12 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Feb 12)
Kofi Kingston steals the show in EPIC gauntlet match performance.
WWE were presented with two significant problems to solve on last night's SmackDown:-
1. Overcoming their habitual laziness when it comes to booking pay-per-view go-home shows.
2. Finding a suitable replacement for lovable underdog Mustafa Ali in the WWE Championship Elimination Chamber.
Not only were they successful in ticking both boxes, but they delivered one of SmackDown's best episodes in recent memory at the same time, with only a trio of minor, minor complaints marring what could have been a perfect Ups-to-Downs ratio.
Kofi Kingston was the obvious MVP on a night largely built around an hour-long gauntlet match. The layout was designed to highlight him, but he left nothing in the tank with a marathon performance echoing that put forth by Seth Rollins in last year's Raw gauntlet, dispatching a number of big-name opponents in the process.
Elsewhere, we got Charlotte Flair's obligatory gloating promo as she basked in her own glory after stealing Becky Lynch's WrestleMania 35 main event. There was more build to the Women's Tag Title Chamber, The Usos went face-to-face with 'The Best Tag Team In The World' on McMiz TV, and Daniel Bryan raged against the masses, but there was no sign of Asuka. Again.
Suddenly, Elimination Chamber doesn't feel like such a C-level pay-per-view...