5 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Oct 17)

Downs...

3. Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Becky Lynch Charlotte Naomi Lana
WWE.com

The SmackDown booking team's inability to book their talented women's division in anything other than faceless multi-person matches, feuds, and segments is becoming cliché. They'll throw the odd singles bout together every now and then, but for the most part, SD's women have been running in a hamster's wheel for much of 2017, and it's entirely down to offerings like this.

Natalya, Lana, and Tamina teamed to face Naomi, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch last night. There's plenty of great workers in that group, but it's impossible to grab the spotlight when sharing it with six others. Thus, their match was a textbook SmackDown women's division clash. Not bad, not good: just forgettable.

We got a little story development with Nattie grabbing a chair after the match, but Charlotte ran her off, and that was all. There was no sign of them anywhere else on the show. They got one dull six-person tag match, a brief follow-up, and nothing more.

Isn't this supposed to be 'The Land Of Opportunity?'. Perhaps treating the women's division with a little more care would make that tagline seem like less of a farce.

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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.