WWE SmackDown results, recap, grades: Zayn, Owens retain titles vs. The Usos; surprising start to draft

Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes were among the superstars drafted on Friday night

The future of WWE is a little more clear following night one of the 2023 WWE draft. Major superstars like undisputed WWE universal champion Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes were drafted, setting into motion a world heavyweight title tournament to crown Raw's new lead player.

Friday's show was headlined by a WrestleMania 39 main event rematch as Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defended their undisputed tag team championships against The Usos. The match was a make-or-break moment for The Usos as The Tribal Chief grows increasingly impatient with their recent shortcomings.

SmackDown also featured a swathe of Hall of Famers and familiar faces who served as guest presenters for the draft. Rob Van Dam, Shawn Michaels and Teddy Long are a few of the fan favorites who returned on Friday night.

CBS Sports was with you all night with recaps and highlights of all the action from the American Bank Center Arena in Corpus Christi, Texas.

WWE Draft Night 1 results

Only 50% of the WWE roster was eligible to be drafted on Friday's episode of SmackDown. The Usos, for example, were unable to be selected on night one. The other half of the roster will be unlocked on Monday as the draft continues on Raw. Eligible superstars that were not assigned a brand on Friday will be selected in a supplementary draft on Saturday.

Round	SmackDown	Raw
1	The Bloodline (Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa and Paul Heyman)	Cody Rhodes
2	Bianca Belair	Becky Lynch
3	Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford)	Imperium (GUNTHER, Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci)
4	Edge	Matt Riddle
5	Bobby Lashley	Drew McIntyre
6	The O.C. (AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows and Michin)	The Miz
7	Damage CTL (Bayley, Dakota Kai and Iyo Sky)	Shinsuke Nakamura
8	Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn	Indi Hartwell

Now that Reigns has been drafted to SmackDown, the newly introduced world heavyweight championship will be exclusive to Raw. A tournament will commence to crown a world heavyweight champion with the finals taking place at Night of Champions on Saturday, May 27.

Friendship overcomes family

Reigns, Heyman and Sikoa – collectively as The Bloodline – were selected as the No. 1 draft picks to SmackDown. For unexplained reasons, The Usos were separated in the draft and locked to Monday.

Following the opening round of picks, The Usos hit the stage to address Reigns. Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso acknowledged that Reigns was not answering their texts, but that they would remedy things by retrieving their tag team championships from Owens and Zayn.

Queue the tag team champions. Zayn asked The Usos how peculiar it was that Reigns has ignored his two cousins ever since they lost at WrestleMania 39. Zayn also said how telling it was that The Bloodline was drafted to SmackDown without The Usos. Jimmy Uso warned Zayn that Owens would leave him out to dry the moment the Canadians lose the tag team championships. Owens shut it all down, expressing how sick he was of all the talk and eager to let actions speak.

Special counsel Heyman tried to motivate The Usos backstage, but his underhanded remarks clearly bothered Jey Uso. Heyman told the twins that they would either return to the island of relevancy or be cast out to the ocean of irrelevancy. Heyman described their loss at WrestleMania 39 as a stain of failure and warned that Reigns would not tolerate more shortcomings. To that end, Heyman alluded that Sikoa would ensure The Usos' their success.

The Usos were revving up for the main event later that evening. Heyman stamped out their enthusiasm by informing the duo that Sikoa would be kept backstage during their match. 

Undisputed WWE tag team championships – Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn (c) def. The Usos via pinfall after Zayn hit Jimmy Uso with a Helluva Kick. Driven by revenge, The Usos pushed the pace immediately and laid out the tag champions with super kicks. The challenger isolated Owens, repeatedly attacking his recently injured leg. Owens eventually wrangled himself free and made the hot tag to Zayn. The exiled "Honorary Uce" took the fight to The Usos, nearly pinning Jey Uso with a sunset flip and Blue Thunder Bomb. Later in the match, Owens – still selling his leg injury – hit an amazing Fisherman's Buster off the middle rope on Jimmy Uso followed by a Swanton Bomb.

A shot backstage captured a live phone call between Heyman and Reigns. Heyman, sporting a wicked smile, informed Sikoa that now was his time. 

Back in the ring, Jey Uso was forced to break up a pinfall after Owens hit the pop-up powerbomb. Zayn dove over the ropes but ate a nasty superkick by Jey Uso. Owens hit Jimmy Uso with a stunner in the ring, but Jimmy shockingly kicked at out two. Sikoa appeared on the ramp, but Riddle intervened and removed The Bloodline's enforcer from the equation. A succession of super kicks nearly cemented things for The Usos, but a labored Owens got his shoulder up. Owens brawled with The Usos long enough for Zayn to recover. Zayn got the tag, blitzed the ring, cracked Jimmy Uso with a Helluva Kick and scored the three-count to retain their tag team championships.

I'll have to take the crowd's word for it that the match was indeed "awesome" because three commercial breaks severely impacted the televised viewing experience. It was very disappointing as a consumer to miss arguably the biggest SmackDown headliner of 2023, a WrestleMania main event rematch. What fans at home could see was great but the flow was impeded significantly. The right team won and it'll be interesting to see how Reigns takes The Bloodline's most recent setback. The draft picks were mostly reasonable but there were a couple of glaring omissions. Namely, Omos, who wrestled Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania and meets Seth Rollins at Backlash. The opening picks with Triple H were very drab, but the guest presenters spiced things up. A very solid episode of SmackDown with a few noticeable issues. Grade: B

What else happened on WWE SmackDown?

• LA Knight def. Butch via pinfall after spiking Butch with the BFT.
• Street Profits def. LWO (Joaquin Wilde and Cruz Del Toro) and Braun Strowman and Ricochet via pinfall after Ford hit a frog splash on Ricochet.
• Zelina Vega def. Sonya Deville via pinfall with an over-rotated schoolboy pin. Rhea Ripley tried to attack Vega, her Backlash opponent, post-match with a Riptide, but Vega reversed it into a DDT. Rey Mysterio and Santos Escobar gave Vega a pep-talk backstage.
• The O.C. laid out The Viking Raiders and Valhalla after the bad guys interrupted Styles.