14 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Mar 19)

2. Joe Picks The Bones

The gauntlet's finest pre-Bryan stage saw Samoa Joe stomp down to the ring after Rowan had put an almighty beating on Kofi Kingston. It was a perfect setup. The threat level should escalate in bouts like this, and Joe is a tremendous in-ring stalker. He's the ideal guy to pick the bones of a broken, battered opponent, and he spent much of his time in the ring doing that, forcing Kofi into his most defensive role so far.

Wrestlers like R-Truth and Ricochet gathered backstage to watch Kofi battle 'The Destroyer.' His bumping and selling were both on point as Joe hit a particularly gnarly clothesline early on. We got a grisly slo-mo replay of Kofi's head getting spiked into the mat from a Uranage, after which Kingston's spirited fightbacks continued, though Joe, at times, was presented as an insurmountable foe.

But insurmountable he was not. The United States Champion went for the rarely-seen Muscle Buster, and that proved his downfall. Kofi was able to Sunset Flip his way out of the move and into the pinfall, scoring the unlikeliest of victories to the announcers' shock and the building's delight, advancing to face Randy Orton.

The bully fell, and that's okay. Bullies are supposed to fall in the end.