4 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE Smackdown (Nov 29)

Downs...

2. The End Of Ellsworth?

The featured segment on the show was an edition of The Ambrose Asylum with special guest James Ellsworth. That amounted to Dean Ambrose joking with (and at the expense of) his little buddy for a couple of minutes before WWE World Champion AJ Styles interrupted.

Needless to say, Styles was annoyed by the whole thing, and was doubly annoyed when Ambrose brought up that Ellsworth had beaten him three times. Styles got in the ring and got face to face with his enemies, and eventually, talking wasn't enough. He pushed Ellsworth into Ambrose and Ambrose hit a ladder. Then, with Ambrose incapacitated, he hit Ellsworth with a chair, then gave him a Styles Clash from the steel steps to the arena floor.

This feud has revolved way too much around James Ellsworth, but at the same time, it's hard to criticize - after all, the Ambrose/Styles program was pretty boring before he was added to the mix. Still, it's hard to tell exactly where things are going - Ellsworth looks out of the PPV, but he's been such a huge part of the build, shouldn't he be there? And, in typical WWE style, will he turn heel and cost Ambrose the match? If so, that speeds up the expiration date on his run.

It's good that there are so many uncertainties heading into the bout, but as a go-home segment, this was still kind of weak. They did a brief backstage pull apart at the end of the show, but that felt like too little, too late.