5 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Dec 26)
Downs...
4. Middle Men
In what surely has to go down as one of the biggest consistent disappointments of 2017, AJ Styles and Kevin Owens were yet again unable to craft the sort of quality contest most fans seem absolutely desperate for them to achieve.
And once more, a storyline involving Shane McMahon had a big hand in ensuring their reverse sweep continued.
'Shane-O-Mac' and Daniel Bryan's authority figure turmoil has an awful lot going for it (more on that later), but the angle sucked all the drama out of what should still have been a blockbuster main event. Worse still, the finish reeked of writing staff taking a Christmas break even if the talent weren't permitted to.
McMahon's mishandling of Sami Zayn's ringside meddling resulted in the referee missing Styles rolling up Owens, and 'KO' grabbing a handful of trunks to claim his own dirt cheap win.
The victory suggested that perhaps the 'Prizefighter' is in line for a Royal Rumble crack at 'The Phenomenal One', but has this latest clunker murdered any anticipation for that before it's even been announced?