10 Things That Have Contributed To WWE SmackDown Live's Fall From Grace

10. Mauro Ranallo Leaving Commentary

It was pretty apparent when the commentary teams for Raw and SmackDown Live were announced following the 2016 WWE Draft that SmackDown got the short end of the stick with Mauro Ranallo, JBL, and David Otunga. Of course, Ranallo has been an amazing asset to WWE since joining the company at the onset of 2016 and working exclusively on SmackDown, but he had his work cut out for him considering he would be alongside the obnoxious JBL and the painfully pointless David Otunga behind the booth every Tuesday night.

SmackDown produced a ton of great moments from 2016 into 2017, and Ranallo was on the call for every single one of them (including AJ Styles' WWE Championship win at Backlash). His commentary style is so different to anyone else's in the company that he successfully gave the blue brand its own feel for the time he was there.

Unfortunately, Ranallo was pulled from SmackDown's announce team in March due to medical reasons with it later being reported he had no desire to return. That was a big blow to the brand's commentary as well as the show itself, and although he's now back in WWE a part of NXT, Tom Phillips is no Mauro Ranallo.