3 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Jan 17)

Ups...

3. A Sign Of Things To Come?

Smackdown opened with Shane McMahon, who had been advertised as kicking off the show with a major announcement. It turned out that the announcement was the return of the Elimination Chamber (at the eponymous PPV, two weeks after Royal Rumble), and that the WWE Championship would be on the line in the match.

The Elimination Chamber was always best when it was used to determine a contender rather than a champion, but with single brand PPVs, such an announcement would tip their hand about who's winning the Royal Rumble. In any event, this brought out AJ Styles, who was irritated that he had to face such overwhelming odds.

John Cena came out to face off with Styles (who was hugely popular and tried to heel on the fans to quiet them), but he was soon interrupted by The Miz. That led to a back and forth between Miz and Styles, which was good, but Cena's attempts to rile them up were annoying. Still, the work from AJ and Miz was good enough to call this a plus.

The subtle takeaway here was that AJ Styles is mad at Shane McMahon. Since they're rumored to be facing each other at WrestleMania, this was possibly the first salvo in that feud.