4 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Feb 20)

2. An Enjoyable Main Event

The second of two singles matches booked in the night's opening segment, AJ Styles vs. Baron Corbin wasn't anything special, but delivered enough plus points to finish on the positive side of the Ups & Downs equation.

AJ was his usual excellent self. He never holds anything back, even against lesser opposition, and always does everything in his power to elevate whoever he's facing. This was the case again last night, as his bumping and selling were almost strong enough to transcend the inevitable tedium of Corbin's heat segments. Almost.

Baron's inability to make his control sections interesting remains a concern. The periods during which he had Styles on the backfoot were the bout's least compelling, but not dull enough to spoil the match completely. 'Big Banter' could really do with adding a few new wrinkles to his offence, though, as there's little variety in his matches at the moment.

Still, it was an effective way to end the show, but probably not the last we'll see of this formula. We'll likely have to sit through many more of these kind of bouts between Fastlane's main event participants over the coming weeks. Fingers crossed for more high-level work from AJ, and fewer Baron Corbin heat segments.