10 Ups & 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (May 21)

3. Spoiling The Squash

While the match itself wasn't bad (far from it, in fact), that WWE decided to run Roman Reigns vs. Elias II so soon after Money In The Bank stunk.

Sunday's booking was perfect. 'The Big Dog' squashing 'The Drifter' in nine seconds was the right move, as, with Roman's post-return crowd reactions souring (unfortunately), a dull 12-minute chinlock fest would deal further damage to his support levels. Elias is ostensibly a jobber to the stars, too. He's never going to be 'The Guy,' and he's so adept at drawing heat that he can recover from such shellackings in an instant. There's no way a guy like that should look competitive against Roman bloody Reigns.

Re-running the bout 48 hours later undermined that effective piece of booking, and that Reigns would go close to nine minutes with Elias after thrashing him so soundly at MITB makes no sense. Yes, most of Elias' in-roads came from Shane McMahon's interference, and yes, Roman won, but the bout's existence remains problematic.