4 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Oct 24)

Shane's siege mentality drags Team Blue to mediocrity.

by Andy H Murray
Sami Zayn Shane McMahon
WWE.com

SmackDown's build towards Survivor Series started without a big, all-encompassing angle like the blue brand's invasion of Raw on Monday, but the show wasn't short of developments.

Commissioner Shane McMahon explained his villainous actions from the night before, and booked Sami Zayn vs. Randy Orton for the main event. The winner would qualify for the brand's Survivor Series team, and elsewhere, Daniel Bryan was able to determine who'd captain Team Blue's women's faction, as well as warn Shane of Raw's imminent revenge.

We saw another rematch as Baron Corbin faced Sin Cara in a non-title bout developments in the tag division as Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin scored a nefarious win, and a rare in-ring appearance from a Singh Brother. Unsurprisingly, Sunil didn't fare well against AJ Styles.

It wasn't a bad show, but SmackDown certainly felt like a step down from the previous week's quality, and the brand's '#UnderSiege' mantra already feels overdone. We might as well get used to it, though: Survivor Series is still three-and-a-half weeks away, giving WWE many more opportunities to run it into the ground.

Let's look at the positives and negatives from this week's show.

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Andy has been with WhatCulture for six years and is currently WhatCulture's Senior Wrestling Reporter. A writer, presenter, and editor with 10+ years of experience in online media, he has been a sponge for all wrestling knowledge since playing an old Royal Rumble 1992 VHS to ruin in his childhood. Having previously worked for Bleacher Report, Andy specialises in short and long-form writing, video presenting, voiceover acting, and editing, all characterised by expert wrestling knowledge and commentary. Andy is as much a fan of 1985 Jim Crockett Promotions as he is present-day AEW and WWE - just don't make him choose between the two.