3 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Jan 24)

In five days, WWE presents the Royal Rumble, and while the Raw brand seems to have more going on at the show (prior to Smackdown, there were five Raw matches on the Rumble undercard/Rumble kickoff as compared to one from Smackdown), this was still technically the go-home show. Smackdown would serve to offer a final sell for the grandest Royal Rumble of all time.

There was good and bad, as usual. The main segments on the show delivered, and the most important conflicts heading into the Rumble are heated - the dissolution of The Wyatt Family, the war of attrition between The Miz and Dean Ambrose, and of course, John Cena's quest to finally beat AJ Styles and capture his 16th world championship. At the same time, though, this show suffered from being packed with filler and having some plain old crap.

Let's hope that once the Royal Rumble is in the rear view mirror and the road to WrestleMania is upon us (not to mention the Elimination Chamber), Smackdown will start firing on all cylinders again - because as it is, January hasn't been a spectacular month.

Here are 3 ups and 5 downs from January 24's Smackdown: