8 Things We Learned From The WrestleMania Go-Home Smackdown Live! (March 28)
The last pre-Mania acts from the blue brand...
It's good enough that the blue brand can even host a satisfying final show before WrestleMania after years in the wilderness producing half-baked jobber shows or Axxess tie-ins in the show's former home on Thursday and Friday nights.
But more than that, the creative pendulum from the 2016 Brand Extension has swung in Smackdown Live!'s favour, with several hugely satisfying storylines due to culminate at the 'Show of Shows' in matches that will certainly deliver in drama despite possible in-ring shortcomings.
Though arguably falling short to Monday Night Raw in terms of star power, the blue brand houses some of the more dynamic contests occurring at Sunday's supershow.
Battles featuring Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, John Cena, Nikki Bella, The Miz, Maryse, AJ Styles and Shane McMahon represent several months of dedicated and nuanced work from the performers across multiple storylines and matches that have lead them to their WrestleMania destiny.
And though the tag and women's divisions are arguably far healthier than their Raw counterparts, the multi-person scenarios the rosters have found themselves slotted into will leave several Smackdown standouts looking to steal the show from underneath the headliners.
As the very last main roster stop before the 'Showcase of the Immortals', here are 8 things we learned from the WrestleMania go-home Smackdown Live!
8. Making Up The Numbers
Like Royal Rumble and Survivor Series before it, Smackdown Live!’s undercard have been left to beef up a multi-man match, with the usual suspects all entering the Andre The Giant Battle Royal as likely fodder for Raw’s Braun Strowman.
Following the tag team title switch between American Alpha and The Usos on last week’s episode of the show, Jimmy and Jey staged a guerrilla campaign on Talking Smack alongside Daniel Bryan and Renee Young to fight their way on to the main card, but Tuesday’s edition of the broadcast confirmed the calls had fallen on deaf ears.
Thrown into completely inconsequential roles in a 10-man tag match with Tyler Breeze, Fandango, Dolph Ziggler, Heath Slater, Rhyno, Mojo Rawley and the former champions Jordan and Gable, the tag team champions got to be on the losing end of the token losers match on the final show before WrestleMania.
For all WWE have done to rehabilitate tag team wrestling in the last year or so, this sent out completely the wrong message to those thinking just being a great tandem was enough to earn you a spot. Be warned, Revival.