6 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (13 Feb - Results & Review)
Love was in the air for some segments/matches on this week's WWE SmackDown. SOME.
Cody Rhodes is one step closer to a WWE Title match at WrestleMania 42. That sentence will either delight or horrify you, which perhaps shows the weakness in Triple H's booking during the road to the big dance this April. Indeed, management has held meetings with staff to try and galvanise the push towards 'Mania, but they're ignoring the elephants (plural) in the room.
Ticket prices remain insanely high, and the creative has been a little all over the place across both major brands lately.
This week's SmackDown had 2 goals: Lock in some more names for respective male and female Elimination Chamber matches and bolster some on the undercard who are honestly making the best of limited screentime. In that sense, it was a success, but your patience may be running out on some of these formulaic Triple Threat qualifiers. Being fair, the roster is strong enough to offset that rinse and repeat style, and only one of the bouts on this week's show could be considered a slight struggle (which wasn't even champ and challenger's fault!).
Top names like Cody, Drew McIntyre and more are shining brightly in the face of lacklustre storytelling, which should clue everyone in about just how good these guys are as performers. Elsewhere, the likes of Kit Wilson, Tama Tonga, Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams deserve a ton of praise for how they're going about business.
Here's all the good and bad from this week's SmackDown. Fun-packed matches galore, some logical storytelling and more await you.