5 Ups & 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Oct 2)
Mediocrity sends SmackDown to Super Show-Down in disappointing fashion.
Lo and behold, it exists: a 2018 episode of WWE SmackDown that doesn't finish with a net positive score in this weekly column.
Last night wasn't necessarily bad, but the brand's bar is high. We've come to expect a certainly level of quality, efficiency, and effectiveness from SmackDown, so when those standards aren't met, mediocre episodes like the one we've just been served feel like a big disappointment.
Though there was plenty of quality peppered throughout, it was a typical Network era go-home show in that it built little excitement for Saturday's Super Show-Down. Still, we got new material from Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, who closed the evening with another big throwdown, clarification on what actually happened "that one night in Milwaukee," and the latest developments in the Samoa Joe/AJ Styles soap opera saga.
United States Champion Shinsuke Nakamura was nowhere to be found, further diminishing his importance to the blue brand. This wasn't the night's biggest letdown, though. A disproportionately high perfect of SmackDown's matches and segments failed to hit the mark, a number of which came from the brand's biggest storylines.
Let's dive into the highs and lows...