3 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Dec 19)
Here comes the post-Clash crash.
2017's penultimate episode of SmackDown continued the trend established over the past couple of episodes, with the bookers more than content to coast on inertia before the Royal Rumble's build truly starts.
There wasn't much on the upcoming pay-per-view. Charlotte Flair addressed the historic first women's Rumble match, and the bout's first official participant was announced, but there was nothing from the men's side. Given that next week's Christmas/Boxing day episodes of Raw and SmackDown will largely revolve around garish festive-themed motifs, it'll likely be early 2018 before TV delivers any significant developments.
SmackDown's Clash Of Champions follow-ups were patchy, with several major players completely absent from the show. Regardless, we got the latest of Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon's tension-building talking segments, Dolph Ziggler's US Title celebration, and a huge six-man main event starring most of SD's biggest stars.
While not quite as imbalanced as the past couple of weeks, this episode did nothing to shake the blue brand from its traditional December malaise, and it's clear that we'll have to wait until January for a turnaround. Regardless, let's take a look at the segments that at least tried to rise the bar, and those that kept it rooted to the ground.