5 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Dec 26)
Ups...
5. Rumblings
Strong storyline development wasn't in short supply this week, as SmackDown Live! used the new year and specifically the Royal Rumble as a booking crutch for most of the key issues on the show.
Best buds Shinsuke Nakamura and Randy Orton were over their Clash Of Champions defeat to Kevin Owens because of course they were, but popped up long enough to enter themselves into the 2018 incarnation of the 30-man war alongside first Raw name Elias.
Natalya's return from a self-imposed nine day exile wasn't really touched upon on television, but her post-show 'I don't feel like answering their questions anymore' explanation sounded like a diversionary whitewash of the entire thing. Regardless, it freed her up for the historic women's equivalent, joining Naomi, Ruby Riott and Asuka thus far.
Elsewhere, Dolph Ziggler's abdication was dealt with by Daniel Bryan at the top of the show in a rare acknowledgment of the importance of both the title and the (ex-) titleholder.
For many years, WWE cruelly robbed their own prizes of prestige by neglecting such tropes whenever a belt lost an owner, instead electing to abandon the word 'belt' entirely as ludicrous preservation device. Recent returns to simpler solutions have been satisfying to say the least.