9 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Jan 1)

Downs...

4. Lana Is A Wrestler

While most of Rusev's United States Championship celebration worked (more on that later), one nitpick hampered the Shinsuke Nakamura continuation's believability.

Lana is a trained professional wrestler. She's a part-timer between the ropes but has worked 27 televised bouts over the past couple of years, taking countless bumps in the process. Though she sits on low on the women's wrestling totem pole, she isn't an NPC, and therefore shouldn't sell like one.

Yet this is exactly what 'The Ravishing Russian' did after falling from Nakamura's back when her husband blasted the former United States Champion like a Machka Kick. One small knock put Lana out for entirely too long. Nakamura landed on her, but he isn't exactly Viscera, and he took the brunt of the kick anyway. Still, Lana sold it like death.

Though having Rusev accidentally hurt his wife to amplify the Nakamura heat was a good idea, this wasn't the right execution. WWE don't need to protect Lana of all people, but she sold that bump like 76-year-old Mae Young would during the Attitude Era, and that's all kinds of wrong.