3 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Mar 6)
Zayn's betrayal highlights another mediocre night.
With Fastlane just six days away, WWE produced another two hours of lukewarm television last night, continuing the brand's ongoing creative malaise in 2018.
Road Dogg and his writers did little to generate excitement for the weekend's pay-per-view, but such is life in the Network era. WWE already have your monthly subscription money. There's no motivation to go all-out and try to sell the big show anymore, so why even bother?
The WWE Championship program dominated, and surprisingly, after weeks of near-unwatchable dreck, the main eventers delivered each of SmackDown's biggest highlights. On top of this, the company gave us a pre-advertised in-ring confrontation between Charlotte Flair and Ruby Riott, Becky Lynch vs. Carmella, and a singles clash between US Title hopefuls Jinder Mahal and Randy Orton. No tag teams, though. It's not like they're the most interesting thing on the brand or anything...
Shinsuke Nakamura (absent once more) vs. Rusev and Becky Lynch/Naomi vs. Natalya/Carmella were quietly added to Fastlane, which is shaping up to be one of the year's least interesting pay-per-views. We can only hope the brand find another gear soon: with NXT, Raw, and even 205 Live shining lately, it has become WWE's D-show...