5 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Nov 21)
Downs...
2. Did It, Done It, Doing It Again
Roman Reigns' Intercontinental Title win aside, Paige's WWE return was the biggest story to emerge from this week's Raw. Back on our screens for the first time in 18 months, the former Divas Champion introduced two NXT debutants in Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, with the new trio launching unprovoked attacks on Sasha Banks, Mickie James, and Women's Champion Alexa Bliss.
We saw a near identical recreation of the angle on SmackDown, with newcomers Sarah Logan, Ruby Riot, and Liv Morgan running roughshod. They started by assaulting Naomi and Becky Lynch backstage, before beating Natalya and Charlotte Flair down following their SmackDown Women's Title match. This would've been fine in isolation, but it happened just 24 hours after the infinitely more impactful Raw angle, and therefore left a bad impression.
It's great to see so many new faces making a mark, but WWE essentially copy/pasted the previous night's debuts. That's so uncreative, it's insulting. The brand split should prevent such rehashes, but this was an unwanted flashback to the days when SmackDown was no more than Raw Lite, with multiple segments and matches recreated on the apparent B-show.
Unfortunately, this was a problem prevalent throughout the entire evening...