4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE SmackDown (April 21)

4. Don’t Ask, Don’t Get Vibes

Few fans will have any issues with Zelina Vega being booked as a speed bump challenger for Rhea Ripley at Backlash, but...couldn't WWE have scripted in a few matches before handing the LWO member that title shot? Adam Pearce just handed it to her without much question, and that doesn't make sense.

It's hardly like Vega's win-loss record backs up her pitch.

She hasn't won a singles match on TV since scoring a surprise rollup win (over Rhea, funnily enough) on the 13 December 2021 edition of Raw. Yes, she last won a singles match in December 2021! Somehow, in spite of that, Pearce saw fit to give Zelina what she wanted without saying she had to earn it.

That's a bit of a slippery slope creatively, being honest. Sure, title shots do get handed out willy nilly in wrestling sometimes (both WWE and AEW are guilty of this), but challengers have usually done something fairly recently to argue their point.