10 Ways SmackDown Live! Can Recover Before 2018

3. Nowhere Men

Aiden English Sami Zayn Kevin Owens
WWE.com

Somehow becoming an even more deadly patch of quicksand than Monday Night Raw's third hour, the SmackDown Live! undercard is inarguably bottom of the main roster pile.

In November 2001, Mick Foley cut a largely forgotten, embittered promo on Monday Night Raw about the overall state of the company's direction at large, noting that titles changed hands with such frequency that the belts no longer mattered and those without straps held even less value. Regrettably, nearly 16 years later, this can now be applied to nearly every superstar.

It has taken some time and something resembling effort, but WWE have made just about every non-title match they present on television or pay-per-view completely irrelevant. There are exceptions, of course. But a) most of those exceptions are on Raw and b) a healthy majority of those involve Braun Strowman.

Aiden English, Tye Dillinger, The Colons, Erick Rowan, Luke Harper, The Hype Bros, Dolph Ziggler Sami Zayn and Sin Cara may as well not exist, so pointless that they currently are in the happy smiley fantasy land curated by Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan. The Ascension survive, bizarrely, through their role as the Fashion Police's comedic foil, and Baron Corbin's career could frankly still go either way after his John Cena-infused humbling either side of SummerSlam.

SmackDown Live! should use 'em or lose 'em, for the benefit of fans and the failing superstars themselves.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett