WWE SmackDown 3/6/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show that sometimes gives us Drew McIntyre winning the WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes and sometimes switches things up and gives us Cody Rhodes winning the WWE Championship from Drew McIntyre! Yes, the WrestleMania picture has been well and truly shaken up, as it will now be Rhodes vs. Randy Orton at "The Showcase of the Immortals" — but that's far from the only thing that happened this week on the blue brand! There was also a tag team turmoil match to determine new No. 1 contenders, a women's tag team match that wasn't technically a No. 1 contender's match but probably should have been, and also Danhausen was here!

We'll cover all that and more here in the column, though there are some things — like Carmelo Hayes' latest open challenge — that we will not cover, because they didn't grab our attention in an overly positive or negative way. For a comprehensive look at everything that went down, check out our "SmackDown" results page. For our opinions and analysis of the stuff that stood out, this is the place to be! Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 3/6/26 episode of "WWE SmackDown!"

I'm going to be real honest: I was totally under the assumption that the match between Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss and Giulia and Kiana James was indeed a Number One Contenders Match for the Women's Tag Team Championship without even thinking about it. Given that Nia Jax and Lash Legend had outright said they were ready for any and all challengers just moments before this match, it made total sense to me that these two teams who have been eyeing the Women's Tag team Championship would be fighting for the right to become the next challengers.

You can imagine my shock when I found out AFTER the match that this hadn't been billed as an official Number One Contenders Match between Flair and Bliss and Giulia and James seeing as Nick Aldis didn't clearly state that it was. All four women have had some combination of matches with one another over the past several weeks in both singles and tag team matches, so it feels like it's about time to do something to increase the stakes of their matches even if it's as simple as adding a Women's Tag Team Championship Number One Contenders stipulation. It all fell a little bit flat for me, and was far from my favourite part of this episode of "SmackDown" on the whole.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Can we get Fraxiom and the Motor City Machine Guns (MCMG) in the ring again, please? Like, expeditiously?

Friday's episode of "WWE SmackDown" was one filled to the brim with championship implications. Carmelo Hayes bested El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss somehow earned the right to challenge for Nia Jax and Lash Legend's WWE Women's Tag Team Championships in a non-Number One Contender match, and a new WWE Undisputed Champion was crowned, for crying out loud! In a card so stacked with title talk and championship matches, it would've been very easy for Friday's Tag Team Turmoil match to fade into the background, to not hold a candle to the rest of the evening. Then, Nathan Frazer, Axiom, Alex Shelley, and Chris Sabin made their entrances.

If you frequent these columns, then you'll know I'm a fan of "flippy" wrestling. It's not for everybody, from both a viewer and a wrestler standpoint: not everyone finds the crescendo of adrenaline that comes with this style exciting (even though this kind of athleticism is what sets wrestling apart from, say, MMA or UFC), and not every wrestler can perform these twists and turns without being obnoxious about it (if at all). However, when the stars align, and you get a receptive viewer in front of some true flippy wrestling masters and their in-ring art? This is what wrestling is about.

I somewhat dismissed technical, combat sports-oriented wrestlers with the aforementioned UFC/MMA comparison, but allow me to applaud Fraxiom and MCMG for their technique. These four are absolute masters of the ring. They're doing these insanely complicated sequences like it's just another Tuesday at the office. Fraxiom moved like rushing water in a river when they nailed MCMG with a DDT/Dropkick combo. Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin's Crossface/Dropkick combo altered my brain chemistry. These men didn't miss a single beat in this match, and somehow, in the individualistic art of professional wrestling, looked even better working together than they ever did apart.

I know people have reservations about the not-so-hidden secret of slapping. Some promotions will entirely blacklist you from their future shows if you dare slap your leg mid-Superkick. To a point, I understand. It's a very public pulling-back-the-curtain move that threatens the sanctity of kayfabe — it threatens to lift the veil between industry secrets and the idealistic dreams of a crowd. Fraxiom and MCMG were not shy with their slaps, and for me...it added to the experience. This is wrestling ASMR to me.

Fraxiom and MCMG's Tag Team Turmoil performance is an acquired taste, but as a sommelier of said taste, it was incredible. The rest of the match? I don't want to talk about it...

Written by Angeline Phu

Since MFT defeated Wyatt Sicks for the tag titles in January, the "SmackDown" tag division hasn't been very active. They had one tag team end when Tommaso Ciampa left the company. The last few weeks, various tag teams have been in backstage segments to ask what was wrong with Johnny Gargano, what's in the crate?, and learn how to watch a PLE on the ESPN Unlimited app. An excellent use of your division.

During a backstage segment with Nick Aldis, we learned that R-Truth and Damien Priest would be teaming up to compete in a tag team turmoil match that involved actual tag teams. The match started off promising with MCMG facing Fraxiom (which my talented colleague just discussed). Then there was a botch that led to MCMG getting eliminated; a mistake a veteran tag team shouldn't be making. It wouldn't be WWE without match interference and tonight it was courtesy of one half of the tag champions, Tama Tonga and his brother, Tanga Loa. This led to the Wyatt Sicks being eliminated. In the end, Priest and Truth becoming Number 1 contenders because of course they are. Why would an actual tag team get the opportunity on "The Road to WrestleMania?"

It's frustrating (and really annoying) that WWE has wasted so many talented teams for weeks only to have Faux DIY win. If they wanted to make it exciting, they could've brought back Street Profits to be in the match and had them win. But, no. We're making Priest a comedy act and while it won't be as bad as Braun and Nicholas, Priest & Truth will probably beat MFT for the titles and defend them at Mania, while MCMG and Street Profits get left off the card for the second consecutive year. A few weeks ago in this very column, I lamented about WWE wasting five talented men. They're continuing to do so. This is not a slight at Truth or Priest, but rather wasting actual tag teams. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Written by Samantha Schipman

It should really come as no surprise that Danhausen has already become one of the more entertaining aspects of this week's shows, with a general off-the-cuff hilarity that just works. What is a surprise, however, is how excited I was left for the pairing of The Miz and Danhausen.

Danhausen appeared on Friday to give Nick Aldis a fright and, like he had done with Adam Pearce on Monday, a list of demands. Much like Pearce had done, Aldis looked around desperately to find someone to offload the little demon onto, settling on The Miz. Now, at first I really didn't want to see Danhausen become the next victim of the Miz-Vortex, a la Carmelo Hayes. But, and it happens more often than I would like to admit, I was wrong. What a really entertaining pair these guys are.

Danhausen recognized the star power behind the name Miz, which makes him a lot more complimentary than half of the roster, and Miz took himself as seriously as he normally does, turning down an opportunity to mentor the future WWE Champion.

Emboldened by his curse on Dominik Mysterio, resulting in him losing the Intercontinental title to Penta on Monday, Danhausen threatened much the same upon Miz. Though one isn't quite sure how Miz being cursed will effect his prospects, considering he hasn't won a singles match on broadcast since February 2024.

Nevertheless, Danhausen and Miz is a really great pairing, they had a really funny yet short segment, and Danhausen continues to be a bright spot of fun on three-hour shows that otherwise feel like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Look, obviously Danhausen is a comedy attraction for the most part. He can wrestle, but he's not a world-beater and isn't going to be staging five-star classics (unless the Performance Center really is that good).

But what he does do is entertain, and like it or not that is a core difference with WWE and other wrestling promotions. Whether it's for five seconds or a few minutes, you can't really go wrong with a segment involving him. In many ways, I just described the Miz down to a tee. So it literally is the perfect pairing. Well, for now. Time will tell whether or not it continues. Until then, great stuff. Love that Danhausen.

Written by Max Everett

He's not actually dead, but with the way he was pimped out to Oba Femi, Johnny Gargano might as well be.

I can't imagine how Friday night felt if you were a fan of Paul "Triple H" Levesque's critically-acclaimed Black and Gold era of "NXT:" the one that featured Johnny Wrestling as its golden boy. I can't imagine how you would feel if you were Johnny Wrestling himself, a man who was touted as the next big star in Black and Gold "NXT," just to be released from WWE following a poor main roster port — just to be brought back to WWE by the man who booked you spectacularly in Black and Gold "NXT," just to be betrayed by him. No toxic situationship could do anything that would compare to the emotional rollercoaster Gargano, and all Gargano fans, must be feeling right now. Judas Iscariot could not have come up with the level of betrayal Triple H has.

After an abysmal time on "SmackDown," between taking loss after loss to losing his friend and career partner Tommaso Ciampa to falling into a deep, unglamorous depressive state, Gargano marched out to the ring Friday following a pep talk from his wife, Candice LeRae. He challenged anyone in the back to come out and lock up with the infamous Johnny Wrestling, and, I'll be honest, I saw a glimmer of hope. I thought that we were about to see the rise of the Black and Gold Gargano the ancient texts spoke of — of what our ancestors heralded him to be. You know what we got? We got Femi strutting to the ring and Gargano practically wetting himself as he was pummeled to a pulp in the corner — all while wearing a T-Shirt and grey skinny jeans. They killed Johnny Gargano on live television while he wore some Hollister-grade skinny jeans. Can you imagine being Gargano right now?

Jokes aside, this is not how you build up wrestlers. Like, even for Femi, this doesn't look great. Yes, Gargano is a legend in the eyes of wrestling fans, but beating a very weakened, shell-of-himself version of such a legend sires no infamy. Femi isn't a big dog for beating a Gargano who couldn't even be bothered to put pomade in his hair this evening. This does nothing for Femi, it strips Johnny Wrestling of any credibility he might have left, and I was left feeling more heartbroken than any break-up I've experienced has ever left me.

I try to stray away from hard-and-fast doctrines about wrestling, because, famously, anything can happen. Squash matches, however, tend to be the one thing I just cannot enjoy. This is no exception. RIP Johnny, we hardly knew you.

Written by Angeline Phu

I'm always going to love a major title change on an episode of television, even when it's Cody Rhodes getting the Undisputed WWE Championship back once again, something I'm sure a lot of us figured was going to happen. This match went a lot differently than I expected, and while I certainly did not love all the crazy referee bump nonsense that went on, this was actually a lot less messy than I expected.

After all my theorizing in recent days of how this might go down for the Undisputed WWE Championship match at WrestleMania to become a multi-man match involving both Rhodes, McIntyre, Orton, Jacob Fatu, and maybe even Sami Zayn, we didn't get much outside interference here at all. I don't even know how much Fatu counts, as he just took a chair out of McIntyre's hands and got out of the ring. He didn't beat McIntyre down. He didn't help Rhodes get the victory.

In the end, Rhodes hit the super Cody Cutter off the top rope, followed by a Cross Rhodes for the victory, and now, we have Rhodes vs. Randy Orton at WrestleMania. It kind of feels like, especially with Orton's backstage segment with Sami Zayn tonight where Zayn asked him "how he does it," Orton is turning heel for the match. That would make things even more interesting, but I can't say I'm mad about this 'Mania bout, especially if it means we get McIntyre vs. Fatu. I think everyone pretty much assumed this was happening tonight, but I liked it because it didn't have a crazy amount of interference. If ref bumps had to do some heavy lifting here, so be it.

While technically, sure, McIntyre and Fatu could be added into the title match on the "Grandest Stage of Them All," it makes even less sense now, and I just don't see it anymore. I think WWE is finally streamlining things to get their WrestleMania tickets sold, and as someone who likes to know things well in advance, that is fine by me. I also grew up a huge fan of Orton, and I really hope to see him get to world title number 15. While that could have been accomplished with McIntyre as champion, I get why WWE wanted Rhodes in both the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber, and now, as champ at 'Mania. I'm all for Orton beating Rhodes next month, and I'm interested to see how their story plays out going into Las Vegas.

Written by Daisy Ruth