4 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (Aug 11)

Downs...

4. Going Through The Motions

Charlotte Flair and Asuka were booked in a no-win situation here, ladies and gents.

They were tasked with running through approx 10 minutes of pointless back-and-forth that honestly struggled to get the live crowd invested. That's no surprise. Asuka is ice cold having been booked like a chump as champ then losing her belt, and Charlotte is still doing this weird tweener sh*t that doesn't work.

So, Calgary (a notoriously rowdy bunch) sort of just sat on their hands and waited for something to happen. Eventually, Damage CTRL ran out to cause the predictable non-finish. Look, predictable isn't bad when people can see a story is heading somewhere worthwhile, but that doesn't describe any of this.

IYO vs. Asuka or Flair could work with a decent backdrop, but simply shoving them all out there for the sake of it isn't interesting in the slightest. Christ, SmackDown's women's division should be lively and really, really isn't.

Also...