3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Jan 29)
Braun Strowman returns and WWE ruin a dream match on SmackDown's road to Royal Rumble.
The big man is back, but on which brand?
That's a question for WWE following last night's episode of SmackDown. The company decided to book a Braun Strowman return and stage a mini-Raw invasion of blue brand territory (because that's fresh) before Sunday's Royal Rumble, and fans almost got a dream match out of it. Sadly, any social media excitement for AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan was ruined by what happened next.
It's probably obvious by looking at the totals for 'Ups' and 'Downs', but this was not a great episode. In fact, you can consider it 'SmackDown: The Survivor Series Edition' - in other words, WWE totally phoned it in here and lazily slept their way through two hours of content. One got the impression that creative would've skipped this week had Vince McMahon given them that option.
As usual, it wasn't all bad. Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens continued to set the scene for their 'Last Man Standing' war this weekend, there was passion for the importance of the Rumble, and some of SmackDown's women got back to what they do best...