5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown Live! In Newcastle (May 17)
2. Second Half Squash
An pre-intermission salvo from some of the show's heavy-hitters made it briefly appear as though WWE were going to skip their usual mid-show break after Daniel Bryan and The Miz delivered a far superior effort shortly before the pause for the cause.
The card is always 'subject to change', but doubled down on adjustments to the planned line-up when Women's Title combatants Carmella and Charlotte were squashed into an eight-woman contest with the blue brand's best of the rest (more on that later) whilst The Bar were Shinsuke Nakamura run-in buddies against a reunited Club in an impromptu six-man tag that parked a heated brawl between 'The Artist' and 'The Phenomenal One' at an annoyingly early stage.
The rushed nature of the latter portion of the card (on a show that still topped out at just over three hours), seemed both unnecessary and unfair.