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

Downs...

3. Heels Face Off

As a result of the opening segment, The Miz and AJ Styles were booked in a match against one another by Shane McMahon. That led to the first contest on the show, where John Cena served as guest color commentator.

The match was pretty good, with Miz managing to hang in there with Styles thanks to some dirty tactics and interference from Maryse. Cena on commentary was a mixed bag - when he was putting over Styles and Miz, he was good. When he was promoting Surf's Up 2: WaveMania, his efforts were less appreciated.

Before things could really get going, they went to the finish, which was bad. The match spilled to the outside, where Styles pushed Miz into Cena. Cena caught Miz and threw him into the dasher boards, which caused a DQ. He then chased Styles into the ring, but was ambushed by Miz, who tried to hit a Skull-Crushing Finale. Instead, Cena laid him out with an AA, then avoided a Phenomenal Forearm and hit Styles with an AA of his own.

So yeah, it turns out WWE wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of having two top heels face off.