12 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Mar 5)

1. Nobody Cares

Last night's SmackDown presented a sub-one-minute squash between Naomi and Mandy Rose as a way to warm the latter up before her title fight with Asuka. It was sharp, with the babyface mounting a slither of early offence, getting herself distracted by Sonya Deville, then finding Rose's knee planted in her face before she was driven into the mat for the 1-2-3. Simple, and it should have been effective.

But nobody in the arena gave a f*ck. This thing played out to cricket chirps, with the building in near-silence as Rose ran through her opponent in what was supposed to be an emphatic victory. It's safe to say the Jimmy Uso pseudo-love triangle storyline didn't get over, then.

While the crowd were oddly quiet at various points elsewhere in the night, this was them at their worst. This column is usually gentler than most when it comes to such things. It's WWE's job to convince the audience to make a noise and create an atmosphere. They must do so through good storytelling, and when buildings don't respond to what they're being presented, it's usually the creative team's fault.

In this case, WWE haven't put anywhere near enough effort into building Rose up as a threat to Asuka. A Fastlane squash might be on the cards.