10 Ups & 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Feb 19)
3. Here We Go Again
Andrade lost to Aleister Black in a condensed throwback to one of their old NXT battles last night, and while the match itself hit the right notes for a clash of its length, the booking is problematic.
WWE have spent the past few weeks rebuilding Andrade after a listless 2018. He has once again found himself rubbing shoulders with genuine main eventers, entered a rivalry with the legendary Rey Mysterio, bested the lucha libre icon in one awesome match, and drawn with him in another. A rubber match beckoned (and still does), perhaps even at WrestleMania, and with talk that WWE wanted to use the former 'Cien' as Mysterio's long-term replacement at the top of their Latin American talent pyramid, his future finally looked bright.
... so why the hell did they have him job out to Black last night?
Black is a great wrestler. Phenomenal, even. His unique gimmick and hard-hitting wrestling style are easy sells, but he's a complete nobody to most of the main roster audience, and in having Andrade lose to somebody like that, WWE are telling these fans that Andrade is a nobody too.
50/50 booking is a plague, and stuff like this is why they can't get people over anymore. If they wanted to give Black a win, they should've had him murder Tye Dillinger in two minutes, not derail a fellow rising star.