3 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE Smackdown (Nov 22)

A contract in the balance!

James Ellsworth
WWE.com

Coming off the Survivor Series, the blue brand had all the reason in the world to celebrate. Even though the Raw women's team beat the Smackdown women's team and the Raw tag team squad beat Smackdown's equivalent, in the top interpromotional match of the event, the blue brand was victorious. Smackdown's men's team beat Raw's in a nearly hour-long showdown.

With the feud with Raw temporarily off to the side, Smackdown was able to focus on its own matches and programs - chief among them the WWE World Championship feud between AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose. Ambrose had already been announced as challenging Styles for the belt at the TLC PPV (in the titular match, no less), and with two weeks to go until the show, the feud stood to heat up.

Of course, the feuds simmering on the rest of the show also needed resolution - The Miz and Dolph Ziggler have been at each other's throats for months, as have Becky Lynch and Alexa Bliss. How would their battles factor into TLC? And what other matches would be featured at the PPV? This week on Smackdown, we'd find out.

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Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013