4 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (April 18)

2. Charlotte Beats The Champion Clean

Charlotte Naomi

Following a wonderful opening segment that showed Naomi's obvious fire as a babyface and Charlotte's pompous arrogance as a heel, the SmackDown Women's Title picture was sullied somewhat by the fact Flair beat the division's champion clean in the middle of the ring without much fuss.

It's always bizarre when WWE choose to beat champion cleanly right before a major title defence. The idea is that a victorious challenger then looks poised to take the belt, but the overwhelming feeling coming out of this match was that Naomi (who only recaptured the title at WrestleMania) isn't in Charlotte's league.

The better result here would have been writing women like Natalya, Carmella and Tamina to gang up on Flair and cost her the win.

Anything would have been better than Charlotte pinning Naomi after just one Natural Selection, because now the champion looks weak going into next week's title defence. That may well be the point, but it doesn't do much for Naomi at all and leaves her looking like a temporary titleholder who couldn't get the job done.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.