued until Jelly Roll, who for some unknown reason thought that he was the angel of peace that would separate his friends from tearing each other apart, arrived.
When Jelly arrived, he moved to where Randy was to try to stop him from continuing the fight. After that, he moved to Cody’s corner to try to stop Cody too. Mind you, all Jelly did was yell at each man. While Jelly was still talking to Cody, Randy finished off the securities in front of him, moved to Jelly and delivered an RKO to him before running out of the ring with a mischievous smirk on his face.
If you ask me, I’ll say the show opened with a bang and closed with a bigger bang.
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