7 Ups & 2 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Jan 19 - Results & Review)
Roman Reigns comes up short and WWE teases a WrestleMania XL match on SmackDown.
WWE deserves credit for some of the secondary stories they have brewing in the background during build towards Royal Rumble. Triple H's creative team is laying foundations for SmackDown's future by having Nick Aldis antagonise "Wise Man" Paul Heyman and AJ Styles vs. LA Knight come across as Peter Griffin vs. that f'n chicken guy.
It's all good stuff.
One glance at the 'Ups' count should tell you everything you need to know about how successful this week's blue brand effort was. WWE spent two hours getting it right everywhere except in the Women's Tag-Team Title division. That, rather sadly, is still an absolute mess. Show of hands for who else has given up hope for those belts?!
Midcarders were repackaged (or re-repackaged), a revived and reworked faction is slowly becoming a force to be reckoned with (probably not the one you're thinking of!), and there's just a lot to like about SmackDown at the moment. It didn't hurt that typically AWOL champs like Roman Reigns and Logan Paul were in the house.
Here's all the good and bad from Smackers' penultimate stop pre-Rumble.
Downs...
2. No Reaction For The Champs
Well, this sucks.
Kayden Carter and Katana Chance were greeted with almost total silence in Atlanta. That's not said with any glee, but it speaks to the lack of focus WWE has put on these women as a whole. One or two short clubbing vignettes was never going to be enough to make people care about them as characters.
So, they like going out and having a good time. What else? Like, why should fans get invested in Carter and Chance as human beings holding those Women's Tag Titles, y'know? Their characterisation is as paper thin as you're likely to get from pro wrestling, and it's a problem hardly exclusive to the champs.
Creative then followed up on their own apathetic hype by delivering a match that outright failed to get folks excited. Anyone willing Tony Khan to start a women's tag scene in AEW should be careful what they wish for. It's become a painful part of WWE programming.