3 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (17 Oct - Results & Review)

1. Way To Palm Off Crown Jewel As Meaningless

Both Cody Rhodes and Tiffany Stratton pretty much said their losses to Seth Rollins and Stephanie Vaquer didn’t mean much last weekend in Australia. Great. OK then. Wow. Way to totally squash your own Crown Jewel concept, guys. WWE are finding new ways to make those championships meaningless, it seems. Does anybody even double check the logic of these statements before they're thrust onto TV?

The fact that Stratton’s promo followed a grand video package recapping Vaquer’s win is annoying. The production staff member responsible for putting that vid together could be rightly irked that Triple H then immediately instructed one of his top female stars to downplay her defeat as nothing to worry about. Urgh. That self-sabotaging, 'who cares about this PLE anyway?!' stuff will never be fine and dandy.

It doesn't help that Tiffany is still struggling to convince as a babyface champ too. She’s so stale, and that’s a shame considering how talented she is. As if having her palm off her loss wasn't bad enough, WWE then immediately ran a ‘Did You Know?’ stat about Stratton’s 17-1 win-loss record in 2025. Yes, they actually did that following a promo that also dumped on Crown Jewel’s results.

Senseless would just about cover it.

Both Vic Joseph and Corey Graves (this week's commentary team) worked overtime to justify what Tiffany was saying, and that only heightened thoughts that Crown Jewel's outcomes didn't matter at all. All of this was extremely counterproductive and frankly daft. Sure, who gives a toss that Vaquer beat Stratton anyway? WWE don't seem to, so why should you?

Behave, creative team. Get AI to write your promos, or something. Ahem.